Vince Russo

[flyonthewall2983]

One could put the blame on Arezzi. I could easily since I loathe talk radio blowhards.

[Bix]

One could put the blame on Arezzi. I could easily since I loathe talk radio blowhards.

Arezzi had an excellent show. He developed into a carny (well, he may have always been one, as he finagled his way into working a WWWF taping against Dusty years earlier with no training) but his radio show was great and he put together some fantastic fan conventions and not at the ridiculous prices that are charged now.

[kjh]

 

.30 seconds in says it all on Russo's philosophy

"When you are talking about money, you are talking about old school. I was hired to bring ratings."

 

What an idiot.

 

I watched that clip, and I am not even sure what it means. He's saying being concerned about drawing money is old school?

 

In the sense of this argument, Ratings=Money. So it's the same thing. . .

I think that clip says more about the stupidity of the likes of Brad Siegel and the other Turner execs that brought him in than Russo's stupidity. Where Russo's stupidity came in that he didn't bring ratings while at the same time killing their PPV business.

 

Really Russo's great at his job, which is self preservation in a backstabbing business. I can't see Russo ever losing his TNA writing job at this point unless he does something really stupid which forces Dixie's hand. He's the Rasputin of the wrestling business to Dixie's Tsarina Alandra - an unfairly persecuted "holy man" who can do no wrong.

[flyonthewall2983]

One thing I will give him the benefit of the doubt for is how he left WWE, and how he said back then there was no such thing as 2 weeks notice. It's not the most moral thing he could have done, but he certainly wasn't the first guy to leave without a trace.

[Loss]

He also left while Vince was in England.

[Bob Morris]

Vince Russo can be summed up thusly:

 

1. He's someone who can come up with a good idea once in a while but is the wrong guy to be executing it. When his ideas worked in WWF, it was Pat Patterson implementing the ideas to make a match work or somebody else on the booking team who honed it in a better direction. I believe, when Russo first came on the booking committee, Jim Cornette may have been one of those people who got Russo's ideas pointed in the proper direction. Maybe Jim Ross had some influence as well.

 

Which is why I call bullshit on "Vince McMahon was the filter" when it came to Russo. McMahon was as much of a mark for "it's just entertainment" as Russo was. All one has to do is look at the 1999 shows and how most of the material was pretty bad... and I seriously doubt McMahon was taking on a reduced role, but I do know Cornette was off the committee and Patterson was losing his influence.

 

The end result was we got stuff such as the 1999 Royal Rumble match, which remains the worst Rumble match of all time.

 

2. The worst thing about Russo in WCW was he was like a kid let loose in a candy store and told he can have whatever he wants. There were a lot of guys on the WCW roster at that point and the worst thing you can do is let a guy who thinks "everyone needs a storyline" having at it with that roster. He had no focus as to what was really the best for everyone involved and it wasn't helped by the fact WCW's structure was so flimsy at that point. So the end result is him tossing out so much stuff that nobody can keep track of things and nobody can really get over. The only things that stood out were his most offensive ideas.

 

3. He's still, to this day, trying to capture lightning in a bottle with regards to Steve Austin vs. Vince McMahon. I can remember a worthy quote from CRZ during the day Russo was booking WCW: "You can't recreate Wrestling with Shadows. Stop trying." Yet everything he wants to book pretty much boils down to somebody screwing around with somebody behind the scenes, whether it's an authority figure vs. a wrestler, a top guy vs. a midcard guy, or anything else along those lines. And that ties into his belief that "worked shoots" are the way to go.

 

4. To top it all off, he's one of those people who still thinks what worked in the late 1990s can work today. But as is often said, pro wrestling evolves over time and going on a nostalgia trip, whether through who is pushed as a top guy or how the product is presented, doesn't last long. Even if with a proper filter, the fact he still wants to engage in a 1990s approach to the product presentation would keep him from drawing fans to the product. People are fine with reliving the past through DVD releases, but when they sit down to watch current product, they want something that looks different, not what they've seen before.

[smkelly]

People are fine with reliving the past through DVD releases, but when they sit down to watch current product, they want something that looks different, not what they've seen before.

While that is certainly true to non-casual fans, since the wrestling community recycles itself, wrestling promoters are allowed to be lackadaisical in their efforts. Not an excuse to do so, but a reason why they do so. Plus, there is only so much that can be unique in wrestling without being so dangerous, risque, or offensive that it turns people off.

[S.L.L.]

He has done more damage to pro wrestling than anyone else has (although Bischoff isn't THAT far behind), and it's unbelievable that the wrestling business still finds a place for him to be employed.

Not to deflect too much (well-deserved) blame from those goons, but I think there's a very strong argument for Jack Pfeffer as the guy who did more damage to wrestling than anyone else. If nothing else, "don't you know it's fake?" being treated as a legitimate knock against wrestling by otherwise intelligent people is directly attributable to him.

[jdw]

Sometimes it seems like Russo's biggest problem is that he's convinced himself he's the smartest guy in the room, and neither WCW or TNA had anyone around to tell him otherwise.

Yep.

 

John

[jdw]

Not to deflect too much (well-deserved) blame from those goons, but I think there's a very strong argument for Jack Pfeffer as the guy who did more damage to wrestling than anyone else. If nothing else, "don't you know it's fake?" being treated as a legitimate knock against wrestling by otherwise intelligent people is directly attributable to him.

The "fake" comments were around long before Pfeffer.

 

John

[Matt D]

By this point I am willing to hear any argument in the world, but I think positive things about Russo is where I draw my line.

[S.L.L.]

Not to deflect too much (well-deserved) blame from those goons, but I think there's a very strong argument for Jack Pfeffer as the guy who did more damage to wrestling than anyone else. If nothing else, "don't you know it's fake?" being treated as a legitimate knock against wrestling by otherwise intelligent people is directly attributable to him.

The "fake" comments were around long before Pfeffer.

 

John

 

Derogatorily? Aside from the gambling stuff in the real early days? My understanding was that it was always known, but not something used to actively shame people with until Pfeffer in the wake of Shikat shooting on O'Mahoney. And that was just the part of the fallout from that that we seem to feel most directly. A lot of problems in wrestling to this day feel like things where you can draw the chain of events back to Shikat/O'Mahoney.

[tomk]

It could be argued that Pfeffer still figured out how to continuosly draw money from the 40s-60s even after that. And I think he's responsible for the Fargos act. So that clears him of everything.

[jdw]

Derogatorily? Aside from the gambling stuff in the real early days? My understanding was that it was always known, but not something used to actively shame people with until Pfeffer in the wake of Shikat shooting on O'Mahoney. And that was just the part of the fallout from that that we seem to feel most directly. A lot of problems in wrestling to this day feel like things where you can draw the chain of events back to Shikat/O'Mahoney.

Derogatorily before? Yes. They were busting on wrestling in the 20s in the papers. Columnist were riffing on the Hippodrome of pro wrestling, and the workers being Pachyderm. There were tons of wink & nudges about it being fake in that era, along with outright calling it fake. I've seen fake comments back to the 1890s, and I suspect Yohe has come across ones even earlier than that which I'm forgetting about. It's not just the gambling aspect, but out and out comments of it being fake.

 

There a reason wrestling matches became called "exhibitions" in the 20s (and even earlier): it's because everyone but the fans knew it was fake.

 

Shikat/O'Mahoney wasn't all the much of a turning point to anyone paying attention. Savoldi screwed over Londos earlier in the decade. Lewis/DeGlane. Lewis/Munn/Stanislaus.

 

What happened after all if them is what happened all the way up until wrestling openly announced it was fake: fans that wanted to pretend it was real kept prentending it was real, but the people too dumb to know better thought so as well. Pfeffer and Shikat/O'Mahoney had no long term impact on it. Out here in Los Angeles, Pfeffer had no impact. That would be the case in a lot of places, as Pfeffer was just one man working in certain places to be a pain in the ass.

 

Guys like Superstar Graham, Hogan and the Road Warriors did more harm to wrestling than Pfeffer through the growth of juice in the business. Not that it eventually wouldn't have happened, but there are always the people who have the highest level of impact in smething. I'm not sure that Pfeffer's acts ended up with a fair number of folks dropping dead. Riods... can't say the same for their negative impact on the business.

 

John

[Bob Morris]

Something else to add regarding Russo was he one of several folks in pro wrestling who had no problem embracing the more hardcore style of wrestling that has led to more serious injuries... namely the unprotected chair shots to the head that have resulted in more concussions.

 

He's not the only one guilty of that, but he certainly contributed to that issue.

[artDDP]

I remember in 1995 Russo ran an angle in the WWF Magazine where he got upset at being censored (or something like that) so he "quit" and started publishing his own WWF dirtsheet, published by the WWF of course. I got a free trial subscription and it was mainly stuff like transcripts of McMahon chats on AOL and results of TV tapings before they aired but when you were twelve it was earth-shaking reading material.

[Loss]

I remember in 1995 Russo ran an angle in the WWF Magazine where he got upset at being censored (or something like that) so he "quit" and started publishing his own WWF dirtsheet, published by the WWF of course. I got a free trial subscription and it was mainly stuff like transcripts of McMahon chats on AOL and results of TV tapings before they aired but when you were twelve it was earth-shaking reading material.

This blows my mind. I have zero recollection of this. Did this lead to RAW magazine?

[Loss]

To make this thread about something more fun than Russo:

 

I used to get annoyed that the magazines existed in their own little universe. Aside from the Flair/Savage WM build in '92, I can't really recall many times when they actually used the magazine in a storyline. Debuting a manager by having him be a snarky columnist seems like it would have been a natural angle, and possibly also increased magazine sales.

 

The magazines captured the storylines, but I always wished the storylines also reflected the magazines.

[artDDP]

To make this thread about something more fun than Russo:

 

I used to get annoyed that the magazines existed in their own little universe. Aside from the Flair/Savage WM build in '92, I can't really recall many times when they actually used the magazine in a storyline. Debuting a manager by having him be a snarky columnist seems like it would have been a natural angle, and possibly also increased magazine sales.

 

The magazines captured the storylines, but I always wished the storylines also reflected the magazines.

I'm with you on this, Loss. I used to read them as a youngster and wonder why they never got played up more on TV. In the 80s and 90s they were pushing them as the "only official source with access to WWF superstars!" but they seemed to do little more than provide recaps of the big angles and give you pictures to cut out to make your signs.

 

Also, wasn't there a time when Vince wouldn't allow the Apter mags press credentials? I remember the WWF Magazine pushing really hard that the other magazines weren't allowed access to the wrestlers and for a long time the photography of WWF cards in the magazines always seemed to be from several rows away from the ring. Keep in mind I know those magazines were completely worked, yet I remember back then they never directly quoted a WWF talent. It was always, "A source close to Savage says..." or something like that.

[Bob Morris]

What artDDP refers to is the Vic Venom persona Russo used in the magazines... I remember it originally started as your typical heel columnist, but that then soon became his alter ego during the WWF online chats and in the magazines themselves.

 

I do think the first couple of years of Russo doing the magazine had some interesting ideas... a couple early features they did were about Randy Savage's days playing minor league baseball and some other "behind the scenes" stuff that didn't give away storylines or break too much kayfabe.

 

Of course, you got the usual amount of goofy stuff, but that really wasn't much different with some of the goofy stuff that would appear in the magazine before Russo came on board.

[Strummer]

the last time I recall WWE magazine being used in an angle was a deal with Eric Bischoff and Lita. Lita had done an interview saying she preferred SD to RAW and Bischoff started heeling her. I think it also involved him "forcing" her to do Playboy after she said she never would pose in the interview. This was sometime in summer/fall 2002

 

edit: actually it was the April 21, 2003 edition of RAW

 

http://www.onlineworldofwrestling.com/resu...raw/030421.html

[EricR]

I always wished they carried over the D'Lo Brown column "He's So European" onto TV. Those were hilarious. Just him, wearing his European title and a beret, saying goofy fanfic things like, "As I was sitting in the French bistro, looking out over the city..." could've gotten over.

 

And Stevie Richards column in WCW magazine was the greatest. Although I think it only ran for two issues. In one of them he called Glacier's finisher the Icicle Kick. Awesome.

[artDDP]

What artDDP refers to is the Vic Venom persona Russo used in the magazines... I remember it originally started as your typical heel columnist, but that then soon became his alter ego during the WWF online chats and in the magazines themselves.

Right. I think it was around the summer of 1995 when Venom "quit" WWF Magazine and began publishing The Bite, which arrived looking almost exactly like the Torch did back then. Nothing really notable that I remember; the front-page story was written like it was from the Torch or Observer but it really just furthered an ongoing storyline. It was mainly wrap-ups of TV tapings and "backstage news" that just furthered storylines. I figure it did probably wind up becoming the Raw Magazine.

[Victator]

I just found my old Raw magazines and he puts his name on every issue. Creating stories about himself.

[Coffey]

Bringing this topic back because of Russo's recent departure from TNA wrestling (On February 14, 2012).

 

Also, because of this

 

And his Facebook picture:

 

 

...and his upcoming "You Shoot" on June 1st: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=playe...p;v=J6BCVFBSLCA