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Vince Russo's Unsolved Mysteries


JaymeFuture

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I thought the tequila bottle over the head of Jushin "Thunder" Liger was one of the worst in-ring angles I've seen in 30 years of watching wrestling.

It was racist and lame, but "worst in-ring angle in 30 years of wrestling" bad? Guys have been using dumb stereotypical gimmicks as weapons forever; hell, right up to the modern era, with Finlay's oh-so-Irish shillelagh. The problem with that one was that Russo was completely ignorant about puroresu and WCW's relationship with NJPW, which was not remotely happy about their guy jobbing in that fashion.

 

Well, that clearly explains everything.

They also never really explained why Kanyon turned on DDP around the same time, or why Kimberly turned on DDP around the same time. Literally three PPVs in a row all ended with someone turning on Page to cost him the match. (And in typical Russo fashion, they always waited until the very end of the match to do so, somehow magically predicting that none of the previous near-falls would be the finish.)

 

And really, most of the turns Russo ever booked tended to be under-explained. It usually boiled down to some guy saying "Former Best Friend was totally holding me back! I didn't need him, I was doing all the work but he was taking all the credit!" and this exact same thing got said again and again and again in mind-numbingly repetitive fashion.

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Wouldn't a turn by it's very nature always be at the very end of the match? It'd be counter productive if it happened in the first 30 seconds so the turner would make sure they managed to get their turn in and fucked off then the turnee won later on. Unless it's in a tag match then I've no problem with the turning bloke fucking off halfway through to leave a 2 on 1 for the turned on to valiantly fail against.

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No, the way Russo tends to book it is just awful. His turn-ers will absolutely ignore every single near-fall in the match, all those moments where (in kayfabe) the person they're turning on could've already won. They'll watch an entire half-hour-long match, ignore finishers and weapons shots and all kinds of opportunities for the match to be over, because apparently they've got psychic powers of precognition and just know that the other guy is going to be kicking out. And then, only at the very end when the match could've already ended a dozen times, THEN they'll turn on whomever. It's intelligence-insulting and business-exposing, when the guy who's turning is practically telling us "it's okay, I listened to them call the match and I know they're not going home until the third Rock Bottom!" when they're not running in for the turn for either of the first two finishers.

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I don't remember GTV being Just Joe or Mean Gene. The actor Tom Green (remember him?) was another rumor, but that never happened. It was originally supposed to be for Goldust, and I can swear I remember it being called GDTV for the first week or two - or am I crazy? I think they did pay this off somehow, but for the life of me, I can't remember who was credited/blamed for being behind GTV. Did Chaz's woman have a G-name? It might've been her.

It was definitely GDTV the first two or three weeks. And they've acknowledged that Tom Green was a plan for it on some of their talking head shows before, I think it was even Russo that mentioned it. But I still bet even that came after Goldust left, it's just been so long they don't remember how it actually started anymore.

 

Chaz's "mother"/girlfriend was Marianna.

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Russo had a pathological hate for in ring work and possibly wrestling in general

Given his way 100% Pro Wrestling would have become a 3 hr weekly reality show, soft porn, Grand theft auto sitcom

Jeff Jarrett would have been a 30 time world Champion, there would have been an actual live birth, a crucifixation match and a Battle royal that took place in a minefield

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Russo had a pathological hate for in ring work and possibly wrestling in general

Given his way 100% Pro Wrestling would have become a 3 hr weekly reality show, soft porn, Grand theft auto sitcom

Jeff Jarrett would have been a 30 time world Champion, there would have been an actual live birth, a crucifixation match and a Battle royal that took place in a minefield

 

Frankly I'd watch all of this except the Jarrett portion

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Russo had a pathological hate for in ring work and possibly wrestling in general

Given his way 100% Pro Wrestling would have become a 3 hr weekly reality show, soft porn, Grand theft auto sitcom

Jeff Jarrett would have been a 30 time world Champion, there would have been an actual live birth, a crucifixation match and a Battle royal that took place in a minefield

 

Frankly I'd watch all of this except the Jarrett portion

 

 

None of this would be allowed to happen unless Jarrett gets to smash someone over the head with a guitar.

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Don't forget his deep, near pathological hate of women. That was the giveaway he was back in TNA when the women suddenly started hating each other and calling everyone bitches.

 

The biggest unsolved mystery is who was the girl who broke his heart in high school and caused all this to happen.

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All of them, bro. All of them.

 

re: reverse battle royal

I'm definitely in the minority here, but this was far from the worst gimmick match they've done. Electrified Cage, anyone? At least the reverse battle royal could have made sense with less people involved.

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heres a list of Russo angles

ooking Tank Abbot to be the baddest man on the planet
Booking himself to win the WCW title
Booking Jushin Liger to loose his IWGP title on Nitro to Juventud Guerra
Booking David Arquette to win the WCW title
Booking the No Limit Soldiers to be faces only for the crowd to boo Master P's group and cheer their rivals who were suppose to be heels, West Texas Rednecks
Booking a (Legit) injured Bret Hart in a hardcore match with Terry Funk (This is right after Bret was kicked in the head by Goldberg)
Booking Jeff Jarrett as the top guy for his company (No matter how many times he swung his guitar, he never was a main eventer, at least not then)
Portraying Latino wrestlers in a negative light "Pinata on a Pole" match
Having a MMA style match with AJ Styles and Frank Trigg, only for it to end in DQ
The Last Rites Match between Sting and Abyss (Special Appearance: Paper Mache Tombstone)
Electrified Cage Match between Team 3D and LAX (Only no electrified steel, to mimick electrocution, the lights in the arena flicker on and off)
The Bash at the Beach Infamous Shoot Promo
All the many of many worked shoots (Goldberg walking out on a match, Hogan laying down for Sting at Halloween Havoc, etc.)
Sports Entertainment Xtreme (Team SEX huh? good one Russo)
The Pope Mobile
Hugh Morris Father Angle
Terri Runnels having a fake miscariage
Having Road Warrior Hawk fall off the titan tron
The Incest Overtones in some angles (Steph and Vince, Ken and Ryan Shamrock ...etc.)
The Brawl for All tournament that ended up ruining the career of Dr. Death in WWF
Val Venis being castrated live on TV
Val Venis simulating male enjaculating with a supersoaker
The Racial Gang Warfare in WWF (The DOA being the Hells Angels, The Los Buricas being like Latin Crime Kingpins)
Every "On A Pole" Match
Oklahoma
Kaz Hayashi and La Parka having English dubbing during their promos (Yet the english dubbing is not what Kaz and Parka are saying in their native language)
Re-Creating the Montreal Screw-Job angle (TNA and WCW)

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FWIW: It was called "GDTV" initially. This is seared into my brain because my then-nine-year old brother thought it was called "GOTV" since the first vignette he saw was Val Venis and Big Show taking a piss.

 

On an episode of Heat they wrote it out with Thrasher revealing it during his feud with Chaz Warrington. It did appear from time-to-time after that in the WWF in 2000 when they needed it to.

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I want to thank everybody for the contributions, we got to read many of them on the show, which is now available at the following link:

http://squaredcirclegazette.podbean.com/mf/play/nshr5z/SCGRadio65-VinceRussosUnsolvedMysteries.mp3

Join us as we delve into the mind of Vince Russo, and look at the Unsolved Mysteries surrounding his booking tenures in the WWF, WCW and TNA. Tackling plotholes, illogical angles, contradictions and more, the panel takes your feedback on the questions that were never answered. Who was behind GTV? Who raised the briefcase at King Of The Ring 99? Who kidnapped Samoa Joe? How did Vince being the Higher Power make any sense? A fun show looking at countless other isolated forgotten moments brought to your screens by Vinnie Ru, check it out and let us know what you think!

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