Vince Russo and his place in wrestling history

[Guest HTQ]

First, this classic statement from ConanRulesNBC on the WC board:

 

TNA does provide an "alternative". You won't be seeing "Rosie" vs. "Donald Trump" in a TNA ring. You won't see Kenny vs. Jeff Hardy wrestle for absolutely no reason. You won't see a horrible worker such as Khali wrestle in the main event against John Cena and last but not least you won't see John Cena in a TNA ring.

 

Everything that happens in TNA has a point to it which is why I think Russo is easily the best writer/booker in the business. There are actual storylines instead of pointless matches that lead nowhere. I'd much rather see a VKM or Kevin Nash segment than Kenny vs. Jeff Hardy or a horrible divas match on Raw.

Then, when Meltzer brings up Gabe Sapolsky's name, Conan replies with:

 

First, I've never even heard of this Gabe Sapolsky. Who is he and what "stars" and "concepts" did he "create", Dave?

 

Second, if you're implying that Gabe created stars and Vince Russo didn't then I guess you don't consider The Rock, Triple H, Billy Gunn, Road Dogg, Kane, and most of the wrestlers from the Attitude Era to be "stars"? Please don't give me that **** that "Vince Russo didn't create them". Russo was the head writer of the shows back then so he pretty much "created" them.

 

Also, what are some "failed concepts" of Russo that he's using right now in TNA? I don't remember seeing Kurt Angle vs. Samoa Joe in the WWE or WCW. I don't remember seeing the PCS skits or the Abyss/Christian/Sting storyline. But I guess you're going to bring up the usual **** about Russo destroying WCW all by himself and blame him for putting the belt on David Arquette.

And then there are these gems from a message board that is on a pro-Vince Russo website:

 

siaki had more than the rock. He already had it when he started. . Rock had to find his groove in 97 for a few months before russo helped him... Too bad Russo never rewally got to push Siaki on a mainstream level

 

Truth is more talented than Austin/Mankind/Rock combined.. He just hasn't been given the right role/storyline to run with it.. He can swear better than Austin, has more charisma than Rock, and can be more entertaining than Mankind. Russo even knows Truth has too much talent..

 

Angle is already a star, but if Russo wrote him, he can be bigger than Austin...

 

TNA has a lot of talent that can be bigger than Mankind. I never really saw Mick as a star.. I saw him get pushed with his Socko role which made people love him> But quite frankly ANYONE can be given a role like Mankind and get over..

 

Russo can make most peopel get over.. he just knows how to write

 

too much mat wrestlign in the second Joe/Angle match, so much that i can even do that match. Just "act" like your leg is hurting when angle puts you in th elock

 

noit very hard

 

I might need to bulk up more to do the angle slam, practice dropkicks, etc..

 

but for the mat wrestling.. I mean I'm a good actor.. I can just pretend i'm hurt,. My fake kicks and punches are very good and believable too... I can stomp and allign it with the punches.. It's up to my opponent to "sell" it..

 

It's the artform. The best fake punchers and considered the best "in ring workers".. They're good fake fighters.. that's all... But it's an artform and I respect that

 

Meltzer/Keller are probably too scared to call wrestlers actors. but that's exactly what they are when they fake getting hurt, fake delivering punches

 

Most of the mat sequences, I can pull it off.. It's just about acting. That's all it is really

 

I think "5 star matches" the internet gives are overrated. Stuf like Slamboree.. That takes talent.. that takes endurance.. Stuff like charisma.. you can't learn that.. You have to develop it over time. and gain experience

 

Wrestling? Not too difficult

 

Russo: It's easier for an actor to learn how to wrestle than a wrestler to learn how to act

 

That's a fact

 

TNA is gonna suck if Russo is gone... that's why i lobbied for him to be brought back. cos quite frankly, i don t think tna has a chance without him.

 

Russo in previous interviews said he knew exactly what was wrong with tna and what is needed for reatings to grow

 

he also gave tna 5/10 when someone asked him. 5 for good in ring work (imo, if you can't book exciting matches, it doesn't matter how good your in ring work is). he said they got 0 for the other half: entertainment..

 

but yeah... im sick of promotions screwing him over.. if wcw didn't screw him over, wcw would be on top today..

 

TNA needs russo for the long term.. and i'm happy russo chose to come back

 

 

my email to russo i was just thinking about vkm and came up with this idea. completely up to u if u wish to use it or not but i know the importance of creating a buzz in the wrestling world. i was watching your ultimate insider dvd interview last night and i couldnt help but agree with everything you stated about competition in wrestling. you said that the number 2 company has to make as much noise as possible to get the number 1 company to acknowledge them in some form. i think you are doing a great job of it so far especially with the skits you and the boys have created already. a lot of these idiotic "smarks" on the net are shitting all over vkm however i know all the casual fans that watch TNA are absolutely enticed by the concept of another wrestling war. I had this idea about prank phone calls to vince mcmahon, hhh and hbk on their cell phones and putting it on loud speaker. I think it would be a hilarious idea and you could get other members of the TNA roster to participate like sonjay dutt who could put on a funny indian accent or whatever.

 

Another idea i had was adding members to vkm. you could put matt bentley in there and have him be the "fart break kid". put him in a squash match against the fat oily guy and have him win not by sweet chin music but by breaking wind in his face. another member you could add is screamin norman smiley where u could put a fake big nose on his face and call him the "hot hardcore hustla". i dunno but i think it would make for some very entertaining tv.

 

u could even make fun of that pathetic project known as ecw that vince mcmahon tried to revive. now that paul heyman is gone from creative its obvious that they are on the way down so maybe you could add some parody of how all these non hardcore wrestlers r trying to make a name in this fake ecw.

 

It's insane.. The crowd started popping when BG started saying "pus$ies" and "sh*t".. Do you think wrestling needs more swearing? I mean Stone Cold Steve Austin got over huge with his swearing.

 

The crowd was pretty silent during the VKM segment, and during BG's promo.. but they started popping when they really shot on WWE, with the language.. I think the "shock value" of the language needs to be brought back. .. it works for the viewres and as someone stated on another thread, people need to talk like real people.

Some of this stuff really makes you wonder about people.

[Loss]

I think "5 star matches" the internet gives are overrated. Stuf like Slamboree.. That takes talent..

What?

[Guest HTQ]

I think "5 star matches" the internet gives are overrated. Stuf like Slamboree.. That takes talent..

What?

 

I think he might mean the Page-Jarrett-Arquette match.

[jdw]

Please don't tempt me to read that thread over on Classics. I've been avoiding it.

 

 

John

[The Thread Killer]

That person would either have to be:

 

1) A troll, deliberately trying to get a reaction

 

2) An idiot

 

3) Dave O'Neill

[Loss]

I figure this can be the all-purpose thread and it's a good way to get this folder going. Here's some stuff I wrote a while back, slightly edited and updated.

 

What's your take on Vince Russo's booking? I personally think it's been almost entirely shit and has done a lot of irreparable long-term damage to pro wrestling.

 

Russo Argument #1: "He helped the WWF beat WCW and they had their most success ever under him."

I would disagree. While he was one of many contributing voices at the time, he was fortunate enough to be writing in a time when both Steve Austin and The Rock became red-hot stars, and they were destined for superstardom with or without Vince Russo's booking. Wrestling is a character-driven business. WCW's ratings and downfall had little to do with the resurgence of the WWF. While the fad audience the NWO drew did find a new toy in the Attitude era, WCW was still competitive for most of 1998 before shooting themselves in the foot with countless bad booking decisions in 1999. Russo was a guy who was in the right place at the right time. Also, comparing the WWF in 1998-1999 to WCW in 1999-2000 shows that there were more factors at work in the WWF's success than Vince Russo. The fact that they were able to stay successful for another two years after he left shows that they were capable of succeeding without him.

 

Russo Argument #2: "He finds something for everyone on the show to do."

This is one of the strongest pro-Russo arguments, that he gives angles to people in the midcard. I don't know that "finding something" for everyone equates to "finding something good" for everyone. Russo is known to do so many turns and swerves and big angles within a typical two-hour show (or one-hour show for TNA) that it's hard to remember everything at the end. He also doesn't seem to think wins and losses matter all that much, an attitude that has carried over to today's fanbase and made it very hard by extension for WWE to push new guys on top. He created a major "top this" mentality that had him constantly trying to put out a new segment more creative than his last segment, and as a result, you'd see someone like Rick Steiner turn 2-3 times in one PPV, as he did in 2000. He also didn't really play to the strengths of the wrestlers he was trying to push. Chris Benoit in late 1999 is the best example of this, because Benoit was a serious wrestler and he's pushing him amongst top guys in a setting that makes Benoit look like a fish out of water. He wasn't able to adapt to his talent, but rather he expected his talent to adapt to him. There's also the countless forgettable angles and logical plot holes that accompanied all of his busy-body midcard angles. Remember Beaver Cleavage "breaking character" in the middle of RAW? Or Hawk attempting to commit suicide by jumping off of the Titantron?

 

Russo Argument #3: "He wasn't given a fair chance in WCW."

Russo was given free reign in October of 1999, but complained that Standards & Practices were killing him because they wouldn't let Roddy Piper make jokes about overweight women. It's not like those jokes were going to affect the ratings anyway, but whatever. They were squarely in his corner and truly believed he had the goods to turn WCW around until they started noticing more and more problems in his booking. He was booking to settle vendettas as much as anything. He did countless segments bashing Austin for refusing to work a program with Jeff Jarrett. He debuted the Oklahoma character, which made fun of Jim Ross's Bells Palsy condition. He had Kevin Nash dress up like Vince McMahon in the worst parody of all time. He was settling scores. The buyrate came in for Starrcade '99, and it was the lowest of the year, and that's when Bill Busch knew he had to take action. Granted, he replaced Russo with an even worse group of has-been bookers who didn't have the right view, either, but it was obvious at this point Russo wasn't the guy. Problems started again the second time around when he put the World title on both David Arquette and himself, and again used on-air time to air his grievances against Hulk Hogan. The ratings still weren't improving, the buyrates still weren't improving and the product was abysmal.

 

Russo Argument #4: "The average fan doesn't want to sit through a match longer than three minutes."

The beautiful thing about pro wrestling is that the promoters and bookers can create their own average fan. Russo was notorious for pandering to the lowest common denominator, getting people to watch wrestling as a Springer-esque freak show. The whole idea behind Crash TV was that the show would be so bad that you couldn't turn away because there was a perverse pleasure in watching it. That's a bit of hard pill to swallow on someone who grew up on Memphis and NWA, where they were unbelievably proud of presenting a wrestling show and had no shame. Part of that was admittedly company mentality, as WWE has always been embarrassed by what it is, but Russo embellished the point of view far more than anyone else ever has. It's a total self-fulfilling prophecy. When you book a wrestling show that encourages intensity, athleticism, storyline continuity and payoffs, those are the sorts of things the audience is going to like, because that's the sort of audience you're going to draw. Now is a good time to mention that a researcher did a survey of the wrestling audience for WCW in 1999 of a huge cross-section of fans asking what they wanted from the product. The most popular answers were that they wanted less skits, less NWO, more wrestling and storylines that made sense. Russo went in the exact opposite direction, giving them more skits, more NWO, less wrestling and illogical storylines. The average WWF fan and average WCW fan were in some ways two different beasts, as previous surveys of WCW's audience had also indicated that they were mostly devoted sports fans. Russo tried to beat McMahon at his own game -- sports entertainment -- and Vince McMahon can NOT be outdone there.

 

Russo Argument #5: "He gave women a fair share in a male-dominated industry."

Sable was indeed a bigger ratings draw than Steve Austin in the first half of 1999, but Russo has often tricked himself into thinking that he used women as anything but eye candy. Hell, WWE doesn't have the most sterling reputation in terms of treating women with respect, but they have at least tried to make people like Stephanie McMahon and Trish Stratus actual wrestling characters who happen to be women. Even Sable was never really a character, and she was easily the most successful woman during his tenure. Women have truly never gotten their fair share in a male-dominated industry, and I won't argue that point, but I will argue that they fared any better under Russo than anyone else.

 

Did I miss anything here? I realize some of these things have been said so many time by so many people that they're pretty cliche at this point, but that doesn't make the statements any less true.

[Guest HTQ]

Russo was part of a money making machine, but somewhere along the way he's been able to bullshit people into think he was the whole machine. Russo was only ever good when he had someone standing over his shoulder to take his ideas, throw away the million terribles ones, and keep the one good one before editing it into something that could be used. Russo is terrible on his own, and he's shown the two biggest flaws a booker can have. One, he's never moved on. In Russo's mind, it's always going to be 1998. He keeps trying and trying and trying to recreate what worked in 1998, but he doesn't seem able to accept that it's not 1998. Time has moved on, but Russo hasn't and he never will. Russo's second big flaw is that he flat out refuses to accept his mistakes. I don't think he's ever admitted the Arquette deal was a mistake, and I don't think he's ever really accepted that he fucked things up in WCW. Not only that, but in his current run in TNA he's being told all the time that he's writing far too much, so what does he do? HE KEEPS WRITING TOO MUCH SHIT.

 

Bottom line is Russo was really hot ONCE, but he cannot recapture that, and his obvious limitations and flaws mean he'll never be that hot again.

[goodhelmet]

I would argue, Dave, that those are all one in the same.

[Guest HTQ]

If the Conan guy is a troll, he's dedicate to his act because he writes a lot of detailed posts that talk about Russo like he's the best booker of the modern era.

[jdw]

Russo essentially sucks. He tends to take credit for everything good that happens while he's employed by a company whether he's responsible or not. He's able to distort things into positives, and wash away the negatives by blaming others or saying it's not his fault. He generally doesn't have any idea of why things worked in his time with the WWF, and as everyone points out has failed in trying to recreate them ever since.

 

He's really quite delusional.

 

 

John

[Guest HTQ]

And wouldn't you know it, a pro-Russo thread shows up at TSM.

 

Talking about Russo makes me want to smack him in the face.

[World's Worst Man]

Head exploded, dr.

[jdw]

If the Conan guy is a troll, he's dedicate to his act because he writes a lot of detailed posts that talk about Russo like he's the best booker of the modern era.

http://wrestlingclassics.com/cgi-bin/.ubbc...ic;f=1;t=063660

 

http://wrestlingclassics.com/cgi-bin/.ubbc...ic;f=1;t=070529

 

These are especially funny since they're about the same TV show:

 

http://wrestlingclassics.com/.ubb/ultimate...ic;f=1;t=067301

 

http://wrestlingclassics.com/.ubb/ultimate...ic;f=1;t=069347

 

Posted 3 months apart.

 

He likes Russo. One could explore more of his thread to see if he's a troll. There are elements that read troll, such as the last two posts seeming to troll a board that doesn't like Russo.

 

But he also simply could be a nutter Russo Fan. We saw plenty of those in the WCW Days, and shortly after them. The guy who runs the website that caught RF happened to be a massive Russo fanboy, including being invovled in running Russo's website.

 

 

John

[jdw]

For the most part it isn't worth arguing about Russo. Just say he's an idiot and move on. It's an old discussion that was played out back when he was still in WCW. It's about as played out as Bret-Vince-Montreal and 06/03/94 Misawa-Kawada. It's best just to stick with the cliches:

 

Russo? He's an delusional idiot who sucks and thinks too highly of himself.

And:

 

Montreal? Of course Bret was right.

And:

 

06/03/94 Misawa-Kawada? El Super Classico!

Then when someone tries to argue with you, or even might agree with you but you're tired of talking about it, go with:

 

It's an old played out discussion. I'm sure you can search the net and find a thousand entries on it.

 

 

John

[goodhelmet]

From Perverted Justice?

[Loss]

The match happened in '93 now?

 

[jdw]

From Perverted Justice?

 

Yeah. Xavier Von Russo Fan:

 

Why I (and you should) miss Vince by Xavier Von Erck

 

John

[jdw]

Google: AngryGerman.com + Russo

 

Go with the Cache copies.

 

 

John

[jdw]

Fixed. Had 1993 on the brain for some reason.

 

 

John

[goodhelmet]

I disagree, John. I think it is good to bring back the classics occasionally to refresh people's memories and to see if people changed their minds over the years. For instance, when I first hit the net, I would probably say that Owen-Bret from WM X was in my top 2 matches of all-time. Now, it wouldn't hit my top 500. Sometimes you need to re-examine what you like and dislike about wrestling even if it means revisiting a topic that has been beat in the ground, esp. if it has modern day implications.

[Loss]

Man, I want to see your 500 Matches Better Than Bret v Owen at WM X. I'm not saying you can't come up with it, but I know I couldn't. I might troll you and start a "Goodhelmet's 500 Matches Better Than Bret Hart v Owen Hart at Wrestlemania X" thread and make you list them all.

 

It's not the greatest match I've ever seen, but it would probably still be in my top 200 or 300.

[Guest HTQ]

Would it be out of line to suggest Russo's place is in the dumpster with the rest of the garbage?

[jdw]

I disagree, John. I think it is good to bring back the classics occasionally to refresh people's memories and to see if people changed their minds over the years. For instance, when I first hit the net, I would probably say that Owen-Bret from WM X was in my top 2 matches of all-time. Now, it wouldn't hit my top 500. Sometimes you need to re-examine what you like and dislike about wrestling even if it means revisiting a topic that has been beat in the ground, esp. if it has modern day implications.

The post is generally a joke.

 

I can revisit the 06/03/94 match, or the 12/06/96 one. I do every year or so, and give it some thought.

 

I'm just not likely to get into any of the in depth discussions about the match that I may have in the past. I've probably said everything I can say about them. Hell, what I've said about the matches has bred, mutated and even morphed around the net.

 

If I were to do something on All Japan in the 90s like I'm doing on the WWF, my comment would be something like:

 

06/03/94 Misawa vs. Kawada - yep, it's still good

 

 

John

[jdw]

Would it be out of line to suggest Russo's place is in the dumpster with the rest of the garbage?

 

That's a good place for him now.

 

 

John

[jdw]

Oh... and I tended to like Bret-Owen the last time I watched it. That has been a while... perhaps six or so years. My taste my have changed since then, but I suspect it might only slip like Savage vs. Steamboat did in my eyes.

 

And damn... I need to get the 1987 match from Toronto between the two.

 

 

John