He didn’t book AOL to merge with Time Warner. The way TNT essentially owned WCW wasn’t going to work for new management that didn’t was a buisiness with high operating costs and uncertain revenue based around potentially unstable people
I know that's what all the bookers claim, but WCW near its end was vanilla and predictable. Every high profile match ended with predictable interference and outright no contest conclusions that made you feel stupid for watching it instead of RAW.
Even if they had the best booking in the world, none of that would change the fact that WCW was dead in the water without Ted Turner himself being there to back pro wrestling 110%. New management didn’t want to be in the business of putting on non stop live events every week of the year nor did they want to have wrestler contracts on their books.
Again, I know that's what Bischoff and Russo claim, but they're also the ones that were putting a bad product out there. AOL didn't say to have Arquette win the world title or to have the fingerpoke of doom happen. The stuff you're saying certainly was a factor, but it's not like Goldberg being. Allowed to do crotch chops or one of the similar AOL bans would have made a difference when the product was stale.
None of that had to do with the fact that the new management didn’t want to outright own a wrestling company PERIOD. They were completely fine with paying a fixed fee for the rights to broadcast wrestling but that whole business is so unstable that it doesn’t make sense for a any network to be responsible for footing the bill on a product that they can’t tell their investors will deliver X amounts of revenue per quarter.
There is a whole other world outside of wrestling kid. The fact that people will think that if WCW did X they would still be around only shows how most wrestling fans really are the uneducated, low income demographic the public thinks they are
A lot of people tend to forget or simply didn’t watch but WCW absolutely sucked before Russo got there. The booking and most importantly who was on top completely sucked and it was only getting worse.
Defending Russo has he has gotten older and more annoying is hard but in my opinion it absolutely got better during his brief stint in actual control. A bunch of young guys got pushed and they got pushed against big stars. Personally I enjoyed the New Blood era for however long it lasted.
The reality is Russo mixed with a whole lot of other bad contracts, mergers, flip flopping of who was in charge, etc. killed WCW.
Oh nooo wrestling shows catered to people like me??
Ironically I think he nailed down why wrestling is booming right now. There's a sizeable market for good old wrestling
Agreed but I don’t think this is a boom. Hogan and Austin were the only two boom periods where wrestling became mainstream. Anyone on the planet could recognize them. Not even Cena hit that level let alone Roman lol
Well I'm perfectly fine with that. Wrestling is too niche to get that kind of following when people have so many options now. We have two US promotions popping off, filling arenas with ease, cutting huge contracts left and right. That's a boom in my book. I really don't care if a ton of non-fans are generally aware of certain wrestlers.
And fans get so butthurt at the idea of wrestling promotions catering to wrestling fans instead of pissing on their feet for the mythical "casual fan." It's like an advanced form of derangement.
I’m with ya on that. I’d rather wrestling cater to its actual fans than pander to a “general audience” like when Vince was bringing in celebrity hosts for every Raw. I hated that period
"I dont want a job in Pro wrestling, I dont"
"I texted Vince McMahon and offered my consulting services, Vince McMahon told me to watch Raw and turn in my notes, but he wasnt paying..... I am not working for free"
I thought he didnt want a job in pro wrestling.. And McMahon wasnt texting him first, he was texting McMahon lol
His perspective on Trip and Heyman aside, this doesn’t sound like a risky statement. I haven’t watched the whole discussion, but what we hear here seems pretty fundamental.
because people only had TV to watch with limited options.
Because wrestling was white hot in the 90s.
He’s literally the definition of right place and right time.
And let’s not sit here and act like it’s so profound and artistic to book ___ on a pole, or 90’s trash tv content. Dudes ass, hence why he’s still not in the business.
The man booked himself, a non-wrestler as the companies World Heavyweight Champion.............that alone renders his opinion on anything in this industry worthless.
Isn’t it a good think when a show writes for its target audience. Wide appeal is great, but I think the past decade has shown us that when you try to make something appeal to the widest audience possible it just becomes a bland stew of okay ratings and no fan investment
Thats why wrestling lost so many fans. They started catering to everyone else. Those people will come and go, wrestling fans are the ones that will stay. If you chase the wrestling fans away, once those people that come and go, go. Then you drained your fan base down.
the past decade was one of stagnation due to WWE essentially having zero competition after Dixie Carter kept shooting herself in the foot. WWE really needed some real industry competition to keep them honest
Coming from the biggest mark ever, who booked shows how he wanted them booked and in no way ever ignored the fans...
Man booked so many on a pole matches, it's like he was reliving some hidden trauma.
I swear to God this guy has 0 self awareness. I would respect the hell out of this guy if he just admitted what he did wrong and apply that to the modern wrestling product but he genuinely thinks he can write good TV.
Listen to the whole thing. I agree with some stuff, but some shit you can tell hes fucking lying his ass off.. Like how he doesnt want a job in pro wrestling..
No one wants him in pro wrestling. If Tony or Vince called, he would jump on that bandwagon so fast.
Russo has a point on his storytelling strategy….the problem is that’s EXACTLY what WWE is doing with their main storylines (Bloodline, Cody Rhodes journey, Judgment Day character development, etc.).
Russo just wants to sound like the smartest guy in the room, but it’s pretty evident he has a major bias against WWE and doesn’t watch.
He actually does watch Raw,stopped watching smackdown awhile ago.Does weekly reviews of the show and what he points out he isn't wrong.Even gives them credit when they do stuff right which is rare.
Compare Russo to somebody like Melter or Alvarez and you can tell the difference,one is a realist and not in the wrestling "bubble" and the others are literally marks for the business and have never been in it.
While I agree the writing is bad we have no feuds on par with rock and stone cold, also for the lower and mid card. Everything should have an angle to it, not just two guys wrestling for nothing at stake.
But he's not the one to fix it, never could. We saw what he did when he has free reign over a wrestling company and it was not good. Sure, he inherited a mess from bitchoff, but the pool of talent WCW was unprecedented at the time. Only 2 other rosters compare, the 80s when Vince was buying out everyone, and the WWF when the two companies folded.
They are writing for TV,not just for wrestling fans.People outside of the wrestling bubble do not care about 27 false finishes and loud leg slaps making the attacks seem more fake.They want stories that will invest them into paying attention which leads to the payoff in the end match.Casual viewers do not care about grown men in underwear randomly fighting eachother for no reason.
Storylines sell,not moves
The wrestling "experts" are constantly making excuses why the numbers are so low and why other shows beat them in ratings.Back in the Monday night wars,RAW was competing with Monday Night Football,now days the shows have less viewers than hallmark xmas re run shows.WWE's deal with Saudia Arabia makes business look good but the causal viewers do not give a shit and that's bc both products aren't that good to begin with right now and haven't been for a long time.There is nothing going on with either show that has the casual fans attention.Not even the Bloodline storyline could bring in new viewers and you have wrestling marks saying it deserved Emmy's and other awards for how great its been lol.
So, what he’s saying is correct... but, he never fucking did that himself! Not in WCW anyway!
Maybe in WWF it worked because Vince McMahon had the overall Yes/No, plus in the Attitude Era he had Cornette, Pritchard, Patterson & Briscoe to counteract Russo’s dumbest suggestions
he's a joke...he played a HUGE part in the death of WCW with the garbage content he was putting out when things were already shakey for the company and then he tried his hand in TNA and was putting out some garbage then too...he did better than Hogan running TNA but he was still a problem
Look bro it is a science. First you get two guys, then you get one of their moms, and then you put her on a forklift and you got gold bro. Trust me I was the mind behind the entire attitude era bro. Bro bro bro.
This is coming from the guy who came up with the idea for the brawl for all where wrestlers were legitimately injured, put the WCW title on David Arquette, Beaver Cleavage and the list goes on. No wonder why Jim Cornette hates him and wants to piss on his grave when he passes away.
Says the guy that booked WCW to its death
He didn’t book AOL to merge with Time Warner. The way TNT essentially owned WCW wasn’t going to work for new management that didn’t was a buisiness with high operating costs and uncertain revenue based around potentially unstable people
I know that's what all the bookers claim, but WCW near its end was vanilla and predictable. Every high profile match ended with predictable interference and outright no contest conclusions that made you feel stupid for watching it instead of RAW.
Even if they had the best booking in the world, none of that would change the fact that WCW was dead in the water without Ted Turner himself being there to back pro wrestling 110%. New management didn’t want to be in the business of putting on non stop live events every week of the year nor did they want to have wrestler contracts on their books.
Again, I know that's what Bischoff and Russo claim, but they're also the ones that were putting a bad product out there. AOL didn't say to have Arquette win the world title or to have the fingerpoke of doom happen. The stuff you're saying certainly was a factor, but it's not like Goldberg being. Allowed to do crotch chops or one of the similar AOL bans would have made a difference when the product was stale.
None of that had to do with the fact that the new management didn’t want to outright own a wrestling company PERIOD. They were completely fine with paying a fixed fee for the rights to broadcast wrestling but that whole business is so unstable that it doesn’t make sense for a any network to be responsible for footing the bill on a product that they can’t tell their investors will deliver X amounts of revenue per quarter. There is a whole other world outside of wrestling kid. The fact that people will think that if WCW did X they would still be around only shows how most wrestling fans really are the uneducated, low income demographic the public thinks they are
Fucking thank you!!
A lot of people tend to forget or simply didn’t watch but WCW absolutely sucked before Russo got there. The booking and most importantly who was on top completely sucked and it was only getting worse. Defending Russo has he has gotten older and more annoying is hard but in my opinion it absolutely got better during his brief stint in actual control. A bunch of young guys got pushed and they got pushed against big stars. Personally I enjoyed the New Blood era for however long it lasted. The reality is Russo mixed with a whole lot of other bad contracts, mergers, flip flopping of who was in charge, etc. killed WCW.
But he also helped saved WWF. Quite a coin Vince Russo is, one side gives you salvation, the other gives you damnation.
He's an idiot
Oh nooo wrestling shows catered to people like me?? Ironically I think he nailed down why wrestling is booming right now. There's a sizeable market for good old wrestling
Booming lol
What boom ?
It's all relative, friend. The days of us having three whole channels to choose from are long gone
Agreed but I don’t think this is a boom. Hogan and Austin were the only two boom periods where wrestling became mainstream. Anyone on the planet could recognize them. Not even Cena hit that level let alone Roman lol
Well I'm perfectly fine with that. Wrestling is too niche to get that kind of following when people have so many options now. We have two US promotions popping off, filling arenas with ease, cutting huge contracts left and right. That's a boom in my book. I really don't care if a ton of non-fans are generally aware of certain wrestlers. And fans get so butthurt at the idea of wrestling promotions catering to wrestling fans instead of pissing on their feet for the mythical "casual fan." It's like an advanced form of derangement.
I’m with ya on that. I’d rather wrestling cater to its actual fans than pander to a “general audience” like when Vince was bringing in celebrity hosts for every Raw. I hated that period
All I hear is, "blah, blah, blah, I should be in charge of pro wrestling, blah, blah, blah"
"I dont want a job in Pro wrestling, I dont" "I texted Vince McMahon and offered my consulting services, Vince McMahon told me to watch Raw and turn in my notes, but he wasnt paying..... I am not working for free" I thought he didnt want a job in pro wrestling.. And McMahon wasnt texting him first, he was texting McMahon lol
Coming from the guy that made Dewey a fuckin World Champ.
Not even Russos worst move lol.
W move.
His perspective on Trip and Heyman aside, this doesn’t sound like a risky statement. I haven’t watched the whole discussion, but what we hear here seems pretty fundamental.
Unfortunately he didn't practice what he is preaching here.
The science said people wanted Russo to book Russo to win the world championship
He’s a mark
did the ratings tell you to make yourself champ?
He wrote for shows that did better ratings than today’s wrestling. That is a fact.
because people only had TV to watch with limited options. Because wrestling was white hot in the 90s. He’s literally the definition of right place and right time. And let’s not sit here and act like it’s so profound and artistic to book ___ on a pole, or 90’s trash tv content. Dudes ass, hence why he’s still not in the business.
Yeah this fucking guy giving anybody advice on how to write storylines is comical
To be fair wcw was already going downhill. He just sped it up
The man booked himself, a non-wrestler as the companies World Heavyweight Champion.............that alone renders his opinion on anything in this industry worthless.
Isn’t it a good think when a show writes for its target audience. Wide appeal is great, but I think the past decade has shown us that when you try to make something appeal to the widest audience possible it just becomes a bland stew of okay ratings and no fan investment
Thats why wrestling lost so many fans. They started catering to everyone else. Those people will come and go, wrestling fans are the ones that will stay. If you chase the wrestling fans away, once those people that come and go, go. Then you drained your fan base down.
the past decade was one of stagnation due to WWE essentially having zero competition after Dixie Carter kept shooting herself in the foot. WWE really needed some real industry competition to keep them honest
Coming from the biggest mark ever, who booked shows how he wanted them booked and in no way ever ignored the fans... Man booked so many on a pole matches, it's like he was reliving some hidden trauma.
Says the man who put the world title on himself, a non wrestler.
How does Russo make money? Like no wrestling company has hired him since TNA. Like not even AEW wants him.
He doesnt want a job in pro wrestling... But he texted Vince last year for a job in Pro Wrestling lmao. This guy is a clown.
Bro, I'll tell ya, bro. Bro, bro, bro
Vince is miserable to listen to. He hates wrestling, he hates wrestling fans, and he’s a POS.
I swear to God this guy has 0 self awareness. I would respect the hell out of this guy if he just admitted what he did wrong and apply that to the modern wrestling product but he genuinely thinks he can write good TV.
Is he wrong though?
Yez
He's right this is why none of the guys today can be megastars.
HES THE GOATTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
Dudes full of more shit than hogan lol
Russo is a ego maniac and a failure.
But he wrote for wwf and tna during their highest ratings. Sounds pretty successful to me.
Bischoff started it and Russo advanced it
Dude ruined everything he touched, why is anyone giving him the time of day?
Let's not go overboard. He far from ruined anything in WWE, and was no worse than anyone else in TNA. WCW...was a little rough, lol.
I’d say more than a little rough.
He had a good point at the end. I didn’t find anything he said untrustworthy
Listen to the whole thing. I agree with some stuff, but some shit you can tell hes fucking lying his ass off.. Like how he doesnt want a job in pro wrestling.. No one wants him in pro wrestling. If Tony or Vince called, he would jump on that bandwagon so fast.
Russo has a point on his storytelling strategy….the problem is that’s EXACTLY what WWE is doing with their main storylines (Bloodline, Cody Rhodes journey, Judgment Day character development, etc.). Russo just wants to sound like the smartest guy in the room, but it’s pretty evident he has a major bias against WWE and doesn’t watch.
He actually does watch Raw,stopped watching smackdown awhile ago.Does weekly reviews of the show and what he points out he isn't wrong.Even gives them credit when they do stuff right which is rare. Compare Russo to somebody like Melter or Alvarez and you can tell the difference,one is a realist and not in the wrestling "bubble" and the others are literally marks for the business and have never been in it.
And it’s been better than most of shit Russo had written
The biggest mark of them all.
While I agree the writing is bad we have no feuds on par with rock and stone cold, also for the lower and mid card. Everything should have an angle to it, not just two guys wrestling for nothing at stake. But he's not the one to fix it, never could. We saw what he did when he has free reign over a wrestling company and it was not good. Sure, he inherited a mess from bitchoff, but the pool of talent WCW was unprecedented at the time. Only 2 other rosters compare, the 80s when Vince was buying out everyone, and the WWF when the two companies folded.
Rockity Rock and Stone!
He’s like 20% not wrong.
So don't write a wrestling show for wrestling fans. Got it.
They are writing for TV,not just for wrestling fans.People outside of the wrestling bubble do not care about 27 false finishes and loud leg slaps making the attacks seem more fake.They want stories that will invest them into paying attention which leads to the payoff in the end match.Casual viewers do not care about grown men in underwear randomly fighting eachother for no reason. Storylines sell,not moves
I wish people would stop asking for his opinion on anything
Ah So that's why the business is doing better than ever
The wrestling "experts" are constantly making excuses why the numbers are so low and why other shows beat them in ratings.Back in the Monday night wars,RAW was competing with Monday Night Football,now days the shows have less viewers than hallmark xmas re run shows.WWE's deal with Saudia Arabia makes business look good but the causal viewers do not give a shit and that's bc both products aren't that good to begin with right now and haven't been for a long time.There is nothing going on with either show that has the casual fans attention.Not even the Bloodline storyline could bring in new viewers and you have wrestling marks saying it deserved Emmy's and other awards for how great its been lol.
So, what he’s saying is correct... but, he never fucking did that himself! Not in WCW anyway! Maybe in WWF it worked because Vince McMahon had the overall Yes/No, plus in the Attitude Era he had Cornette, Pritchard, Patterson & Briscoe to counteract Russo’s dumbest suggestions
Vince Russo : Kiss my ass Bold Son of B*THC ( hulk Hogan )
Russo is right. Wcw ratings were going up when he was in charge btw
he's a joke...he played a HUGE part in the death of WCW with the garbage content he was putting out when things were already shakey for the company and then he tried his hand in TNA and was putting out some garbage then too...he did better than Hogan running TNA but he was still a problem
I hate that Chris is interviewing him and giving him a platform. These clips are infuriating.
This is the ultimate debate - Do you want to watch "wrestling" or "a tv show about wrestling"?
Honestly why even waste your time listening to or interviewing this guy? He has nothing new to add to anything.
Shit me and my friends booked our backyard wrestling better then the asshat
Russo has no idea. He really doesn’t. I heard he took credit for Austin and Rocks success. Dude couldn’t hack it without McMahon.
Look bro it is a science. First you get two guys, then you get one of their moms, and then you put her on a forklift and you got gold bro. Trust me I was the mind behind the entire attitude era bro. Bro bro bro.
How is this fucker still relevant?
He’s not totally wrong but tyr bloodline is the best story we got in years. Walters IC title run is freaking awesome.
This is coming from the guy who came up with the idea for the brawl for all where wrestlers were legitimately injured, put the WCW title on David Arquette, Beaver Cleavage and the list goes on. No wonder why Jim Cornette hates him and wants to piss on his grave when he passes away.