Forgive me Jim Cornette... Did Vince Russo do anything you liked?

[scottyshowman82]

I may be in the minority or maybe not as much as I think but I felt kind of sad that Vince Russo was finally let go by TNA. I never hated Vince Russo or thought he was absolutely terrible. I guess because what really draws me into pro wrestling is the characters, the clashing or these over the top personalities and the chaos, ohhhh how I love the chaos.

And whenever Mr. Russo was around there was always chaos. A lot of stuff
in the Attitude Era that we loved came from the mind of Vince Russo. After listening to his interview on youtube from 2005 or 2006 and watching his style for years you can kind of tell where he goes with things. The Former New Age Outlaws BG James aka THE ROADDOGG and Kip James said they liked Russo.
He came up with things like them taking pees on the motorcycles of LOD.

I'll tell you this, one of the times I was most excited about WCW was when when Russo and Bischoff returned together to try and turn the company around. I remember seeing a promo for it that WCW was in for a new change and revolution and after I saw that add I was very intrigued.

Then Russo and a white haired Eric Bischoff came out and said things were going to change. They stripped all the current champions of their belts which made sense. They wanted to start fresh a new outlook and one by one they all came out and handed over the belts. Sid was the world champion at the time and I remember them going up in the intimadating man mountain and asking for the title. You couldn't help but feel kind of bad for big Sid. He looked out at the crowd and people were cheering don't do it and he could have easily just clocked Russo and Bischoff but he handed it over. The two new men in charge differentiated the roster with Millionaires Club and the New Blood. And they said they were going to push the New Blood. I was pumped I loved Vampiro and Kidman and they were part of the group. Though many may say otherwise I kind of marked out seeing Hogan and Kidman in the ring interacting with each other, this was a clear difference from the WCW of old.

And even when Russo just arrived in WCW, "The Powers that Be" angle I enjoyed. His face was off the screen and he had a wooden desk and wrestlers would come and talk to him. The Artist formely known as Prince Iaukea...lol and he even gave Chavo this salesmen gimmick where he wrestled in a suit and tie. It was all very fun and entertaining to me.

Even what he did in early TNA with Sex Entertainment X-Treme or S.E.X. I found that edgy and intriguing too. In fact if I knew where to find some of those shows I would watch them right now.

What about the unforgivable of all unforgivable things giving David Arquette the championship. My immediate reaction was shock and then "Really?? " But forgive me Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes , once it happened I kind of liked it. Again chaos that's what I like in my wrestling show.


Vince Russo love him or hate him, when his name pops up you're interested in what's going on. Vince Russo is like the crazy friend who is always up to something wild and you can't help but stick around see what's going on. One thing I do respect about him is he had passion, when a guy comes out and says not only I want to make this to be the #1 wrestling show on TV but I want to want people watching my show over anything eles on TV I like that.

All that said, I do think that Vince was a great guy to look over this wildy creative passionate guy. The thing that many people criticize Russo for and I kind of agree with this is that pro wrestling has to resemble a sport it needs to have a foundation where it's feet or planted on the ground in reality or at least imitating reality. Then when all these outrageous extraordinary things happen that's when people go WOW that's when people go COOL or OMG or Holy Sh-- or whatever. When you get too much over the top stuff without that foundation, it could come off as nonsense leaving you saying wtf?

To be honest Vince Russo, I like you, I'm a fan and I'm glad he is and was a part of wrestling.


Now a question, was there anything Vince Russo did that you liked? Btw Natural Born Thrillers kicked ass.

 

[OneTooManyPunts]

I can't say I am a fan of Vince Russo. From a creative standpoint, TNA simply could not move forward with him on their payroll. His history with Hogan and Bischoff, coupled with his pension for recycling his own work on a regular basis was starting to really take it's toll on TNA's product as a whole.

Having said that though, I think Jim Cornette is a bit out of line. While I think it is easy to see that Cornette does truly and deeply hate Russo, his remarks are often so over the top they come across as the rantings of man with issues.

Where I really take point with Cornette though, is that while ROH has maintained an excellent profile as a promotion dedicated to wrestling, their product as of late has definitely taken a dive in quality since the Sinclair takeover. A lot of what Cornette says in reference is easily identifiable as the pot calling the kettle black.

I applaud Corenette's passion for the business, and I respect his position on Vince Russo. But given that Russo has basically just seen his last bastion of influence in a major wrestling promotion dry up, perhaps Jim can wait a little bit and scoop that salt of that open wound.

 

[DirtyD79]

Granted Russo did some real stupid stuff in WCW but give the devil his due he was one of their first writers who actually thought to build the show around the younger stars. He was one of the first who would stand up to Hulk Hogan threatening to take his ball and go home.

 

[billm75]

I think it's unfair to hate on any of the creative people the wrestling companies hire. And here's why:

In the WWE for example, you're hired on as a writer to come up with story lines, angles, etc and you're given an impossible schedule to keep up with. On top of that, the head of the company overrules you on a whim. No real reason other than Vince doesn't like it.

I can only imagine that TNA has a simliar set up, to a certain degree. I'm sure Dixie Carter is more hands off as of late, but the people in charge of the show are still there to throw wrenches in the works.

If given complete control, Russo might have been more well received, and the same goes for any creative team member. It's just the fact that the business which evolved from a territorial small market system, still has those feelings of absolute control over the entire product.

Vince would do well to step back and let people simply do their jobs and trust them to do them well. He should evaluate their performance, not change it directly. Same with TNA. Let your creative team do its thing. You can always recover from a bad storyline..it's not the end of the world if it doesn't work out.

This instant gratification model they're using makes it nearly impossible to deliver quality on a consistent basis.

 

[Defekt]

If given complete control, Russo might have been more well received, and the same goes for any creative team member. It's just the fact that the business which evolved from a territorial small market system, still has those feelings of absolute control over the entire product.

I don't think so. Russo more or less had complete control for a time in WCW, and that was probably the worst period of the promotion (and that says alot when you're talking about WCW).

 

[WWEIsLife2]

I dunno Russo to me didn't seem to care about the Wrestling part of the Shows and was more about the over the top stuff. Go back & watch some RAWs from 1999 before he went to WCW later that year. Alot of them had Matches with No Contests,DQs,Countouts,and even some of them never getting started at all. To me he just didn't seem to care at all about the actual In-Ring Product.

When he got to WCW,it had potential but you could tell Nitro had his handprints all over it. I liked the Beginning of the New Blood when Bischoff came back & they stripped all the Titles going into Spring Stampede. After that they had no idea where to go with it and lost its steam. I never saw any of the early TNA stuff when he had the S.E.X. Group going. So I cannot comment on that.

Russo may have done some good things like DX,New Age Outlaws,Stone Cold Steve Austin,The Rock,etc but I think his legacy will always be looked at with critcism.

 

[JVel]

Vince Russo is a guy that can produce absolute gold but it's all dependent on who he has working with him and filtering his ideas into the on screen product.

Provided a proper filter like he had during his WWE run, he was the man behind the gold. He had logical business minds in guys like Vince to check over his stuff and tweak the rough product for the better.

The problem is that when put in the position he was in with WCW and even TNA (excluding early run,) he was either given too much say so in the final product which allowed his crap ideas to make it onto the screen or the reverse was true where he was overruled at any possible moment by the ego's of Hogan, among others, which caused last minute adjustments and a watered down product.

Russo had that perfect balance with Vince that he just didn't appear to regain anywhere else. Russo gets a lot of crap but at the same time, if you give one man too much creative control or restrict your creative team to absurd amounts, you end up with a bad product. The creative process is all about a team and collaboration of ideas, but many haven't seemed to have been able to find that balance, Russo or not at the helm.

 

[Xumer]

I think Russo got lucky with his work in WWE and the reason I say that is because he's never done anything that was ever close to that successful in WCW or TNA. If it was skill and talent that he had in WWE, it would have carried over in his non WWE career.

 

[SacredMesa]

Whenever I think I Russo I can't help but think of a blind gold digger panning for gold. On his own he doesn't have a freaking clue about what he is digging up and throwing back, but give him someone with a good eye to look over his shoulder and tell him when it's to much and he can give you pure gold.

 

[MrMojoRisin]

Russo was good when nobody knew who he was, and he had McMahon filtering his ideas.

Once he started to believe his own hype, and became a part of the show... he just went to complete shit.

And yes to the guy who said that he never really cared for the in ring product. The WWF was just fortunate at the time he was writing that they also had Pat Patterson who did care for the in ring product, and understood better than anyone how to structure a match.

 

[ShinobiMusashi]

Russo's work in the WWF in late 97 through the spring/summer of 98 was brilliant. The Kane vs Undertaker build was amazing. You couldn't make a hollywood blockbuster movie that told that story better than it was on Monday Nights(and PPV).

He really started to lose it around the Summer of 98 for some reason. The end of 98, and all of 99 in the WWF with Russo was terrible. 99 was horrible for the WWF in my opinion. After Russo left, they hit a steady incline in the quality of their shows through 2000 up until the Invasion angle began in 2001(still, as bad as the invasion angle was, 2001 was better than 99 Imo). 99 was the WWF's absolute worst year as far as their creative/booking department is concerned, and Russo was at the helm during that time.

Even though I'll give him credit for a few brilliant Idea's, I agree with Jim Cornette's opinions of Vince Russo for the most part. A big part of why Russo's Ideas worked so well in the period from 97 to mid 98 may have had more to do with the performers than the actual writing.

I will give Russo credit for his stint with the WCW. As bad as it was, and as many terrible decisions he made, WCW's tenure with Russo at the helm was better than their last half of 98, and their 1999 was even worse than the WWF's(ECW was #1 in 99 as far as overall quality imo), and that is very bad. He did seem to have them going in a better direction than where they were, but it was still a terrible wrestling show.