How The WCW Killed Vince Russo

[SixMovesOfDoom]

Greetings all.

For my first ever thread started on this forum, I ask for a bit of fact check.

Recently I finished the book "Rope Opera: How the WCW Killed Vince Russo" by Vince Russo. Like any smark, I inherently blame Russo for the downfall of the WWE's greatest existential threat. However, I have to admit he makes some good arguments that it was not his fault.

Now being a critical human being I inherently disbelieve what most people say, especially when there is big room for bias in the story-telling. Knowing it comes from Russo makes me doubt. What I want to know from the IWC is what is factually wrong with the book and what is factually right?

Is Russo correct when he says that many of the things he was blamed for took place either after he lost his position as lead creative writer or before he even showed up in WCW?

Does Russo paint an accurate picture of the behind-the-scenes moral character and business ethics of Vince McMahon, Stephanie McMahon, Bill Goldberg, and Jeff Jarrett?

These and other questions I would be interested in hearing feedback.

 

[soulpatrolbroski]

you can't blame the downfall on one specific person; it was a perfect storm that sunk WCW - wrestlers having too much power, bad business/contracts, lack of coherent storylines, not creating new stars and relying on aging superstars. wwf on the other hand, took advantage of this and while the product was suffering, created lots of new stars and slowly but surely built up everything. Russo was put in charge of a sinking ship, and while he tried to do what he could, i think there were so many holes that needed to be plugged that it sunk too fast

 

[thebarber]

Nobody on these internet boards can really accurately comment on this question. None of us are "insiders" or were in WCW 12 years ago. Vince Russo was. But he is going to write a book based on his view of things. Russo was in part responsible for WCW trying to imitate WWE and acknowledge them on every broadcast. Russo was responsible for the way bash at the Beach 2000 went down, he admits that. WCW was in major trouble though before Russo arrived in October 1999. The nWo rehash with the finger poke of doom had nothing to do with Russo. The shit house idea of having Tank Abbott as WCW Champion was his idea. Puttin the WCW World Title on David Arquette was his idea.Facts are, WCW was destroyed internally by guys like Eric Bischoff whose business acumen was terrible. Giving talent guaranteed contracts, allowing them creative control , sus[ending talent on FULL PAY, these are some of the financial reason WCW bit the bullet. No one individual is responsible, but guys like Hilk Hogan, Bill Goldberg, Kevin Nash all certainly played a huge part in things going south so soon after WCW was so huge and making so much money in 1996-1998.

HULK HOGAN: Had creatove contro over his entire programming, picked and chose who he would feud with, who would go over etc. Hogan refused to elevate anybody in his WCW run towards the end, and only put Goldberg over AFTER the Gergia Dome was sold out. This match was only announced on Thunder 4 days before it happened, when the arena was already a sell out. Nort building this progrma to an eventual Goldberg win at Starrcade 1998 was absolutely idiotic booking by WCW, giving thatmatch away on free tv...idiotic.

BILL GOLDBERG: Thsi clown believed his hype. once he got the belt, he forgot about the boys who all let him pin their shoulders to build up the streak. Refusing to work certain ppvs because he only had to appear at "x" amount of shows showed how selfish he became. He refused to turn heel after 6 months out injured when he stupidly put his arm through a glass window on Nitro. He only turned heel after Eric increased his contract. Refusing to work money angles with guys like Jericho showed his narrowmindedness and lack of business knowledge of how wrestling works.
KEVIN NASH: Unbelievabnle this guy was the BOOKER during this period. The booker was responsible for stating who goes over who in matches, which feuds got the ok and which got nixed. Nash vetoed the Hrat vs Goldberg feud after the huge angle in Toronto on Nitro in early 1999. That, after a Goldberg victory over Hogan at Starcade 1998 would have kept business booming through 1999. Sure with Owen Hart dying and Bret would have taken time off, but WCW would have been in a strong position to go ahead with somebody else instead of having no angle and no heat and no momentum. Nash winning the belt only to lay down 8 days later destroyed the last shred of credibility Nash had as a booker. WCW as you will remember never recovered in 1999 and was out of business within 2 years.

 

[Mr. HD]

Nah, Vince Russo isn't completely to blame, but he deserves a GREAT deal of the blame.

In WWF, yeah he was part of the Creative Team, but Vince McMahon breathed over his shoulder and nothing was final without his approval. Russo went to WCW where nobody was watching or had control over him and his ridiculous storylines were given free range on WCW programming.

WCW was bad in 1999, I'll say that, but it was still watchable. They just didn't know what to do with all the talent they had at the time IMO. Russo came in and it's like, "what am I watching?" His mistakes stem from the infamous Bash at the Beach 2000, the poor mishandling of the New Blood vs Millionaires Club, Goldberg walking out of a match, and then putting the WCW Title on David Arquette. For the love of God, why did he do that?!?! He did have some good ideas, but this is a case where the bad outweighed the good. Hogan and Russo butted heads all the time and you can't have people at the top butting heads. It doesn't work out for the good of the company as we saw.

Russo had a GREAT deal of young talent to put over. I don't think he knew what he was doing IMO. He sounds like he's bitter to me. It's not ALL his fault. He, along with Hogan, Nash, and Time Warner killed WCW.

Just my two cents.

 

[MWRedskins]

Honestly Russo isnt the SOLE blame for WCW's fall, but he played his part. HIS issues were that titles were devalued (Arquette as Champ!! really?), some storylines were too similar to what WWE recently did (Madusa vs. Oklahoma is an example), the character Oklahoma himself and putting Jarrett over like he did at the time.

Now it's not all his fault, no, WCW was in bad shape already, it's not Russo's fault that the guys in WCW decided to wait WAY too late to push Bret Hart, it's not Russo's fault that Hogan poked Nash to win the title and Russo didnt sign these guys to those huge deals and it also wasnt on Russo that a ton of injuries occured like they did.

 

[dencar84]

there was a guy on youtube that had a couple different channels where he uploaded all the nitros, thunders, and wcw ppvs in order by year (unfortunatley he closed all of his accounts after someone kept reporting him).
I watched all the nitro and thunder episodes and ppvs from late 2000/early 2001 and they were actually pretty good, it seemd like wcw was getting back on track and then the AOL/Time Warner merger happened and a corporate suit named jamie kellner cancelled all wrestling on tbs and tnt, effectively killing wcw.
the fact is eric bischoff was in the process of buying the company and the deal was only a couple weeks away from being finalized,but when kellner cancelled the shows erics investors backed out of the deal because there was no tv deal in place.
if it wasn't for kellner, bischoff would have bought the company and it would probably still be around today.

 

[Drewsky]

Before Russo got his hands on WCW, they were already starting to head towards the gutter. Idiotic decisions were being made my other top people in WCW and it was showing, that's why Russo was brought in. But they said "Fix us!" without any restrictions to what Russo would put on the table, and with that... he would put a few decent ideas out there, but without the two letters of N and O being used for Russo we got to see the bads of his mind. While Russo was going haywire with what was left, Bischoff, Nash, and Hogan were also doing their part.

Many people and things factored into WCW dying out. Even Jericho.... I say that because if he would've bought it, we might have an entertaining show on today Or maybe not... who knows.

 

[SinCityBlitz]

WCW was dying when Russo got there. But he didn't help make its last days any good. But that wasn't totally his fault either. He had to work with the crap that Bischoff gave him.

Besides the merger Bischoff had more to do with WCW dying than Russo did. The guaranteed contracts started to hurt WCW when business wasn't good. Plus the guys making the big bucks with creative control started to run the show and they were in business for themselves. They decided when they were going to show up and who they were going to job to.

 

[Raito]

Vince Russo was a booker who put himself on TV and even made himself World Champion! Nuff said?

Russo putting himself on TV was like JK Rowling putting herself in the Final Harry Potter movie to play the role of JK Rowling the author of the world.

Making himself champion was like JK Rowling going on to kill the bad guys and marry Harry.

 

[GameOver]

Vince Russo was a booker who put himself on TV and even made himself World Champion! Nuff said?

Russo putting himself on TV was like JK Rowling putting herself in the Final Harry Potter movie to play the role of JK Rowling the author of the world.

Making himself champion was like JK Rowling going on to kill the bad guys and marry Harry.

and he admitted he did it for shock value as was everything he pitched in WWF or WCW. Those were his words, not a fantasy made up by IWC haters.

The difference is WCW had noone running the ship til Bischoff took over then he let everything fly in an attempt to stop the ship sinking. Controversy creates cash.

Here's the kicker, He didn't kill WWF and he didn't kill WCW and he didn't single handedly cripple TNA he was just the booker, blame the people that let the crap he wanted to go through get through.. Vince, Bischoff and Dixie they gave him reign to do what he wanted and he let fly

as for WCW killing Russo. He should be thankfull he had such a long career despite being seemingly useless in what he was paid to do. Russo screwed Russo, noone else.

 

[SixMovesOfDoom]

So following up on all that was said, when comparing the dvd "The Rise and Fall of WCW" and Russo's book, which one should I consider more accurate?

Or are they both pretty poor in the accuracy department?

 

[19NightLong]

I hate Vince Russo. He's the major reason why wrestling is crap nowadays. In the WWF/E, Vince Russo claim to be the "genius" behind the WWF/E Attitude Era but little did he know that he needed a filter like Vince McMahon did to approve and decline his ideas. In WCW, he was given creative control clause and wanted ultimate authority to do what he wants without a filter. This cause WCW to go down in a spiral and Russo alienated the WCW fanbase more than Hogan and Nash's booking. Making Goldberg turn heel for no reason, booking a Hollywood B actor David Arquette as WCW champion to promote a movie(a box office flop and poorly received movie. At the side note actually, this is one of John Cena's first film as i believe he was a prototype in the movie but was given an uncredit role), fast swerve turns and constant heel turns that confused the WCW audiences, etc.

When Russo went to WCW in the south, he tried to bring the "Crash TV" and "Attitude" style he got from the WWF/E to WCW but little did he know that the WCW demographics weren't really into it as it was for the WWF/E in the north. Most WCW fans were into emphasized good solid wrestling matches and feuds based around championships, and the WWF/E tried/tries to appeal to everybody by emphasizing melodramatic storylines based on "real life" (things that happen to real people) then wrestling talent the 2nd. Russo didn't really understand the WCW fanbase due to the fact he was from New York City, New York. There is no doubt WCW was in the gutter before he came in but he alienated the WCW fanbase more than Hogan and Nash's booking themselves into the main events.

In TNA, it's the same thing. Stupid swerves, stupid heel and constant face turns, and confusing gimmicks that made most of the wrestling fans hate his guts. That's why i'm glad TNA send his sorry ass home a month early.

IMO, Vince Russo should not work for the wrestling business because everything he touch he just make things worse. He should work for a comic book or something but when it comes to wrestling, no way. Didn't i forget that fact, when Russo was in the WWF, he forced Owen Hart to be the Blue Blazer Gimmick because Owen turned down an angle that he would have an affair with Debra Marshall. In response, Russo punished him by making him do the Blue Blazer. Before the 1999 Over the Edge PPV, he also had an idea of ravel Owen down from the ceiling to the ground in attempt to mock WCW's Sting when he too ravel down from the ceiling. He also had an idea of having a harness that wasn't meant to be carrying a 210lb human being with McMahon approving it. As a result, Owen died because of it.

It's stupid to say that WCW killed Russo when in he not only screwed the company more, he also screwed with himself because his act of stupidity cause WCW down the spiral. This guy is still in denial for what he did today.

 

[Defekt]

I haven't read Rope Opera, but I did read Forgiven by Vince Russo, which is poorly written and just generally awful.

In his book, and in interviews Russo seems to always defend his illogical booking. There's always some excuse as to why he did what he did.

Vince Russo didn't kill WCW. Turner corporate politics did. However, during his WCW run, Russo was responsible for some of the worst television ever produced.

 

[MrExcitement]

I was recently reading Mick Foley's second book, Foley is Good and there is a chapter in which he talks about Russo jumping ship, and leaving a weeks worth of television behind, which Foley called absolutely awful. It involved Mankind proposing to The Rock. I believe with Russo, he had a filter in WWF which allowed the good ideas through and the stupid stuff was kept out. This was not the case when he went to WCW, and this may have been the reason for the crap writing. Russo did not kill WCW though, as others have said, it was the Turner Corporation.