Stone Cold Podcast With Vince Russo - Getting Over

[Low_Ki]

So I just finished listening to the first half of the Stone Cold podcast with Vince Russo.

Whilst I will agree that I cringed every time Russo used the word 'bro' to refer to Austin, and the fact that he comes across like he has ADHD, he made some good points.

The point that I am interested in their conversation regarding the state of WWE's roster. He made a point to mention that 'nobody' is over. Now I don't agree with that fully, but I do agree getting certain performers fully over with the audience hasn't happened.

He mentioned the use of vignettes to 'introduce' certain performers to the WWE audience. He used Val Venis as a good example of how to introduce a character.

One of his main points was the fact that last year at the Rumble, the company listened to the smarks, and completely negated the market they should be looking at, the casual fan.

Do you agree that the company should be looking to bring in casual viewers by 'introducing' guys like Sami Zayn and Neville to the main roster as most of the casual fans would not have seen NXT? Or do you believe his view is outdated or that the problem goes deeper than developing the characters of some lesser know wrestlers?

 

[Bagpipes]

I don't know or really care about Russo's views of the business today, but I will say that vignettes are never a bad idea.

Whether it be to build to a big match or give some added steam to an angle, or introduce a "new" superstar, WWE has always been very good at producing video packages and vignettes. Given the choice between a 45 second backstage interview with Renee Young or a series of short but thorough vignettes, I don't think anyone can argue the former is more effective or entertaining than the latter.

 

[harrythem]

Of course vignettes are a good way to introduce people to an audience rather than a cold entrance, however I don't think the audience is there to tempt casual fans in with vignettes, especially if they're like the ones that introduced New Day or Los Matadores as they were dog shite!

Also considering Russo goes on about how a video package would help introduce casual fans to characters and, thus, have them over as soon as they made their debut I have to ask, where was this grasp of logic when he was in charge of TNA?

 

[Jack-Hammer]

I always find it a bit amusing to hear Russo going on about how "nobody" is over yet he claims to know what to do about fixing said problems despite not doing it himself whenever he's been the one in charge of a wrestling company's creative direction.

When you get right down to it, Russo is ultimately doing what so many guys who're all but out of the business who either never got over to the degree they felt they should, believed they had some sort of insight that everyone else missed, believes there was some sort of conspiracy to hold him down, nobody else knows what they're doing, etc. that I've heard from guys like Shane Douglas and Jim Cornette; the guy's a big mark for himself and does what we've seen numerous people do, including Vince McMahon, in that he tries to lay ALL the problems that happened on his watch onto the shoulders of other people without taking any of the responsibility for himself. I don't particularly care about Russo's views on the business to be perfectly honest; I mean, of course, he's entitled to his opinion but I don't personally hold his opinion in high esteem as he's someone who killed the quality of WCW, thought Tank Abbott should've been main eventing in WCW and spent years essentially trying to turn TNA into WCW Lite with his nonstop barrage of recycled nWo themed power struggle/faction wars storylines.