Vince Russo on Trying to Bring Bret Hart and Paul Heyman to TNA

[Chrome]

Wrestling INC: It seemed like you had a lot of bad luck during your time in WCW with injuries. You had a top storyline in motion with Bret Hart reforming the NWO and then there was Bill Goldberg. They both got injured and that was the end of it. You were really the first person to push Bret Hart as the top guy since he joined the company. Are you surprised he has hard feelings today considering the push you gave him?

Vince Russo: Deep down inside, I don't know if he does. When I went to WCW, I wanted Bret Hart in a position he longed to be in. I approached him my first day there and we sat down for an hour and discussed the Owen [Hart] incident. We talked about it man-to-man and I thought everything was behind us. Six months before I left TNA, I had a phone conversation with Bret about bringing him to TNA. He was very excited about that idea and I spoke to him personally on the phone for an hour. Face-to-face or on the phone, there has never been an issue between me and Bret.

I find it hard to believe Bret feels that way because he had the opportunity on more occasions than one to tell me — especially when I tried to bring him into TNA. There's the perfect opportunity for Bret to say 'Vince I'm not working for a scumbag.' That's not how the conversation went; it was a very positive one. I find it hard to believe at his core that he feels that way, but I also know bashing and burying Vince Russo to the internet wrestling community is the cool hip thing to do. Some people think that's what gets them over. Just throw a Vince Russo barb in the wrestling community and you're over. All these people that have these issues with me and do interviews, never have I been confronted to my face. That's unfortunate. I worked as hard as I could in the business, was very respectful, and am a family man. To consistently have to deal with all the negative comments, it gets old after a while.

Wrestling INC: It seemed like Paul Heyman was close to signing with TNA while you were there. What's your take?

Russo: I don't know if he was close. I called Paul to bring him into TNA and we had a couple of conversations that were hours long. I was under the impression Paul wanted to come in and have things 100% his way, but that's not how TNA works. I turned it over to Dixie [Carter] and was out of the loop. I didn't care how I was going to be working with Paul or who had what title. I thought Paul Heyman could make TNA a better product and that's why I made the original contact.

If Bret had come what would his role have been? Authority figure or managing perhaps? How would you have felt about that?

 

[Ace Amoeba]

Great find Chrome...

Heyman would've been great for TNA if Russo would've gotten out of the way and let Paul do his thing. Performers would have had a chance to get really over under Heyman's command.

Bret wouldn't have amounted to much in TNA but would've served as a good draw for Canadian markets.

 

[It's Damn Real!]

I can't recall, was this before or during the Hogan era? I think Hart would have made for a solid spokesman for the TNA brand. Sure as fuck more than Hogan ever did. I remember watching multiple interviews and appearances from Hogan during his TNA run, and I can probably count on one hand the number of times he was there to sell TNA and not himself.

Hart has always had a love for wrestling, the sport. Might just be my bias talking, but I'd have really loved to have seen him with the company. Depending on the type of "power" he was given, I think you'd have seen a serious push for a more serious wrestling product.

 

[Reflection]

I don't think Bret Hart joining TNA would help much. TNA, by virtue of being TNA, would find a way to screw it up as well, and then Bret would be stuck in the position of being just another old guy thats getting paid (much more) for adding nothing noteworthy.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

I think Bret would have been an Authority figure on screen and an ambassador off-screen, just like Hulk Hogan was (or was supposed to be). However, as highly as Bret thinks of himself (and he does think of himself extremely highly), Hart has never been about promoting himself, and wouldnt have hogged the spotlight in the way Hogan did. As IDR has already said, how many times was Hogan actually promoting TNA when he did these interviews? It was all about promoting himself, and he has always been like that. Although Hogan is by far the bigger name, Bret would have contributed more to TNA than Hulk and actually cared about the company, rather than using it as a way of promoting himself yet again.

As for Heyman...if he had been given 100% control of the booking side of the company I think TNA would be in a better position than they are in now. While a poor businessman, Heyman is incredibly creative and would have so many ideas filed away that he has come up with over the last 10-12 years since leaving ECW, and could have implemented those in TNA, as well as things he learned while in the WWE. We could have expected longer running storylines, less ridiculous matches if Russo wasn't as involved and definitely a sprinkling of extreme. Who knows, we may have even seen an appearance (probably a one-off) of Paul's close friend and business associate Brock Lesnar???

 

[It's Damn Real!]

The issue with Heyman was that line he used a couple weeks before the Heyman to TNA stuff really started to ramp up where he said something like, and I'm paraphrasing, "I'd chop their fucking heads off" (in speaking about anyone over forty).

Um, Paul — at that time, that'd have meant Kevin Nash, Booker T, Scott Steiner, Sting and KURT ANGLE. Basically the entire Main Event Mafia, as well as a few guys still hanging around here and there. So yeah, I can see why they told him to piss into the wind.

 

[Alex]

The issue with Heyman was that line he used a couple weeks before the Heyman to TNA stuff really started to ramp up where he said something like, and I'm paraphrasing, "I'd chop their fucking heads off" (in speaking about anyone over forty).

Um, Paul — at that time, that'd have meant Kevin Nash, Booker T, Scott Steiner, Sting and KURT ANGLE. Basically the entire Main Event Mafia, as well as a few guys still hanging around here and there. So yeah, I can see why they told him to piss into the wind.

Let's be honest IDR aside from Sting and Kurt Angle the others weren't really worth it. I'm sure there would have been talks to try and keep a few of them like Sting and Angle. I feel Heyman probably would've kept some over 40s if they had value. I mean lets be honest Nash and Steiner weren't really contributing much so they could've gone. There probably could've been a way of having Booker T, Angle and Sting as good talent to put over some new guys but aside from them the others weren't really worth it.

 

[It's Damn Real!]

Let's be honest IDR aside from Sting and Kurt Angle the others weren't really worth it. I'm sure there would have been talks to try and keep a few of them like Sting and Angle. I feel Heyman probably would've kept some over 40s if they had value. I mean lets be honest Nash and Steiner weren't really contributing much so they could've gone. There probably could've been a way of having Booker T, Angle and Sting as good talent to put over some new guys but aside from them the others weren't really worth it.

It's not a matter of them being "worth it". It's a matter of the fact that this guy would be coming in and gutting like a quarter of the roster in a day, including the companies' two highest draws at the time (Sting and Kurt Angle).

You don't cut your nose off to spite your face. I'd have been OK with him cutting a few of them, but the way he went into it, he was adamant about removing all of them, on top of wanting to bring in Danielson and have him literally run the entire roster into the ground. Again, burying every TNA Original? Another outsider coming in and making their own guys look second class?

There's wholesale change and then there's selling the farm. The two are not the same.

 

[horseman5]

He had Ric Flair, he buried him in a desert. Then brought him back fit as a fiddle two weeks later. Did any storyline ever get Flair over more then just him in a ring with a microphone? Wrestlers don't need storylines, a feud or something yes. A gimmick yes. A storyline...just kills their heat.