|
|
Post by Yeezy's Mullet: Team X Blades on Feb 8, 2009 22:22:09 GMT -5
Yeah I think this deserved a topic of it's own. I was just amazed at how often he used the whole "wrestling's fake, but this isn't" angle. So I know there are some guys on here that know more about WCW's latter days than I do. So how many instances have any of you seen where he used this?
|
|
|
|
Post by Johnny Wrestling on Feb 8, 2009 22:24:05 GMT -5
What I don't get is how his booking was sucessful in WWF, yet in WCW was just a mess.
|
|
|
|
Post by Yeezy's Mullet: Team X Blades on Feb 8, 2009 22:26:13 GMT -5
What I don't get is how his booking was sucessful in WWF, yet in WCW was just a mess. Because he didn't insult the poeple's intelligence with that this is the real side of wrestling crap. |
|
Seahorse
Main Eventer
Joined on: Feb 21, 2005 11:54:17 GMT -5
Posts: 3,153
|
Post by Seahorse on Feb 8, 2009 22:46:22 GMT -5
Vince Russo is a God among men, and you should be slapped for saying anything bad about him.
|
|
|
|
Post by Jimmy on Feb 8, 2009 22:48:38 GMT -5
What I don't get is how his booking was sucessful in WWF, yet in WCW was just a mess. It's actually not that hard to figure out when you break it down. 1. First and foremost, Vince McMahon was his filter. Anything Russo wanted to put on TV had to go through the Big Vince first. Obviously Vince is a bit lax sometimes but he knows the business and how to run things. Apparently Russo wanted Kane and the Undertaker to have a street fight, like, two weeks after Kane debuted. Vince stepped in and made sure the storyline was built right, towards WrestleMania. If you watch Russo's WCW work (late October 99 - January 00), it's clear him and Ferrera are completely running the show and while there's a whole bunch of stuff happening, there's no real direction towards marketing PPV's. 2. The talent in the WWF was much different than the talent in WCW. There were no "big names" per se in the WWF by late 1997. Bret was gone and Shawn already had his character and was gone by March. So Russo had carte blanche to give each guy a character how he saw fit, usually somewhat like the person in real life. Whereas Russo helped build Austin, HHH, The Rock, Undertaker, Kane, and Mankind all reach new heights in their careers, in WCW he stepped in with Hogan, Goldberg, Luger, Savage, Piper, Flair, Hall, Nash, Page, etc etc etc who all felt that they were fine as they were and didn't need Russo. The one thing I will never fault Russo on is his commitment to giving all of the midcarders (the real stars of tomorrow) something to do and allow them to get over. 3. The WWF and WCW were just completely different companies. The WWF was always about characters and pomp and circumstance, WCW was always about wrestling and titles. It was foolhardy for Russo to come in and try to make WCW into WWF junior. Which is exactly what he did, right down to making Brad Armstrong (Buzzkill) into an exact copy of Brian Armstrong (Road Dogg). Which leads me to point 4. 4. Russo's a creative guy, but he's not the most original guy. Look at a lot of his WCW stuff, it was derived from his work in the WWF. His offscreen character busting Piper down to "lowly referee" was directly from Vince doing the same thing to Shane the year before. He basically made the Outsiders into DX, having them parody people nonstop and making jokes about the WWF. What was his big, masterpiece storyline in WCW? Piper ringing the bell on Goldberg while Bret had him in the Sharpshooter. A copy of the Suvivor Series 98 finish, which was of course a copy of the Survivor Series 97 finish. That's our Russo. I'll add some more to this thread later, I find the period of 1997-wcw's death insanely interesting and love to talk about it. |
|
|
|
Post by HugoOne on Feb 8, 2009 23:00:20 GMT -5
4. Russo's a creative guy, but he's not the most original guy. Look at a lot of his WCW stuff, it was derived from his work in the WWF. His offscreen character busting Piper down to "lowly referee" was directly from Vince doing the same thing to Shane the year before. He basically made the Outsiders into DX, having them parody people nonstop and making jokes about the WWF. What was his big, masterpiece storyline in WCW? Piper ringing the bell on Goldberg while Bret had him in the Sharpshooter. A copy of the Suvivor Series 98 finish, which was of course a copy of the Survivor Series 97 finish. That's our Russo. I'll add some more to this thread later, I find the period of 1997-wcw's death insanely interesting and love to talk about it. Adding onto what Jimmy put very intelligently, Russo loved the "wacky tag team partners who hate each other" scenario. He still uses that today in TNA. I mean, for every good idea he's had, he had some pretty bad ones. I've talked about the mess of the Greater Power storyline, but there's also the magic briefcase, the cinder block of doom, and just a plethora of stupid crap. For everything he did right, he did just as much wrong, if not more. Like putting the belt on himself. |
|
|
|
Post by Jimmy on Feb 8, 2009 23:15:29 GMT -5
Here's a favorite Russo quote of mine, that says a lot about him:
"You will never ever, ever, ever, ever see the Japanese wrestler or the Mexican wrestler over in American mainstream wrestling. And the simple reason for that is, even myself, I'm an American, and I don't want to sound like a big bigot or a racist or anything like that, but I'm an American ... if I'm watching wrestling here in America, I don't give a crap about a Japanese guy. I don't give a crap about a Mexican guy. I'm from America, and that's what I want to see. Now there are the smart fans that love that type of crap, like you."
It's hard to figure out where to begin with that, but first and foremost, it explains why Duane Gill held the Lightheavyweight Title for well over a year and why there was never any real Lightheavyweight division to begin with. Instead TAKA was sent to ECW in 1999 and I honestly can't think of one Japanese or Hispanic wrestler who did anything of note in the WWF in 1999.
Secondly, that quote in a nutshell showed how awful a fit Russo was for WCW. The one thing that WCW had that the WWF couldn't have in a million years was their amazing Cruiserweight division. Eddie Guerrero, Chavo Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, Kidman, Malenko, Juvi, and so many others were on the roster and nearly any combination could produce a 3 star match at the least. And it's something that many fans looked foward to in WCW. But Russo took over and all the years of great matches and rivalries were dumped in favor of having Chavo selling AmWay, Juvi commentating and hitting guys with a tequila bottle, and the rest of the Hispanic wrestlers fighting over a pinata. I believe under Russo the Cruiserweight Title lineage went something like Evan Karagias (a terrible worker)/Madusa (a washed up woman's wrestler)/Oklahoma (A terrible parody of JR who was over 220 pounds).
|
|
|
|
Post by ravensgathering on Feb 8, 2009 23:50:26 GMT -5
The only problem with what you said is Russo pushed guys like Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, Juvi & Konnan. So technically what you are saying is wrong. Why those guys left at the time they did was because Russo was sent home. So when Douglas, Eddie, Konnan, Rey, Benoit, Malenko & Saturn walked out it was simply because of how WCW sent Russo packing and Russo was the one pushing them. Kidman if I remember correctly is the one who stayed because "The Good Ol Boys" as they were known promised him a push to the moon.
|
|
|
|
Post by James Hetfield on Feb 8, 2009 23:53:47 GMT -5
You idiots fail to realize that Russo was never the booker for any company. The highest he ever got was head writer.
|
|
|
|
Post by Jimmy on Feb 8, 2009 23:57:16 GMT -5
The only problem with what you said is Russo pushed guys like Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, Juvi & Konnan. So technically what you are saying is wrong. Why those guys left at the time they did was because Russo was sent home. So when Douglas, Eddie, Konnan, Rey, Benoit, Malenko & Saturn walked out it was simply because of how WCW sent Russo packing and Russo was the one pushing them. Kidman if I remember correctly is the one who stayed because "The Good Ol Boys" as they were known promised him a push to the moon. You're right about those four, but Russo didn't elevate any of them any higher than they already were. They just continued along as usual. All of the rest of the cruiserweights were shunned into pinata on a pole matches. Benoit was the only one in the Revolution to get a real push, main eventing the Mayhem PPV against Bret. Russo had nothing to do with Benoit winning the WCW Title. Those guys didn't walk about because of Russo being fired, they walked out because of Kevin Sullivan being his replacement. Kidman stayed for the reason you listed, which led to his poor angle with Hogan. Konnan stayed because...well I can't remember but Konnan sucks anyway. And Douglas stayed because he's already burned all of his other bridges. |
|
|
|
Post by HugoOne on Feb 9, 2009 0:01:15 GMT -5
You idiots fail to realize that Russo was never the booker for any company. The highest he ever got was head writer. And do writers not book storylines and feuds? According to the definition, a booker is "the person in change of setting up matches and writing angles." Is this not what Russo? Seems like one in the same to me. |
|
|
|
Post by ravensgathering on Feb 9, 2009 0:01:26 GMT -5
The only problem with what you said is Russo pushed guys like Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, Juvi & Konnan. So technically what you are saying is wrong. Why those guys left at the time they did was because Russo was sent home. So when Douglas, Eddie, Konnan, Rey, Benoit, Malenko & Saturn walked out it was simply because of how WCW sent Russo packing and Russo was the one pushing them. Kidman if I remember correctly is the one who stayed because "The Good Ol Boys" as they were known promised him a push to the moon. You're right about those four, but Russo didn't elevate any of them any higher than they already were. They just continued along as usual. All of the rest of the cruiserweights were shunned into pinata on a pole matches. Benoit was the only one in the Revolution to get a real push, main eventing the Mayhem PPV against Bret. Russo had nothing to do with Benoit winning the WCW Title. Those guys didn't walk about because of Russo being fired, they walked out because of Kevin Sullivan being his replacement. Kidman stayed for the reason you listed, which led to his poor angle with Hogan. Konnan stayed because...well I can't remember but Konnan sucks anyway. And Douglas stayed because he's already burned all of his other bridges. Actually Konnan & Shane didn't stay. They left with Rey, Eddie, Dean & Saturn. They only returned because WWE had no intrest in them and Vince Russo & Eric Bischoff were brought back. That's why they were absent from after the PPV till Bischoff & Russo came back. They were under no contract at the time. I think this was also when Scott Steiner got his big suspension after they put Sullivan in. |
|
|
|
Post by James Hetfield on Feb 9, 2009 0:03:20 GMT -5
You idiots fail to realize that Russo was never the booker for any company. The highest he ever got was head writer. Man, you used to be a nice guy, when did you get so cynical? And do writers not book storylines and feuds? According to the definition, a booker is "the person in change of setting up matches and writing angles." Is this not what Russo? Seems like one in the same to me. Booker = The guy who makes the matches. Writer = Guy who writes the storylines around matches/ideas the booker comes up with. Maybe this topic would be accurate if the topic was "Vince Russo's Writing" rather than booking. |
|
|
|
Post by k5 on Feb 9, 2009 0:20:49 GMT -5
this video sums it all up quite well.
|
|
|
|
Post by 49% Motherf**ker, 51% SOB on Feb 9, 2009 0:23:52 GMT -5
What I don't get is how his booking was sucessful in WWF, yet in WCW was just a mess. And he had Vince McMahon. |
|
|
|
Post by DTP. on Feb 9, 2009 4:47:10 GMT -5
I was reading the latest issue of POWERSLAM Magazine and it featured an interview with Chuck Palumbo, saying how Russo rushed him up to the main roster from PowerPlant when he was still green. He gave SOME people pushes, but the wrong people.
|
|
Deleted
Joined on: May 6, 2024 16:22:15 GMT -5
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 9, 2009 5:57:19 GMT -5
well said Jimmy McMahon was a key factor here.
as many great ideas as Russo had in WWF he also had some pretty bad ones that McMahon nixed straight away........and yeah without McMahon to exercise some restraint over them Russo and Ferrara lost their minds in WCW.
as Jimmy said Vinnie was the filter for thier ideas.....
|
|
