Is the world of wrestling to harsh on Russo

I know it’s an age old question. Many people have spoke about it and I just wanted your views. As a kid I was 10 during the attitude era and a huge wrestling fan. I was always a big WWF fan rather than a WCW and only heard details surrounding Goldberg etc. I was put off watching due to them having Hogan and me despising him.

My questions surrounds Russo. He is seen as the destroyer of WCW. The man who single handed destroyed the second biggest wrestling organisation in the world. Well that’s what many believe.

I recently started watching old WCW off this site and more importantly the bash at the beach in 2000 and the weeks that follow. Russo shooting on Hogan and the politics. Is Russo really to blame? He did come up with some good storylines. Isn’t wrestling all about the swerve. Isn’t wrestling all about the unexpected happening. All this was in abundance in WCW.

My question to you is the world of wrestling to tough on Russo. Is he to blame or like I believe the politics are to blame?

What are your views on Vince Russo?

Vince Russo is an easy target, without him some of the greatest things in the WWF would not have happened but without him we would also not have seen some of the most stupid gimmicks or story-lines either.

Russo during the attitude era came up with some brilliant stuff, however he didn't exactly cover himself in glory with other stuff though, its the nature of the beast, some you win some you lose!

When you are given 'carte blanche' on the creative its always going to go that way, some ideas appear perfect while others in reality could not be more stupid, with him being the be all and end all for a lot of the time then no one was there to challenge his thoughts, he was a victim of his own success at times, he got such impressive ratings results while in charge of the WWF that he was expected to keep that level of performance up and its in my opinion simply not possible the way he tried to do things, he wanted to continually shock people, continually have new ideas when in reality its near on impossible to bring something 'new' to the table on such a regular occurrence, there is nothing wrong with stability and I felt that was the one thing his shows never seemed to have.

I wouldn't lay the blame of WCW at his feet no matter who from that company like to pass the blame Russo's way, with Hogan, Sting, Hart, Goldberg and Nash all having creative control it was near on impossible to book a prolonged programme that could have people hooked once again because too many guys where only interested in there character and not in the actual show itself, and the suits upstairs offered little or no help what so ever to Russo.

Is the world or wrestlin to Harsh on Russo???????????

My answer is NO, he is up there to be shot down, but despite what many people say about him he is still in a top job with a well known company and he is still making the same mistakes he did years ago with the 'freshness' idea of his, he is obviously good at his job but he tries to over complicate things far to much for my liking!

But why is Russo seen as the reason WCW folded where as Heyman is seen as the reason ECW was succesful. Arnt fans taking a different stance over the same situation. Arnt the fans taking what hogan ssaid as gospel.

I agree with a lot of what you said. Russo did come up with stupig gimmicks. Putting the title on himself and david arquette can be seen as two of the stupidest moves in history. But it gained publicity.

I believe he had a plan for the company. A plan for each storyline. But unlike when WWE creative, ECW creative at the time Russo was scorned when he got it wrong which the rest never.

I do believe he could of made a go of WCW with out so many creatve control clauses in contracts. Would he of done a better job than bischoff, you never know

vinny russo is seen as ONE of the main reasons WCW folded, many are quick to blame him because he had control over what went down.

many other reasons are the bad booking from others who had creative control. i.e. hogan and nash.

but mainly russo, he kept churning out these mediocre plots and the crowd never really got excited by robocop or arquette winning the worlds heavyweight title

I personally think WCW was ballsed up before Russo even got there. When he did get there ratings improved straight away but WWE was still winning by quite some margin. I don't feel Russo could do a lot when the people he's directing have more control than him. WCW killed itself in so many ways. They overspent on everything, kept the same guys on top for years and nobody really wanted to be there. Most of this was down to Bishoff who I believe was a lot more responsible than Russo. Maybe Russo didn't gain any fans but I don't believe it was his fault they lost any either. Admittedly he didn't exactly help things and had (overall) a more negative effect but it's mad to suggest it's all his fault.

Pablo wrote:

but mainly russo, he kept churning out these mediocre plots and the crowd never really got excited by robocop or arquette winning the worlds heavyweight title

Russo is on record as saying it was a suit who suggested Arquette won the title and no one in that meeting vetoed it at all so he was tasked with the job to book it, whether thats right or wrong is anyone guess, however the Robocop thing baffles me Pabz, I'm sure that angle was done about EIGHT years BEFORE Russo went to WCW, could be wrong though!

WCW done the impossible they became more popular than WWF and they used guys for far to long at the top like Nash Hogan Sting (although he was still the man as far as WCW was concerned and Goldberg

By 1998 the guys who should have been pushed to the main event where Scott Hall, it was his time to shine as 'the man' Bret Hart who they should have used more productively and used his departure at WWF as a means for his push, Chris Jericho and Chris Beniot along with Eddie Guerrero, those where five guys that where more than capable of making the main event division watchable, it would have been fresh as well, what happens however, these guys get messed around so much and they either just get too comfortable in there own positions (Sting and Hall) or they move on to bigger and better things and all become world champions in the WWF/E

But is it russos fault that Sting, Hogan, etc refused to relinquish there position at the top. He obviuosly tried but with the clauses they were never really going to allow some one else to taker there payday.

Shouldn't the person who offered these contracts in the first palce be responsible for the demise of WCW. BISHOFF OR TURNER

villarule19 wrote:

My questions surrounds Russo. He is seen as the destroyer of WCW. The man who single handed destroyed the second biggest wrestling organisation in the world. Well that’s what many believe.

Iv called bullshit on that many times, Russo did not kill WCW, he played his part sure, but so did Bischoff /Hogan and the other wankers. Yet they seem to pretty much get away with it in some peoples eyes.

Russo should never have been the man that called the shots, some of his WCW stuff was shit and so is a lot of his TNA stuff.

I think Russo did good with what he had to play with, but the booking went through so many 'suit's' that different guy's wanted different shit to happen, with a number of folk having the final say's. But Russo's sucess came from the fact that he saw it for what it is, TV, and he booked it accordingly, the rating's rocketed, folk got paid.

10 year's ago we would be saying Russo was the best in the business, he was tried and tested at that point and that's why WCW snapped him up, and the rating's prooved his sucess, when he moved over, he took like 600,000 veiwer's with him, still not beating WWF but still...

He brought abit more gimmick's to his booking, matches, charector's etc... Though it proved sucessful at first, I guess people just got sick of his booking in recent year's.

As Gaffer said, you cant blame WCW's demise on any one person. Overspending, too much creative say from the wrestler's, or a bad set of booker's/ creative team, it all helped in some way to fuck Turner, Russo, Bischoff, even the wrestler's who wouldn't give up this creative control, in some way or another.

villarule19 wrote:

But why is Russo seen as the reason WCW folded where as Heyman is seen as the reason ECW was succesful. Arnt fans taking a different stance over the same situation. Arnt the fans taking what hogan ssaid as gospel.

everyone, including old ecw stars, knows heyman was the reason the company went bust. It's different because heyman's problem was a financial one, not a booking one. ECW never reached the hights of WCW, and just simply didn't generate enough revenue, where as on Russo's watch, WCW went from being very popular to a dieing company.

But isnt it the bookers job to generate income. Therefore heyman, like russo and bischoff failed?

But it didn't go from being popular to a dying company on Russo's watch, on the contrary, he gained them more rating's in his time at WCW, then he got fired and the rating wnet with Russo, by the time he was back at WCW, it was probably too late for Russo to do anything to change it.

villarule19 wrote:

But isnt it the bookers job to generate income. Therefore heyman, like russo and bischoff failed?

You could look at it like that although that would surely just be nitpicking, Hayman NEVER had the resources to compete, its a near on miracle that ECW actually made as big an impact as it did with so much restrictions, WCW had to many high earners doing not enough for the company, that was no fault of Vince Russo!

Hayman was a victim of his own success, he wrote and created shows that become extremely popular and he unfortunately had to build on it and all that happened in a time when everyone was more interested in putting money into the big shows and organisations

I think it was bubba ray that said in their shoot interviews that Heyman was a booking genius, but financially retarded.

Within 3 weeks of Russo and Ferrera taking over booking in WCW their ratings increased .06 and WWF's decreased .05 which is the about what WWE's ratings flutuate by week-to-week these days, in them days it was seen as a sign that the tide was turning in WCW's favour but some bizarre booking decisions, the abandonment of storylines and angles mid-run and the unwillingness of any of the over 40's club to put ANYONE over led to those ratings decreasing 3.0 within the year. ratings they never got back and until recently WWF never lost.

Vince Russo and all the stuff surrounding his tenures in WCW is one of my very favourite subjects in all of wrestling, that along with Montreal, and I could talk about either of them all day.

Im of the opinion that Russo should take some of the blame for the decline of WCW, It's true that he had very little option in booking Arquette as WCW champion and to be fair he booked it in a 'flukey' manner, it isn't as if he went through Goldberg in 30 seconds. HOWEVER, Russo also had some damn stupid ideas, Tank Abbot to win a battle royal for the WCW title, Goldberg as super heel, himself as a vince McMahon style villian, all rubbish and all made viewers turn off, The most blame has to lay with HULK HOGAN.

HULK HOGAN MADE WCW A MONSTER THEN KILLED IT.