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Russo was quite full of himself and bold in parts especially undermining Vince's input and basically saying he had a knack of *tweaking* good ideas to make them even better, cementing Vince's true genius by knowing how to turn a good idea into an even better one is sort of pretentious in the way he was speaking and caught Austin cold I feel, after a while Austin's whole voice palette changed once he realized how full of shit Russo is, even correcting him on the whole magazine cover thing. But it was a enjoyable listen, Russo is a guilty pleasure.

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Man, my feelings on Russo really got complicated a few years ago. I was raised, like any good smark, to believe Jim Cornette was wrestling's Angel and understand everything there is to understand about the business and is the perfect booker l. And that Russo killed the business.

But then Kaufabe Commentaries released a "Guest Booker" series with each one of them rebooking the InVasion. And Cornette's was a big pile of stinkin' shit. It was all inside stuff and shoots and garbage. And Russo's was pretty great. I woulda loved that angle. I became so confused that day and I've never recovered.

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I'm the same Big Fresh, up until his ROH run I thought Cornette was the be-all and end-all of booking, then I listened to Russo and then Cornette's Invasion booking and that was it for me

But to be fair to Cornette's video, I have added "Wouldn't you know who won the pony?" to my vocabulary because that story was so great.

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I agree that Russo's Invasion was much better than Cornette's. Ironically enough, it was also more realistic and seemed to have better big picture long term planning.

 

Look, Russo's obviously not some amazing wrestling booker/writer. But people hate him like he's a dictator. I really don't think he's a bad guy. He generally doesn't come across as such.

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I agree that Russo's Invasion was much better than Cornette's. Ironically enough, it was also more realistic and seemed to have better big picture long term planning.

 

Look, Russo's obviously not some amazing wrestling booker/writer. But people hate him like he's a dictator. I really don't think he's a bad guy. He generally doesn't come across as such.

 

He killed something we loved.

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I agree that Russo's Invasion was much better than Cornette's. Ironically enough, it was also more realistic and seemed to have better big picture long term planning.

 

Look, Russo's obviously not some amazing wrestling booker/writer. But people hate him like he's a dictator. I really don't think he's a bad guy. He generally doesn't come across as such.

Meh. I put only slightly more stock in fantasy booking from ex-bookers as I do in posters here. You have to judge people by their actual work, not a what-if.

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Russo and Bischoff both come across as pretty good people, but no one ever suggested they were mass murderers or anything. The main criticism was their total mismanagement of companies they were involved with.

 

Eric's rep is more redeemed than Russo because he had a pretty good run as a WWE character and is, generally, viewed as a good TV producer (though not great at creative).

 

The problem with Russo is that he has a totally misguided view of what wrestling is, and what it should be. Plus, he's one of the biggest misogynists and racists in the business. 

 

And it's quite valid to think that both Cornette and Russo should never be allowed to book a wrestling company again. 

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Vince Russo always struck me as someone who would be good at giving you the premise of a story but could not be relied on to actually fill in the minutia. In the WWF, it seemed that he had some people who were pretty decent at filling in the minutia and some good stories were told as a result. The Deadly Games tournament that led to Rock's big turn and run was pretty good, as was the subsequent Mankind title chase and victory. I would have Russo pitch story ideas, but I would NOT trust him with actually executing the stories. 

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I think what strikes me the most about the Russo interview is how willing Vince was to go with such an unproven guy.  He must have really been desperate for a change, and Russo did inject some attitude in the product.  Russo really could have been anyone, but not the guys who had been around the business at that time.  It really took 2 guys, Bischoff and Russo, with not much wrestling experience to start the boom.  Cornette, Dusty, Watts, Vince, and all the rest could not have jump started this thing.  They were needed to keep everything on track, but there needed to be that new blood.  Or I could be totally full of shit.  

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I think what strikes me the most about the Russo interview is how willing Vince was to go with such an unproven guy.  He must have really been desperate for a change, and Russo did inject some attitude in stuffing instead of potatoes.  Russo really could have been anyone, but not the guys who had been around the business at that time.  It really took 2 guys, Bischoff and Russo, with not much wrestling experience to start the boom.  Cornette, Dusty, Watts, Vince, and all the rest could not have jump started this thing.  They were needed to keep everything on track, but there needed to be that new blood.  Or I could be totally full of shit.  

 

I think there is something to this.  Sometimes you need an outsider's view of things.  Doesn't mean you scrap everything, but you have to be willing to challenge the generally accepted norms.  Its probably why Russo worked fine with Vince: Vince got an outsiders perspective and went with what he thought would work best from that.

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I think what strikes me the most about the Russo interview is how willing Vince was to go with such an unproven guy.  He must have really been desperate for a change, and Russo did inject some attitude in stuffing instead of potatoes.  Russo really could have been anyone, but not the guys who had been around the business at that time.  It really took 2 guys, Bischoff and Russo, with not much wrestling experience to start the boom.  Cornette, Dusty, Watts, Vince, and all the rest could not have jump started this thing.  They were needed to keep everything on track, but there needed to be that new blood.  Or I could be totally full of shit.  

 

I think there is something to this.  Sometimes you need an outsider's view of things.  Doesn't mean you scrap everything, but you have to be willing to challenge the generally accepted norms.  Its probably why Russo worked fine with Vince: Vince got an outsiders perspective and went with what he thought would work best from that.

 

 

Although it's slightly dishonest to pretend that Bischoff was a complete outsider when he took the reigns of WCW. He did spend a few years in the AWA in 80s. 

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I think what strikes me the most about the Russo interview is how willing Vince was to go with such an unproven guy.  He must have really been desperate for a change, and Russo did inject some attitude in stuffing instead of potatoes.  Russo really could have been anyone, but not the guys who had been around the business at that time.  It really took 2 guys, Bischoff and Russo, with not much wrestling experience to start the boom.  Cornette, Dusty, Watts, Vince, and all the rest could not have jump started this thing.  They were needed to keep everything on track, but there needed to be that new blood.  Or I could be totally full of shit.  

 

I think there is something to this.  Sometimes you need an outsider's view of things.  Doesn't mean you scrap everything, but you have to be willing to challenge the generally accepted norms.  Its probably why Russo worked fine with Vince: Vince got an outsiders perspective and went with what he thought would work best from that.

 

 

Although it's slightly dishonest to pretend that Bischoff was a complete outsider when he took the reigns of WCW. He did spend a few years in the AWA in 80s. 

 

 

Hell, he spent a few years in WCW too. 

 

wjjk81.jpg

 

halloween havoc 91. He lived through Herd, Frey, and Watts.

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I think what strikes me the most about the Russo interview is how willing Vince was to go with such an unproven guy.  He must have really been desperate for a change, and Russo did inject some attitude in stuffing instead of potatoes.  Russo really could have been anyone, but not the guys who had been around the business at that time.  It really took 2 guys, Bischoff and Russo, with not much wrestling experience to start the boom.  Cornette, Dusty, Watts, Vince, and all the rest could not have jump started this thing.  They were needed to keep everything on track, but there needed to be that new blood.  Or I could be totally full of shit.  

 

I think there is something to this.  Sometimes you need an outsider's view of things.  Doesn't mean you scrap everything, but you have to be willing to challenge the generally accepted norms.  Its probably why Russo worked fine with Vince: Vince got an outsiders perspective and went with what he thought would work best from that.

 

 

Although it's slightly dishonest to pretend that Bischoff was a complete outsider when he took the reigns of WCW. He did spend a few years in the AWA in 80s. 

 

 

Hell, he spent a few years in WCW too. 

 

wjjk81.jpg

 

halloween havoc 91. He lived through Herd, Frey, and Watts.

 

 

Hell, he even auditioned to be a WWF announcer back in 1990. Bischoff was a wrestling insider by 1996, by a pretty big long shot.

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more Russo

 

Of course Russo singles out El Torito for criticism.

 

"We never had a 2 segment match" - we noticed

 

Russo's scientific process for the Val Venus gimmick? "this guy looks like a porn star"

 

Pretty neat coding by Austin on the "Didn't want to work with Jeff Jarrett" story

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These Russo interviews reminded me how much his voice annoyed me when he was on TV in TNA and WCW.

 

Also, the two segment match thing is completely wrong.

 

Yes, it is odd to split away mid-match for something, but wrestling fans want to see good quality wrestling, and that is a rarity in a single segment match.

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Yes, it is odd to split away mid-match for something, but wrestling fans want to see good quality wrestling, and that is a rarity in a single segment match.

 

It would be odder if every single match just so magically happened to end by each scheduled commercial break.

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It's total bullshit. Both Raw and Nitro had plenty of long matches (usually main events) which went through at least one commercial break during Vinnie Roo's tenure. The match after KOTR 99 when Austin regained the belt from Taker, for just one concrete example. (EDIT: and COUNTLESS examples from when he worked for TNA on Spike, they were ADDICTED to cutting to commercials during matches.) As usual, Russo is just blatantly inventing a bunch of obvious lies in order to provide imaginary backup for whatever his current idiotic opinion is. Has anyone with less intelligence, less talent, and less credibility EVER been handed so much power in the wrestling industry, and gone on to have such a depressingly large influence on the business?

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