Ya gotta love the Dude. He was just so different from every other aspect of Mick Foley. He was supposedly Mick’s childhood dream character that he was told he was too ugly to play when he first debuted. And that kind of intentional “cool cat” tackiness is just so entertaining.
lus the fact that Russo actually is a horrific writer who thinks wrestling broadcasts should be a “TV program about a wrestling show”. I realize this is suddenly a Russo circlejerk, but he’s provided an insane, ridiculous amount of evidence that he is a terrible booker, and it’s not that he’s “a genius when controlled” by Vince McMahon, it’s that he appears as “a genius” because Vince McMahon shot down 75% of his ideas.
That’s not a very good success rate; the only reason he was ever put in that position is VKM was grasping at straws while WCW was kicking his ass, and mimicking ECW, along with the Bret controversy and landing a few key peices of talent, combined with Eric Bischoff having his announcers actively tell the fans “turn the channel to see a title change” (then handing the book to a wrestler who wasn’t respected in the locker room, Kevin Nash), is what really got WWF over the hump. Not Vince Russo.
Hah, fair enough, but you know what I mean. It’s how Kevin Sullivan described it and it’s extremely accurate. Vince Russo thinks pro wrestling should be a show about a pro wrestling company, akin to reality TV. No one wants that, whether he realizes it or not - not wrestling fans, not casual fans, no one wants a worked reality TV show about a wrestling company.
He hit a huge stride of success by pushing the envelope. The problem with that is if you keep going to that well you end up in the land of the ridiculous over enough time.
Vince M has good ideas and shit ideas. Vince R has good ideas and shit ideas. HHH has good ideas and shit ideas.
Ryan Ward is the Booker/Head of Creative of NXT and seems to have just discovered how to book a wrestling show some time after Respect despite being in charge for around a year now and creating the best NXT Special, R Evolution. Or maybe he’s only good at writing around November, I dunno.
I feel like Vince Russo was great for his time and with limitations from Vince and other long time wrestlers he was very controlled and perfect for the Attitude era.
Problem is that wrestling is not like the attitude era. It wasn’t before and it is a lot more similar to the old days on TV now then the Attitude era mostly because it is just a different day and age where fans expect something a bit more realistic.
Vince Russo back in the day was phenomenal and he has the same mind for wrestling now but I feel like he fit into a time in wrestling that was very specific and niche to the times. Modern day wrestling does not need Russo nor does it want his particular brand of writing.
Leave a Reply