10 Things That Would Happen If Vince Russo Returned To WWE Today
Yankee Doodles.
As part of his continued efforts to remain relevant in professional wrestling's sphere of influence, former WWE and WCW creative head Vince Russo popped up this week to offer his services to Vince McMahon some 18 years after he left the organisation following a lucrative offer to 'save' Ted Turner's ailing Atlanta brand.
His career went south almost as quickly as he did following the move, with most of his disastrous moments pored over during WCW's autopsy less than two years later when McMahon gobbled up his chief rival in March 2001. And yet, in 2017, he believes he can 'fix' WWE's problematic ratings slide.
Bro. Come on. Bro.
As a man more than once referred to as a 'cancer' from fellow insiders, Russo irrevocably damaged his reputation with the chaotic WCW stint, and did little to reverse the trending viewpoint in staggered tenures with TNA/Impact Wrestling for the better part of a decade after their 2002 inception.
However, wrestling is a serendipitous industry, and his latest comments come during a time many fans find themselves reminiscing about 1997, the year WCW blossomed and WWE aggressively adjusted their output to compete.
Jim Cornette has long been one of Vince Russo's fiercest critics, but he once posited that '1997 wasn't the year that did record business, but was the year that set up the years that would do record business'. It's perhaps backhandedly the biggest compliment he could pay Russo, who's radical ideologies spearheaded so much of that change.
20 years later, how would he similarly reshuffle the current pack?
10. Charlotte Flair Shaved Bald
Vince Russo didn't have a great deal of respect for tradition when it came to Ric Flair in WCW, so he'd likely salivate at the opportunity to humiliate the next generation just as he'd attempted to in the pair's original Atlanta feud.
In 2000, Russo wanted Ric Flair to retire, both on and off-screen. He hadn't been the first force within the organisation to suggest that 'The Nature Boy's advancing age and diminishing returns at the box office implied fans were tired of one of the characters most closely associated with the brand.
Both Jim Herd and Eric Bischoff tried and failed to subdue Flair's aura (and thus political power) during the 1990s in order to shunt him out of their way, but these attempts predictably only galvanised support for 'Slick Ric' amongst his core audience.
By the year 2000, such vast quantities of that audience had abandoned WCW because of Russo that he'd inadvertently made the job a lot easier.
In an unpleasant angle that dragged in Ric's entire family, Russo and Flair's turncoat son David became embroiled in a battle with the patriarch, along with his then-wife Beth, daughters Megan and Ashley (Charlotte) and late son Reid. The chance to resume long-forgotten conflicts with Ashley (possibly as per a relationship he'd egotistically form with another current female star) and recreate the infamous Nitro head-shaving would be too delicious for 'Vinnie-Ru' to ignore.