10 Wild Wrestling Plans That Were JUST NOW Discovered

10. The Shotgun Saturday Night Tough Guy Champion

On a recent edition of his 'Experience' podcast, Jim Cornette claimed to have retained in his possession, for 25 years, a list of wild and naturally awful Vince Russo ideas. He deduced that these alleged ideas were Russo's because they were so sh*tty. He offered up Shane McMahon as an alternative, but since none of the ideas involved Shane himself annihilating Dan Severn to a bloody pulp, they can't have been his.

This list actually represents the origin story behind the fabled, pathetic Russo Vs. Cornette saga: it was when reading this list of pitches that Cornette first determined he and Russo would not prove to be effective collaborators.

Pitched before the disastrous RAW of March 3, 1997, the taped Berlin show that looked indistinguishable to Heroes of Wrestling from a production standpoint - a show so stripped-back in its wrestling brilliance that Vince McMahon deduced, with Russo's urging, that wrestling itself was the problem - this was Russo's attempt to worm himself into the process.

Astonishingly, it worked, despite one such idea suggesting the creation of a new title: the Shotgun Tough Guy champion!

Per "Russo", the champ would defend the title exclusively on the experimental Shotgun Saturday Night show, and naturally, it would be contested exclusively in gimmick matches - "bar room stool in each man's corner, tables, whatever".

Now, here's something. The tables match was not invented until three years later, and was so successful that it remains a fixture to this day. Is this "list of ideas" on the level, or was Russo not that bad?

The word "whatever" here is very telling, mind. The subtext is hard not to read as "whatever, as long as it isn't a boring wrestling match".

Russo pitched Crush as the first Tough Guy Champion, and was going to have a precious badge instead of a belt. You know, the kind of thing a kid wears when they want to be a police officer.

This was not the only asinine idea that Russo scribbled down...