WWE: 7 Innovations Vince Russo Did That Changed Wrestling

By John Canton /

Vince Russo is one of the most polarizing figures in wrestling history. A lot of fans that don't read about the wrestling business may know nothing about the guy. Those of us that are online wrestling fans generally have an opinion whether it's positive or negative. A lot of the time the opinions are strongly negative too. When you think about what Russo was in WWE and his role as a head writer he deserves a lot of praise also. Russo was a magazine editor and writer for WWE in the 1990s. By 1996 he joined the creative team. In early 1997 he became the head writer. That didn't mean that he had final say on things. That was Vince McMahon and it still is McMahon. However, after McMahon it was Russo that had the most influence on the things that we saw on WWE TV during the Attitude Era. By the spring of 1998 with Russo fully entrenched as the head writer, WWE had surpassed WCW and never looked back. The reason Russo has a lot of heat with wrestling fans is because once he left WWE in October of 1999 he went on to be in charge of WCW. He was in charge for several months, then sent home, then brought back and then sent home a final time. A lot of stupid things happened. In less than two years, WCW died while WWE went on to have arguably its best year ever when Russo was gone in 2000. He's worked with TNA for the majority of the last ten years, but he never went back to WWE although he was close. This feature will look at seven things that Russo did that helped change wrestling while he was a key figure in WWE's Attitude Era. We're not here to say that he deserves more credit than the performers. Without him, though, we may never have been able to witness a period of wrestling that was so beloved by WWE fans.