10 Plain Wrong Wrestling Myths Perpetuated By The IWC
3. Vince Russo Actually Had Several Good Ideas
No. No he didn't.
One or two, maybe. At a rate of one per month. But as the saying goes, even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Russo is often cited as the reason why wrestling is so dull these days. The business, according to more than you might realise, needs his idiosyncratic creative spark. Sure, most midcard feuds spring forth from nowhere in particular and end with neither man ascending much further up the card, but the alternative to that is something like the Kennel From Hell match.
Russo in fact irreparably damaged the wrestling business when he mangled WCW into something worse than an embarrassment, during which time he revealed himself to be a one trick pony at best. He destroyed Vince McMahon's competition to the extent that it wouldn't be surprising if he was a double agent.
The malaise you see on WWE TV - endless rematches, 50/50 booking, little character development - is pervasive because, thanks to Russo, WWE don't really have to try. But the killer is not also the cure.
Russo's destruction of WCW was mind-blowing. Writing characters to constantly break the script, renaming Booker T, a star in the ascendancy, as GI Bro, constant object on a pole matches...examples of his ineptitude are almost literally countless.
In 2014, Russo attempted to book his own version of RAW as part of the "Dear Vince" Project. In the very first episode, he booked Bray Wyatt to swerve turn on the Family. You couldn't make it up.