The name Vince Russo tends to invoke certain feelings for wrestling fans. Most of them aren't good. If you don't know much about him, his biggest claim to fame was as a former WWE magazine writer that ended up as Vince McMahon's head writer on all WWE TV shows in the late 1990s. He was a big proponent of pushing attitude with the violence and the sex. A lot of his ideas were good, but he needed a filter like Vince McMahon too. In October of 1999, he jumped to WWE as the guy that calls the shots for them. He helped kill WCW with his idiotic booking and then he worked for TNA for many years. Russo might still be there behind the scenes. Needless to say, he never reached the success he had while in WWE. If you look at the way WWE changed in 2000 compared to 1999, it was like a completely different company. Russo's biggest problem was that he didn't seem to care about the actual matches. Because of his growing influence, 1999 was one of the worst years in WWE in terms of having great matches. Then Russo left and they had this incredible year in 2000. I'm not sure if there's one person to credit or not, but with Russo gone we got to witness some of the best booking of Vince McMahon's career. When Russo left, it was likely seen as a loss initially for WWE. Ultimately, was one of the best things that could have happened for WWE.
John wrote at WhatCulture from December 2013 to December 2015. It was fun, but it's over for now. Follow him on Twitter @johnreport. You can also send an email to mrjohncanton@gmail.com with any questions or comments as well.
