In fairness again to Bischoff and Russo, the odd angles and storylines that plagued WCW didnt start with their involvement with the company. Ole Anderson and Dusty Rhodes were both partial to the utterly nonsensical its one of the pitfalls of being a professional wrestling fan, having to try and suspend disbelief in the face of some of the weirdest storylines known to man. Vince Russo was in a league of his own, though. If you werent emotionally invested in WCW as a product, in Nitro as a TV show or in any of their roster as performers, Russos creations were a thing of damaged beauty, making almost no sense to anyone, least of all the poor fools who had to try and work those storylines and angles in the ring. He and Ed Ferrara had been under Vince McMahon in the WWF. Its impossible to overstate how hands on McMahon was and continues to be even in 2015. He barely ever sleeps, he gets things done while he eats and travels: he even works while he works out. Nothing got from Russos desk to WWF television without Vince McMahons enthusiastic approval, which in turn meant that the worst excesses of Russos fevered mind landed firmly in the wastepaper basket. Not so at WCW: as Anderson, Rhodes and Bischoff had before him, Russo had free reign to come up with whatever brainwrong he liked and see it on TV mere minutes later. Without that accountability, youve basically got no filter between you and the audience: and everyone needs an editor. A vast amount of the problems this article raises with decisions made at WCW would have been averted if there had only been someone in place willing and able to say no. In mid-2000, knee deep in the worst year in the companys history and enthusiastically heading into making it much, much worse, Russo would actually receive a report detailing a years worth of market research into the fanbase: what they liked, didnt like and wanted to see more of. It transpired that the wrestling audience wanted more proper wrestling on their wrestling show. Russo threw the report out. Clearly he knew better.
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
