10 Things That Would Happen If Vince Russo Returned To WWE Today
5. Bra & Panties Revolution
Accusations of sexism were levied at Russo for years as a head writer of WWE and WCW products that presented an abhorrent vision of women to a predominately young male audience. Feasting adolescent desires with lurid scantily-clad showdowns, the narrative spectrum for females within his vision of Sports Entertainment was painfully small.
Women were expected to look a certain way (t*ts and teeth, hair colour optional), and act simultaneously subservient and bitchy depending on the men or fellow 'Divas' they were feuding with at the time. It was a poisonous attitude that lingered long in WWE after he departed, and permeated across the industry enough to craft the brand of the next number two promotion. Russo took credit for naming TNA as a play on 'T*ts and Ass' to be a signifier of their separation from McMahon's product as a weekly 'anything goes' pay-per-view.
Falling back on his religious leanings, Russo once parsed that women couldn't be leaders, because men were created first, and that he wasn't a sexist because men and women are fundamentally unequal due to their different genitalia. He'd look at WWE's vaunted attempt at equality the same way.
The fabulous array of matches and moments crafted by the group of innovative and era-defining superstars that make up Raw and SmackDown Live!'s Women's Divisions would do little to keep Russo's attention until they started performing them in swimming pools full of custard. In bikinis. Or less.