WWE: 7 Innovations Vince Russo Did That Changed Wrestling

4. He Gave Midcard Wrestlers Storylines & Character Depth

If there's one thing that Russo was great at in terms of the big picture perspective it's that he had a great grasp of understanding that everybody on the show needed to be unique in their own way. It was always important for him to do that. It's something that midcarders likely appreciated. If you watch WWE today, there are dozens of them with no character traits or direction. Think about characters in the late 1990s like how the New Age Outlaws came together as a team, The Brood as this group of dark characters, Val Venis the porn star, Godfather the pimp, the Acolytes, Too Cool and even Kaientai had a gimmick. A lot of those were lower level characters too. We'll get to the bigger names as well. When you're a midcard wrestler and you're not featured in the main programs, all you really want is some kind of character development because that way you can work it on the house shows on the weekend. When you get the chance to be on TV you have to maximize every opportunity you get. In today's WWE, a lot of those talents never get to be on and if they do they have no character traits. The problem with giving so many character storylines is that they would have too many people on a show or matches that didn't really mean anything. At least Russo cared enough to give those talents time to develop whether they were good characters or not.