WWE: 7 Innovations Vince Russo Did That Changed Wrestling

3. He Was Key In Development Of Major Stars

The same period of time that WWE started to surpass WCW in the Monday Night Wars (early 1998) is when Russo was fully entrenched as the top writer in WWE. After Vince McMahon, Russo had the most say in how things happened on WWE TV. He was number two. It was also this timeframe where some of WWE's biggest stars ever really started to grow as performers. Steve Austin became the top babyface, The Rock went from a nobody to the most charismatic man in all of entertainment, Triple H finally showed some personality, Mankind revealed other aspects of his bizarre personality and The Undertaker became more humanized while dumping the zombie aspects of his character. There's no reason to give Russo full credit for all of those talents going on to become big names because we're talking about some of the best performers ever. However, Russo played a key role in terms of crafting together storylines that helped them shine. A case could also be made that a lot of them became even more important after Russo left in the fall of 1999, but he should still be applauded for planting the seeds for what they would become.