WCW Uncensored 1995 was panned for bad wrestling and goofy gimmick matches. New Blood Rising and basically every Russo-era WCW PPV is panned for incoherent and nonsensical booking, awful wrestling, really bad gimmicks and even worse gimmick matches, constant 'insider' references and terminology, and incoherent flow. Mid-90s WCW and WWE look like gold compared to Russo-era WCW. Basically every era of wrestling is better than Russo-era WCW.New Blood Rising was a bad pay-per-view but WCW did a lot of terrible ppv's which had nothing to do with Vince Russo. WCW Uncensored 1995 is panned as one of its worst pay-per-views.
Bischoff was never the head exec in charge of Russo. Russo came in three weeks after Bischoff got fired in 1999. Bischoff came back in the spring of 2000 as a creative consultant, essentially being a member of the creative team under Russo. Russo came back as the head of creative, and had already packed the creative team with his guys (i.e Ed Ferrara) and was the head of creative under Brad Siegel and Bill Busch so it meant nothing anyways and Bischoff was essentially canned with Hogan at Bash at the Beach 2000.Bischoff can blame Russo in his 83 Weeks podcast but he was the head exec in charge and shouldn't have given Russo the green light on those ideas.
It's no wonder why the two companies that employed him with free reign are either dead or on life support. Vince Russo getting work has more to do with desperate people making desperate decisions than the wrestling ecosystem genuinely needing him.There is no other business in the world that would employ Russo for 12 FUCKING YEARS and that is what makes wrestling both epic and unepic
Companies are worse off without him because when he leaves, the company has to clean up his shit, and that can bury a company (i.e WCW, i.e TNA).Will never really understand the hate Russo gets. Every company he's been apart of was worse off without him. Even in WCW, at least he tried something with the Arquette angle, and when he booked himself into the main event the majority of it was spent getting brain damage from Goldberg. Over time I've grown to appreciate his take on wrestling, it's weird but I think he actually protected the wrestlers and the matches more. Matches were like 6-7 minutes long on RAW, not many 14 minute commercial break ridden slog matches between two guys with no character. Made the PPVs feel special. I'm much more of a promo/angle > workrate guy, which is primarily why I stopped watching.
The vitriol against this guy who was key in creating the most popular era in wrestling history is unwarranted imo. In his shoot interviews, if he takes credit for something it's an exaggeration and if he denies his involvement in a bad angle it was his brainchild and he's seething. He can't win with smarks and it's been this way since 1999. I like listening to Cornette sometimes, but his fanbase are a cringe factory. Telling Stone Cold not to have Russo on as a guest and shit, just petty.
Should be noted that the average PPV buys went down by 75-80% from the moment Russo joined in his larger spell to when he got kicked out in February of 2012.Wrestling is all about paying ones dues to earn a spot on the upper mid card to see if they can get you over with the fans to go on a title run. So to see someone like David Arquette win the world title just to promote a movie WCW where doing at the time was just bad business.
I can remember watching the first hour of Nitro until Raw started on Friday nights but was still keeping up to date with what wcw was doing and found some of it mildly interesting enough so to keep watching until Russo arrived.
WCW became a product with nothing left to sell shortly after and while he had to deal with guys like hogan
Promoters and bookers have had to deal with guys like that for years and found ways to make it work but since Russo held no traction in the wrestling world , Hogan was always going to dominate any negotiation regarding which direction his creative was taking.
All Russo did was tear down any kind of credibility WCW had left
He didn't. WCW was in the shitter before he arrived, and after he showed up they used his presence to retcon any wrongdoing by Eric and the booking committee. He had good ideas for the most part, pushing Booker T and getting on the cover of magazines, but the entire company was about to be sold and Ted was sick of this shit. Don't blame him for WCW at all. In TNA he got the show to higher ratings than current AEW. Pushed Abyss and the Main Event Mafia, which were both bright spots imo.You can't promote an entertainment-based style, but suck at it.
He booked the greatest wrestling shows ever produced. Obviously didn't do it alone, but neither did they without him.Wrestling is still wrestling regardless of what the emphasis is, and he could not book a wrestling show
The Rock and Steve Austin and Russo had no part in either of them becoming the top stars in the industry, at the time.
He didn't. WCW was in the shitter before he arrived, and after he showed up they used his presence to retcon any wrongdoing by Eric and the booking committee. He had good ideas for the most part, pushing Booker T and getting on the cover of magazines, but the entire company was about to be sold and Ted was sick of this shit. Don't blame him for WCW at all. In TNA he got the show to higher ratings than current AEW. Pushed Abyss and the Main Event Mafia, which were both bright spots imo.
He booked the greatest wrestling shows ever produced. Obviously didn't do it alone, but neither did they without him.
It's not that he's never had a good idea or that he hasn't done something good, but to disregard his many shortfalls because of some of his successes is a bit redundant. The fact is, he booked some really bad wrestling overall. They weren't all his ideas, but he was the head of creative for WCW and TNA, and all that shit happened under his watch. His whole philosophy is one that just doesn't work with wrestling anymore. He's the opposite of Jim Cornette in that regard, but at least Cornette's ideas aren't cringey (for the most part).I will admit Russo got them to higher ratings. This was in a time where ratings really didn't matter much - There was no significant TV revenue yet. The truth is, every business-related measuring stick beyond ratings was down or didn't improve when Russo was there. Ticket sales were getting worse for PPVs, PPV sales were down like I pointed out before, they never turned a profit with Russo around. (Then again, they never turned a profit)
The ratings can be explained as well: Prime-time airing, bigger promotion, more money pumped into the promotion by getting big house names like Hogan, Flair and Jeff Hardy. Comparing it with AEW 9 years later; TV ratings are a completely different beast. 800k now is more valuable than 1.5m back then, how weird it might sound. It's the truth. AEW is a healthier company right now than TNA was in their prime and every business measurement supports that.
It's not that he only did bad things, obviously some people appreciated him a great bit and he had plenty of good ideas as well. The numbers speak for themselves, though.