Paid Members Supremo Posted February 7 Paid Members Posted February 7 Do you think this happens in other mediums? Are there One Hit Wonders in music, TV, movies or games where they’re still sniffing around for a job twenty years later, droning on about how this time they’ve got the secret ingredient to fix everything and make another huge success? Does Chesney Hawkes even have a podcast, with or without Conrad? Quote
Paid Members LaGoosh Posted February 7 Paid Members Posted February 7 1 hour ago, TheScarlettChad said: I loved that his big idea in 2002 was redoing the invasion, and they told him to (rightfully) fuck off. Absolute hack. I thought his big idea was turning The Rock gay? Quote
TheScarlettChad Posted February 7 Posted February 7 10 minutes ago, LaGoosh said: I thought his big idea was turning The Rock gay? I didn't even know that. In 2002? Quote
Paid Members Carbomb Posted February 7 Paid Members Posted February 7 1 hour ago, Supremo said: Do you think this happens in other mediums? Are there One Hit Wonders in music, TV, movies or games where they’re still sniffing around for a job twenty years later, droning on about how this time they’ve got the secret ingredient to fix everything and make another huge success? Does Chesney Hawkes even have a podcast, with or without Conrad? Rick Astley was on Radio 2 yesterday morning. Quote
Paid Members Statto Posted February 7 Paid Members Posted February 7 1 hour ago, Supremo said: Does Chesney Hawkes even have a podcast, with or without Conrad? He's got a fairly lengthy run of shows in Germany, Austria & over here starting in a couple of weeks, so he's still getting work in his chosen field. Unlike Vince Russo. Quote
Members SuperBacon Posted February 7 Members Posted February 7 24 minutes ago, Statto said: He's got a fairly lengthy run of shows in Germany, Austria & over here starting in a couple of weeks, so he's still getting work in his chosen field. Unlike Vince Russo. He's the one and only bro. Quote
Paid Members Devon Malcolm Posted February 7 Author Paid Members Posted February 7 I'm interested in people saying that one of the few positives with Russo was that he gave everyone something to do. How can that be a positive when almost all of it was bollocks? It was nothing more than throwing as much shit at a screen as possible and hoping something sticks. Nobody thinks more of Vince Russo than Vince Russo. Of course lots of shitarses think the world of him, because he put them on telly when they didn't deserve to be there. Quote
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted February 7 Paid Members Posted February 7 3 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said: I'm interested in people saying that one of the few positives with Russo was that he gave everyone something to do. How can that be a positive when almost all of it was bollocks? Yeah he sure gave Judy Bagwell something to do in WCW. Gave Juvi something to do in that piñata on a pole match or whatever it was. Gave Ed Ferreira something to do as Oklahoma. Even in the WWF, he had Terri do that awful miscarriage storyline. Beaver Cleavage? Key? The list could go on and on. He’s an idiot and I genuinely think the credit he gets for the WWF’s success in the late 90s is a bit overblown anyway. He might’ve opened Vince’s (McMahon) eyes to getting with the times and ‘doing more of what was in the magazine’ on TV. Credit to him for that because it needed a different direction at that point. But as far as the actual coming up with ideas week to week, how much of that was actually Russo? The success of the WWF in 97-2000 was centred around the top guys and, while I obviously wasn’t backstage in the meetings, I’d be pretty confident that it was still mostly McMahon, Patterson etc who were all over that stuff, with some input from Russo and whoever. I suspect most of Russo’s ideas that got used were for the mid to lower card guys that McMahon didn’t care about. And like you say, a lot of that was complete arse. Quote
Paid Members Carbomb Posted February 7 Paid Members Posted February 7 28 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said: I'm interested in people saying that one of the few positives with Russo was that he gave everyone something to do. How can that be a positive when almost all of it was bollocks? It was nothing more than throwing as much shit at a screen as possible and hoping something sticks. Nobody thinks more of Vince Russo than Vince Russo. Of course lots of shitarses think the world of him, because he put them on telly when they didn't deserve to be there. To be honest, I was only thinking in terms of his later TNA run - surprisingly, there was a lot less of his shock-value bollocks in there. Everyone had something to do, and it wasn't overly stupid or convoluted. Like I said, though, that really is the only positive I can think of regarding Russo. Everything else was the drizzling shits. I particularly hate the shoot-work stuff; it's just dire. Quote
Paid Members LaGoosh Posted February 7 Paid Members Posted February 7 1 hour ago, wandshogun09 said: I’d be pretty confident that it was still mostly McMahon, Patterson etc who were all over that stuff, with some input from Russo and whoever. I suspect most of Russo’s ideas that got used were for the mid to lower card guys that McMahon didn’t care about. And like you say, a lot of that was complete arse. I feel like probably most of it originated from Russo but went through filtering by the old hands Vince had at his side to turn it into something that made sense. Quote
AshC Posted February 7 Posted February 7 Yeah, Russo was clearly a big part of it. He was helped by having some all-timers like Austin and Rock. But he was clearly a genuinely good writer at the time of one of their highest highs. Quote
Paid Members tiger_rick Posted February 9 Paid Members Posted February 9 On 2/7/2026 at 4:21 PM, Devon Malcolm said: I'm interested in people saying that one of the few positives with Russo was that he gave everyone something to do. How can that be a positive when almost all of it was bollocks? It was nothing more than throwing as much shit at a screen as possible and hoping something sticks. Nobody thinks more of Vince Russo than Vince Russo. Of course lots of shitarses think the world of him, because he put them on telly when they didn't deserve to be there. I think it was a positive in the WWF because they had a mid and lower card that was incredibly weak compared to the top 4 or 5 talents at the top of the card. They'd start to fix it in late 1999 when E&C/Hardys/Angle/Jericho/Radicalz/Rikishi & Too Cool all turned up or got a prominent position between August 99 and January 2000. Prior to that, the lower card guys were fucking awful and whether it was Russo and Ferrera who deserve the credit, they were given gimmicks that got over and hid their weaknesses. There was the initial Gang War stuff, the new Nation, establishing the New Age Outlaws, Godfather, Venis, Misogynist Jarrett, Sexual Chocolate, etc. Plenty of shite still, like LOD v2, LOD 2000, Confed Godwinns, Beaver Cleavage and loads more but I think if you're being charitable, you'd have to admit they made the best of a small and pretty weak roster. When they went to WCW, they clearly believed their own hype and also recycled most of it when anyone who wasn't a on-trick pony would have realised that it was completely unnecessary. WCW still had a great roster. They didn't need stupid gimmicks and crash TV, they needed consistent pushes for hoards of talented mid-carders to put them on the level of the still very established star-roster they had on top. Oh, and to put the World Title back on Bill Goldberg ASAP and run with him until his legs fell off. Quote
Paid Members BomberPat Posted February 9 Paid Members Posted February 9 On 2/7/2026 at 9:46 AM, Arch Stanton said: The frustrating thing about Russo is that he does make some good points, and probably would contribute some good ideas, but he's just such a monumental overbearing weirdo that nobody in their right mind can work with him. I'm not sure he makes any good points that would be worth the hassle. There's nothing in that email trail to suggest that he has a single original idea. Does he really think he's unique in saying, "be more mainstream, bro, do shorter matches and more character work, bro", when there's a thousand people on Twitter giving them that exact same feedback for free? Even his ideas of how to be more mainstream and latch on to current trends don't have any heft behind them, because it's the same thing he's been talking about forever, with no effort to update it for media trends or viewing habits today. Probably because a bloke old enough to get his bus pass isn't the beacon of pop culture and relevancy he likes to think he is. As far as the praise of Russo goes, "everyone had something to do" is a really good starting point, and I think that had a lot to do with while Attitude era midcarders still elicit a lot more of a reaction and are more recognisable to your average joe than a lot of the wrestlers who have come and gone since. But one of Russo's chief problems was that he was always pretty good at starting a story, and never had a clue how to follow up on it or end it, so that "something to do" never amounted to anything. The other, and I think the one with the biggest negative impact on wrestling as a whole, is that he never cared whether a story translated into a wrestling match or not - miscarriages, incest, pregnancy angles, attempted murder, all of that stuff that he booked because he wanted to be writing telly schlock rather than wrestling, none of it satisfactorily gets to a point where the principle players want to settle their differences in a wrestling match. At which point, what's it doing on a wrestling show? The thing is, if Vince Russo could have let go of his ego, he probably could have had a better career than he did. He could have easily come into the WWE, like Eric Bischoff, as an on-screen performer with no role in creative, and I think could have had a run there not dissimilar to Bischoff's. But he never wanted that, he wanted everyone to see him as the genius of wrestling, the one guy who could make this thing work and make money at it - ironically, more like post-WWE Bischoff. Quote
Chili Posted February 9 Posted February 9 (edited) The one thing as stated by @BomberPatthat Russo had a decent knack for was an opening chapter that made you go 'Ok, fair. You've got my attention, and then what?' and he could never follow-up anything ever. Edited February 9 by Chili Quote
Chico Torres Posted February 9 Posted February 9 Russos model of writing and character development is essentially the same model as Police Academy where a character has one comedy trait and there isn’t any additional depth beyond that. This guy is tall, this guy is fat, she has big tits, he makes funny noises, he’s Japanese, she has a squeaky voice etc. And that’s the entire character, just shows up every week and does the same joke and catchphrase. For the record, there is no shade intended towards Police Academy films, they are 7 2-hour films over the span of 10 years not twice a week 2 hour shows with the same “jokes”. Quote
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