Shining a Spotlight 9.23.10: Vince Russo in WCW

Wrestling biographies can be a mixed bag. A lot of times, guys can be skimpy on information (Goldberg, Kurt Angle) but some are amazingly in-depth (Bret Hart, Mick Foley’s first two books). The trick is that folks in the wrestling business are usually working fans anyway so it’s not surprising the same happens with their books. Even the ones that can be open and frank can still make the authors seem sort of self-centered at times (like Bret’s). But it’s intriguing, especially when the author/subject is one of great interest to wrestling fans.

That was brought up in my mind when I got my hands on Rope Opera: How WCW Killed Vince Russo, the second book by the infamous wrestling personality. His first one, Forgiven, had covered how he got into wrestling and helped the WWF rise to the top in 1998, leaving off just as he departed for WCW. His second one thus covers that notable time as he took a company that was struggling and, in the minds of many, running it completely into the ground.

Reading the book is tricky as it showcases how Russo, as a writer, can be pretty haphazard. He jumps around constantly in his chapters, bouncing from subject to subject, gong on tangents and takes a while to get to his points. That shouldn’t be a surprise to those who’ve seen his wrestling work as the man was good setting up stuff but not so much on keeping it going to a logical conclusion. Having been a born-again Christian, Russo does a lot of talk on his faith and God helping him which may be jarring to those who know him by his T&A reputation.

The book is an interesting look in Russo’s mind as it pertains to his WCW run. A decade later and it’s more interesting to look back at exactly how he managed to help drive business for the company down so badly and why, despite the fact he acknowledges what he did wrong, Russo still can’t see why his “vision” of wrestling did more bad than good.

　

WCW Itself

It’s really unfair to say Russo killed WCW. If it wasn’t for Ted Turner, that company would have gone under years before with all the garbage they did. While Jim Crockett had some tough times, at least he knew wrestling. The guys Turner had, however, failed to understand the mass potential on their hands with WCW and how to make as much money as WWF did. That led to disasters like firing Flair, hiring Bill Watts and most of what they did in 1993. Eric Bischoff did luck out with the New World Order but then got a swelled head and convinced the NWO would last forever so he kept right on pushing it and making WCW look weak just as WWF was striking back.

Make no mistake, Russo did help WWF immensely. It wasn’t just the introduction of “Attitude” but also the backstage segments that made you feel like you were part of the show like never before and giving mid-card guys more of a push and personality. All that was good when it began but then Russo started to go too far. The skits became more stupid, the angles wilder and he started to hot-shot the Intercontinental title so much, it lost meaning. Still, Russo was able to handle it because he had Vince McMahon as the ultimate final say in things. But WCW….well, that was a different animal altogether.

Bret Hart said it best: The one thing WCW didn’t have but really needed was Vince McMahon. Not Vince himself, but a central figure who could be the final say and authority and overall boss, the guy who could say “this is how it’s going to be” and everyone would listen, no argument. WCW was run by a committee, most of whom knew next to nothing about wrestling and who too often let the talent call their own shots (as Kevin Nash’s disastrous booking reign proved). Bischoff was pretty much out at this point, allowing things to get crazier and crazier. On the underrated Monday Night War DVD, Rey Mysterio aptly sums up that WCW was sitting on slews of talent like himself, Benoit, Guerrero and others but kept right on pushing the old-timers like Hogan, Savage, Sting, Nash and even Flair. This was the company wiling to pay millions for a rap star and not for real talents. This was the environment Russo was walking into so it was no surprise his reign met with problems. Of course, some of the biggest would be Russo’s own doing.
　

The Russo Mentality

For a man who claims to have loved wrestling since he was a kid, Russo has ideas about it that can be rather short-sighted and years later, he sticks to them. First off, he truly is in the camp of “titles are props,” writing “you don’t see boxing champions wearing their belts in public all the time!” It’s that reasoning that makes it easy for him to swap titles around so much, that he doesn’t see the true value of them for the fans or why they’re so important to elevate true stars.

Another issue is how Russo feels about cruiserweights. Even as things started to go bad for them in ‘99, WCW still boasted a fantastic division for the light heavyweight guys. But Russo felt that fans wouldn’t be interested in that, openly saying that American fans “don’t give a shit about a Japanese guy or a Mexican guy, I want to see an American guy.” In his book, he still maintains that Americans will never accept masked wrestlers, completely ignoring how Rey Mysterio is not only of WWE’s most popular guys but his masked merchandise is a huge seller for the company.

The mid-card focus is an interesting bit for Russo. On the one hand, he says he hates the label because “if you’ve made it to the level of WWF or WCW, you’ve made it.” Let’s not forget that Russo was able to bring the stardom to HHH and the Rock among others but he also seemed to not recognize that some guys are destined to stay to the mid-card, that you can’t just throw them into a main event scene without rhyme or reason. Look how he tried to elevate Kidman by beating Hogan but the fans never bought a guy on the lower ranks so long could take down a mega-star like Hogan. Russo does have good stuff in the book on how promoters (and this goes way before McMahon’s time) deliberately put the fear of God into their workers, the label of “the boys” reminding them of their place and keeping them “independent workers” in order to avoid stuff like medical benefits. While he claims that most wrestlers would pay to be on the shows themselves, it’s hard to take his being so open for workers.

Perhaps the biggest issue with Russo was his belief in the power of the Internet and the dirt sheets. His claim that all wrestlers read them is one thing but Russo also seemed to believe that every fan in the arenas spent hours each day online like he did. That led to constant references on air about “the guys in back” and guys being elevated. A famous bit is when Eric Bischoff made a comment to Sid Vicious about scissors, alluding the Sid stabbing Arn Anderson with a pair back in 1993. The announcers went nuts about Bischoff bringing it up but the live crowd was silent as most knew nothing about the story. This blurring of the walls would come up big time and show that Russo’s grand experiment in WCW was doomed from the start.
　

The Tenure

It probably says a lot about Russo that the man refuses to apologize for anything regarding WCW in his book. He says he was never out to bring down Flair or Hogan as he respected them as huge stars and in fact wanted to elevate them to icon status not “one of the boys.” What that had to do with burying Flair alive or making Hogan job to Kidman is never really explained. Russo puts a lot of the blame on WCW on the politics; he even mentions how time and again, a would-be “savior” is brought in to a company and the first thing he does is bring in all his old buddies and push them around which exactly describes when WCW brought in Hogan in 1994. Russo does admit he did much the same with Ed Ferrera, Jeff Jarrett and the Harris Twins but misses the damage that did.

Russo defends his writing style with the statement “bookers book, writers write and that’s how it is.” He complains about bookers always going “black and white” as real life doesn’t work that way, which misses how wrestling isn’t supposed to be real life. He says that bookers don’t care about characters, just the action and while that may be true to a point, just giving fans characters doesn’t really work (as most of the talent in the early ‘90’s WWF and WCW proves). To Russo, wrestling was the sideshow, not the reason fans tuned in and that explains a lot of his reign in WCW. “Wrestlers write according to what the audience tells them, bookers book according to the way of the bubble for the last 30 years.” And yet he couldn’t tell the audience was saying they hated what Russo was giving them.

Reading Russo’s take on the backstage goings-on in WCW is incredible. He talks about how Glenn Gilberti (aka Disco Inferno) came up with an insane alien invasion angle (yes, aliens from outer space in WCW) and Russo loved it. It is interesting hearing his battles with the Turner brass on TV stuff (like how they can curse on sitcoms but not on “Nitro” because it was original programming) and it is true a lot of the WCW backstage chaos and politics played a part in marring Russo’s run. He delves into the craziness regarding the whole Benoit as champion mess and how he still thinks giving Tank Abbott the belt was a good idea and was outvoted. That led to the meeting with Bill Busch about the new creative direction and Russo flat out telling him he wasn’t going to work on a committee and instead went home, selling it as an epic moment of fighting the big bad corporation. It’s here he explains the title of the book, saying he was crushed by the suits so much.

This leads to the partnership with Bischoff as they met at a diner with Russo hating the meeting, actually saying “I hate the dog and pony shows and hate tooting my own horn.” He says Bischoff was a main event guy while he was a midcard and lower guy since “you can’t tell the main event guys to do anything.” For once, Russo gets the great point that you can’t have Hogan and Savage wrestle like it’s 1989 again and that “you can get the ‘smartest’ fan to believe just about anything.” He claims the stuff with David Flair was all to elevate David, not take shots at Ric and thinks David was sensational in the role. He also says the idea to shave Flair’s head came from Ric and not Russo as Flair claimed in his biography.

For Goldberg, Russo claims he wanted to “humanize the animal” and make him relatable, missing how Goldberg had risen to fame as a monster who never spoke. Goldberg had issues with losing to Scott Steiner and Russo remarks in a real fight, Scotty would probably have won with his actual wrestling background. Russo says he stood right up to Goldberg in a locker room when he refused to job and claimed WCW made the guy believe his own hype so he wouldn’t cooperate with Russo’s brilliant ideas like turning him heel and nearly losing his arm punching a car window in an angle gone wrong.

Discussing his move to a guy in front of the cameras, Russo does make the intriguing observation that it’s unprofessional for two guys with real heat not to bring that up in the ring. He talks about the terror of being in a cage match and that it was a learning experience as he realized that in no way could he do this on a regular basis and had underestimated wrestlers for so long in what they did. He claims that he never wanted to be on TV, that he hated it and would sob himself to sleep in his basement over the pressure he was constantly under. He devotes a chapter to the accusations of being a racist which I do agree with as whatever else, I don’t think he was biased on blacks (although the whole “Americans will never cheer for a Mexican or Japanese guy” comment didn’t help his case).

This leads us to the two most infamous parts of Russo’s WCW tenure: David Arqutte and Bash at the Beach. I covered the Arquette debacle in full a few months back but Russo’s commentary on it speaks volumes. He still refuses to acknowledge it was that big a deal; in his mind giving a fake wrestling title to an actor was a smart move business-wise. He still loves how people are talking about it and that’s proof it was a great thing. Russo claims that everyone thought it was a good idea and backed him and it was only afterward, the blame fell all on him and not for one moment has he regretted that. This once more shows a key problem with Russo, that he completely ignores the value titles have in wrestling, that they are meant to mean something, not just props but meant to elevate workers and that requires fans to believe in them. By handing the biggest belt in the company to a third-rate actor for some cheap publicity, Russo destroyed that faith in the minds of fans and the title never regained its credibility.

As for Bash at the Beach, Russo goes deep in how he scripted things out with Hogan wiping out Jarrett and Steiner but not getting the belt. He speaks for himself, claiming that Hogan loved the idea, despite the latter’s claims to the contrary and it was Hogan who said to make the whole thing look like a shoot and that he would end up with the title despite the committee deciding it was Booker’s time. Russo laid it out for Jarrett laying down for Hogan and Hogan doing a disgusted promo, Russo blasting him and setting up the match with Booker and Jarrett. Hogan seemed to like it with having his own title belt and later facing down Booker. Russo claims he had “logic” in the angle as he wore a San Francisco Giants jersey instead of a New York one “to prove it was real.” Russo says the mistake afterward was not calling Hogan back and that led to the defamation of character lawsuit (nothing on the harshness of the promo) and it hurt coming from Hogan, a guy that Russo admired so much.

Yet again, Russo fails to see the problems with his vision of wrestling in how he presented this whole “shoot” thing. A recurring bit of his tenure was that he was always telling the audience “this is all fake,” shattering the lines even more than McMahon ever did. Russo’s whole mentality was that it’s all a show so it shouldn’t matter if the you told the folks about things being planned and how matches were works and all that. Yes, we know it’s not real but that’s not the point; we want to be sucked in, we want to enjoy the illusion. When we go to a movie, we don’t want to see the green screen in place of the special effects. When we watch a TV show, we don’t want to see the actors cracking up in a scene and going on like nothing happened. We read comic books, we don’t want the drawings interrupted by an interview by the creators telling what they’re trying to write about and giving away plots points for issues to come. So when we watch wrestling, we don’t want to be told point blank about guys not doing a job or being “chosen ones” of the writers or any of that.

Russo defends a lot of his writing on how you have to capture the non-wrestling fans and what makes that happen is shock and drama. Maybe that’s true but you also have to marry it to the wrestling and that’s where his approach falters. The man truly believed that wrestling fans weren’t interested in the actual wrestling, just characters and goofy skits and such. That approach was a painful lesson for WCW, one they never recovered from and the fact Russo still doesn’t see that speaks volumes about the man’s standing and views of wrestling. His supposedly frank book doesn’t open on more stupid stuff like making Mike Awesome a joke and making fun of Jim Ross and while he may go on about his religion, it’s hard to marry that to the chaos he left the company in.

Summation

Vince Russo may not have killed WCW but he definitely helped give it a big push. While his ideas of building characters may have been good, his mentality that fans didn’t care about the real wrestling marred everything. He made title meaningless and acts like wrestlers are somehow nuts for taking it all so serious. He still thinks that giving the world title to an actor was a great idea and that fans should be as internet-savvy as he is. Worse of all, Russo believes that telling everyone “it’s all fake” is the right approach, shattering the illusions. That he still doesn’t ackowledge any of this was wrong is jarring as you’d think time would give him some hindsight. But instead, he stands by everything he did and wouldn’t change anything. The man has defenders and some of his stuff in WWF and even TNA stands up but a decade later and you can’t deny that his arrival in WCW was the final shot that sent the big ape falling off the top of the building.

For this week, the spotlight is off.