Now I know I don't have a memory for these things, but I swear that the Mae birth was a Russo doing. Now to find proof, heh, there's the tricky part....and hey, I'm not bashing Russo, I'm just saying...the guy was a nut. In Foley's book, Mick says how Russo wanted the Rock and Sock Connection to end up with Mankind proposing marriage to the Rock. C'mon.
Anybody who actually thought putting the WCW title on a half ass B grade actor was a good idea doesnt not deserve to associated with wrestling ever again.
You know youre old when you try to convince some kid that was born in the freakin 80's that Samus Aran could whip Lara Croft's cave dwelling ass. Honestly, has there ever been a cooler weapon in the history of video games than the Screw Attack?
David Arquette becoming WCW Champ was one of the worst moments in wrestling history. I prefer Stephanie writing than Russo writing. Looking through old WWF magazines I saw that most of the articles mentioned Vic Venom. Even in a magazine he has to put himself over.
The Mae Young birth was in February of 2000. I think some guy from Conan O'Brien wrote that.
"Catching Hitler was neato!" "Next stop, Hirohito!" Bart Simpson
Mae Young gave birth to hand on February 28, 2000. (I remember because that's my birthday, so I find the whole thing oddly cool... I mean, who else shares their birthday with a plastic hand, born to an eighty-something female wrestler, fathered by a black weightlifting champion and devilered by the guy who played the Gaseous Weiner on Late Night With Conan O'Brien?)
Russo left sometime in the fall of '99. It was about a week or two before the Test/Stephanie wedding was supposed to happen the first time, and only VInce Russo knew where it was going at that point, it would seem, because they added Davey Boy Smith throwing a garbage can at Stephanie, giving her temporary amensia.
That was *after* Russo left.
He had some good ideas in his days. More of 1998 was worth watching that it wasn't, although you can still point to stuff like the time Kaientai tried to castrate Val Venis and he later celebrated his escape with John Wayne Bobbitt.
That said, in the WWF, he was kept on a fairly short leash, with guys like Patterson and JR, not to mention McMahon, there to tell him "Okay, that might be a bit too stupid.". When he went to WCW, he was given free reign and, well, you all know how that went.
"It's a sad day when mocking one's opponent via midget becomes an acceptable form of entertainment." --Lance Storm
Most of this negativity towards Vince Russo comes from his stint in WCW.
The problem is that, especially by his 2nd stint, WCW was dead.
The fact is that if you could've somehow magically assembled a writing team of William Shakespeare, George Orwell, Agatha Christie, Euripides, Stephen King, Stephen Spielberg, George Lucas, and Ernest Hemmingway WCW would've still sucked. You could have put together Paul Heyman and Vince McMahon and it still would've gone under.
And WCW's problems ran deep. Yes, writing was a constant problem. But the problems ran much deeper. The essence of it was summed up best by Sean Waltman in an interview in about '98 when he was asked what the biggest difference between the WWF and WCW was. He responded that the WWF was a wrestling company, while WCW was basically a live TV taping for TNT and not much else.
The incompetance ran top to bottom. From the organizational sructure, to the lack fo many departments that WWF have that WCW didn't. From the announcers, to Human Resources / Talent Relations incompetance, to the announcing, to the marketing, to the lack of direction, to the talent development...
You could base several marketing, management, and economics classes on "Avoiding the mistakes WCW made", and so I'll focus on a few incidents in a small area.
The stable "The Revolution" was running a series of promos entitled "The Revolution in America". They were taped during a tour to Washington DC. And the count-in was still there by the time it made it to Nitro. It was a stupid mistake that made the company look very unprofessional. Fixing the problem would take me less than, say, 5 minutes in Adobe Premiere. Hell, I could bring out my old analogue tape editing system and teach my 8 year old cousin how to edit out a mistake like that in under an hour!
Another is the lack of a "Hard Right Camera" and training on how to play to it. Look at any WWF show and you'll notice that most of the action is taped from cameras from the right hand side of the ring (as you head down the enteranceway). WCW's cameras were everywhere, and it meant that you had situations like wrestlers cutting interviews with their backs to the camera because they didn't know where the camera was!
Yes, Vince Russo made some mistakes. Then again he made no more or less than the people there before or after. And maybe he was a bad fit for WCW, but that would be as much management's fault for hiring him as it was Vince's fault for having an ego big enoguh to think he'd turn it around on his own.
But to re-itterate, without a competant management and having most of the departments there gutted and rebuilt from scratch, the show would've sucked no matter who was writing.
Number crunchers who think it's a good idea to tape Nitro & Thunder together in one 5 hour long hit do not count as good management!
You make a lot of good points about the incompetence of WCW management AJ but still, you dont tarnish the crown jewel of the company by putting it on someone like Arquette. You just dont. That was stupid beyond words and Russo deserves whatever criticism he gets for his work as WCW booker. WHichever stint it was.
You know youre old when you try to convince some kid that was born in the freakin 80's that Samus Aran could whip Lara Croft's cave dwelling ass. Honestly, has there ever been a cooler weapon in the history of video games than the Screw Attack?
Originally posted by rockdotcom_2.0You make a lot of good points about the incompetence of WCW management AJ but still, you dont tarnish the crown jewel of the company by putting it on someone like Arquette. You just dont. That was stupid beyond words and Russo deserves whatever criticism he gets for his work as WCW booker. WHichever stint it was.
And who was there to stop Russo doing so? Or, for that matter, who was there to stop Kevin Nash's booking himself into the main event and world title, Bischoff's power trips, or Kevin Sullivan's lame booking?
WCW needed a better booker than Sullivan, no doubt. What WCW needed more was someone who understood the business, as well an money and marketing; it needed a Vince McMahon or Paul Heyman figure. And it needed someone to run the business overall who understood pro wrestling, but more importantly knew business and marketing; a Linda McMahon figure.
Instead, it got guys like Bill Busch, a guy who knew SFA about the wrestling business; a bean-counter. If, say, Randy Savage didn't like how things were going he could go to the "higher ups". There was no-one to have the final say.
WCW as a stand-alone within the Turner - Time Warner empire would have had its advantages and dawbacks. WCW integrated into TWX and using the conglomerate's design, marketing and production expertise would have had its advantages. Instead it had the advantages of neither.
I agree that Arquette as champion was downright stupid, and Russo made many mistakes. And he was a downright egomaniac for thinking he could save WCW through his booking. But Russo has also come up with many good ideas that, given a propper functioning environment like the WWF had, could bring a lot of success.
While I have a negative opinion of Russo, I agree that WCW was on the road to ruin long before he got there.
Think of what the company was like in the early 90s. Shockmaster? Sting running around a beach chasing homicidal dwarfs? They didn't have a clue then, so the train wreck that was the Russo era fit right in. The only difference was that more people were watching.
The following sums up WCW perfectly: in its final years, Turner basically hired an accountant (Bill Busch) to run the thing, to make it more cost-efficient, and WCW ended up losing MORE money with Busch in charge than ever before! How bad is that?
Vince Russo was a terrible writer with a huge ego who not only didn't understand his audience, but also had no respect for the very organization he was working for. Put that combination with an unlimited budget, you get a disaster of epic proportions.
But whose fault is that? I say the blame lies with the people who hired him ... the same people who gave the book to Ole Andersen, Kevin Sullivan, Kevin Nash, Bill Watts ... a veritable who's who of idiots.
I meant WCW Russo with a swerve a minute. I think one pay-per-view had 10 turns. WWF Russo was alright until The Higher Power. He made the most of it with a crappy mid-card.
"Catching Hitler was neato!" "Next stop, Hirohito!" Bart Simpson
I dunno, I always thought that the Mae Young/Mark Henry relationship was hilarious. Pre "hand-birth" thing, of course.
Then again, I thought the movie "Hot to Trot" was a cinematic masterpiece.
Dark and lonely on a summer's night Kill my landlord Kill my landlord Watchdog barking Do he bite? Kill my landlord Kill my landlord Slip in his window Break his neck Then his house I start to wreck Got no reason What the heck Kill my Landlord Kill my landlord C-I-L-L my l a n d l o r d
Originally posted by AJ_Levy And who was there to stop Russo doing so? Or, for that matter, who was there to stop Kevin Nash's booking himself into the main event and world title, Bischoff's power trips, or Kevin Sullivan's lame booking?
WCW needed a better booker than Sullivan, no doubt. What WCW needed more was someone who understood the business, as well an money and marketing; it needed a Vince McMahon or Paul Heyman figure. And it needed someone to run the business overall who understood pro wrestling, but more importantly knew business and marketing; a Linda McMahon figure.
Instead, it got guys like Bill Busch, a guy who knew SFA about the wrestling business; a bean-counter. If, say, Randy Savage didn't like how things were going he could go to the "higher ups". There was no-one to have the final say.
WCW as a stand-alone within the Turner - Time Warner empire would have had its advantages and dawbacks. WCW integrated into TWX and using the conglomerate's design, marketing and production expertise would have had its advantages. Instead it had the advantages of neither.
I agree that Arquette as champion was downright stupid, and Russo made many mistakes. And he was a downright egomaniac for thinking he could save WCW through his booking. But Russo has also come up with many good ideas that, given a propper functioning environment like the WWF had, could bring a lot of success.
(edited by AJ_Levy on 9.5.02 0720)
Im sorry but Im not letting Russo off that easy. Nobody shold have to "stop" him from putting the WCW title on a nobody like Arquette. He should have known better. Period. And this is the guy that humiliates Hogan and says hes back with WCW for guys like Booker T and Jarret because they give a shit about the company. But putting the title on Arquette is pissing right in all the faces of those guys. Ands thats just wrong however you spin it. WCW was failing but it could have been saved, but shit like the Arquette incident turned off the fans. And probably the locker room too.
You know youre old when you try to convince some kid that was born in the freakin 80's that Samus Aran could whip Lara Croft's cave dwelling ass. Honestly, has there ever been a cooler weapon in the history of video games than the Screw Attack?
Remember that at the time of the Arquette reign Bischoff had 50% control of the company also.
Plus I remember reading that it wasn't totally Russo or Bischoff's idea to put the belt on Arquette, rather that of WCW higher-ups who wanted Ready to Rumble to get as much exposure as possible.
The only honest thing I can say about Russo. He's definitely not as great as HE thinks he is. He had some good ideas, I refuse to say anything he did was GREAT, but he also had many bad ideas. He's no different than any other writer out there. And given a choice, I would take the WWE of now over the WWF of 98-99. At least we get to see, you know, wrestling.
HOLLY: How do you like me now? COLE: You're a jerk Holly! ME: (sigh) Cole ruins everything!
You know what I hate most? Is when people, writers on the net or posters talk on one hand about how 98/99 was good entertainment compared to now, but also REFUSE to give the head writer from that period any credit when the moment comes up. I remember someone on 1wrestling saying that they should hire some of the WCW writers and mentioned practically everyone except Russo. Ferrara, Banks, Taylor, Borash, everyone but Russo.
The confusing thing about that Arquette thing is that it was booked by the same guy who put the belt on Booker T. Therefore the thing which gave WCW more credibility than it had had in nearly ten years was booked by the same guy who booked the angle which epitomised the low credibility of WCW.
I think the real truth though that's gonna kill is when Russo pops up again and his show will be fun and entertaining and everyone will change thier minds.
But seriously, two guys in here have flat out said that Stephanie is better than Russo here and that they'd like this shit we're getting now better than 99. WHAT ARE YOU SMOKING? Austin vs Rock? Rock 'n' Sock, HHH's push, shit, I can't think of one damn thing that they're doing better now than they were doing back in 99.
________________________________________ The Big O - Sucking Less Every Day.
But he hit her multiple times. That's like saying Andrea Yates is forgivable because she only killed her kids that one day. If he had blown up and hit her one time, then it might have have been forgivable.