The Lies & Demise Of Vince Russo 

Managed to make a Vince Russo documentary, didn't mention Jim Cornette once. That's some skills.

Let me get this straight... Vince says that the reason his writing suffered so badly during his time in WCW was due to him cutting promos and wrestling every week? I mean, he's writing himself into those storylines so it's kind of a problem of his own design.

He was a true friend to Chyna and didnt abandon here in later life like others did..

Great video, the only thing missing is there's no mention of Russo's arch enemy, Jim Cornette, who will hate Russo in this life and the next

Best thing Vince did in WCW was putting the belt on The Hitman. The problem was by the time Vince arrived and did that, it was way too late. WCW was doomed way before Vince ever got involved.

Its actually the greatest work of all time Vince McMahon, sent russo to wcw to blow it up from inside.

He also made brawl for all,ruined so much careers

Vince Russo turned Mike Awesome into That 70s Guy, I just can't get over it

Imagine being Russo and getting asked if you were a plant, because your booking was so bad it had to be intentional lol. Despite nothing he tried in WCW drawing enough, he insisted on also making himself a huge part of the show. Where you'd see his clear bias for people who kissed his ass and couldn't draw vs guys like Goldberg and sting who could make wcw successful with a good world title run. But instead let's give myself and David arquette that belt once and jeff Jarrett fifty times

Vince Russo is like the M Night Shamalyn of wrestling, his gimmick/way or writing was heralded and he thought his brain was above everyone else and then it just went super off the rails

Russo was a great guy to have on the creative team. He’ll give a bunch of off-the-wall ideas during brainstorming. That said, he needed to be part of the team not in charge of it. He needed someone saying “no” to all the crap he came up with. Take the brawl for all, for instance. Terrible, stupid idea. But McMahon could and should have said no.

I was at that Thunder when the fake blood missed Nash. It bounced off the ring and hit the first couple rows of the front. I was one of the people that got splashed. I was so mad (I laugh now at it). WCW gave us T-shirts as an apology (mine got stolen years later). Good lord, that was almost 24 years ago…

One of the worst bookers ever, ruined WCW, let’s not even talk about how he fk’d Goldberg’s run, too busy trying to write himself into the show. Fkn embarrassing.

Russo only did good work while being heavily challenged and guided. He's the type that shouldn't have too much power.

28:30 Hogan couldn't lace Billy Kidman's boots. The sad weird old narcissist must have been oozing green watching how Billy in WCW could go.

24:44 this just reminds me of how much I love La Parka and how underrated he was and still is. Gimmick, look, moveset, charisma, everything. He needs a remontada, or at least we need to give him his flowers.

Russo does make a good point on the destroying cars thing. it's been a continuous strong man gimmick since.

I believe the WWE creative team all had their jaws on the ground when he went through his year of ideas in 2002. Just not for the reason he claims…

lol Russo is such a massive liar. Dude actually expects us to believe that he went to WWF in 2002 and laid out a year's worth of storylines and everyone in the creative meeting had their jaws on the floor. Come on man...This coming from the guy who wrote his shows on a week to week basis with no thought of long term planning. 46:27

A little tip for doing narration; when you quote someone, let it be known that you're quoting the person. A lot of the quotes you included weren't credited to the person in question and it sounded like you were expressing such sentiments yourself.

Jeff Jarrett was one of the Last Straws for WCW with me. Dude was a Jobber in the WWE mainly feuding with Marc Mero and with that dumb costume. Debra was his only saving Grace and he lost her ON AIR to Stone Cold. Dude had ZERO Credibility after that. Stone Cold stole his Woman AND drove him out of the Company...then he is supposed to be "The Main Guy" in WCW and TNA? Naaaaah buddy.

Ignoring the fact that Russo is a terminal cancer on the wrestling industry: the AOL Time Warner merger is what ultimately killed WCW. AOL wanted the best way to get sponsors, WCW prior to the merger was extremely advertiser/sponsor unfriendly so the newly in charge from AOL basically told WCW that they had to be the total opposite of what worked for them. Eric Bischoff didn't kill WCW, Russo didn't kill WCW, AOL killed WCW.

“I got them right in the palm of my hand. When you have them like that, you can fart in the ring and place will go crazy” -Hulk Hogan. Idk why I loved that so much 😂

His Oj idea alone shoulda got him fired

The savior of WCW. I still remember how Bash at the Beach 2000 totally saved WCW 😮..

1:09 watching Russo's attachment to and admiration for AJ Styles always made me a bit uncomfortable

What WCW proved about Russo was , that in the WWF it was the talent that got over not story lines , look Stone Cold doing his ECW character , The ROCK a little bit his dad & ELVIS UnderTaker DX , HBK ,H.H.H , CHINA i think it was more them because if not the WWF shouldve fell apart once Russo left but no he Went to WCW and had young guys but not with the talent he had in WWF , now if he had Jericho , Benoit , Eddie Saturn , Franchise he might have had weapons but really he wouldve ruined them . Russo owes his whole career to a group the WWF had that became stars at the same time.

I don't know whether Vince Russo is a fraud or a creative genius. What I do know is the period of wrestling I enjoyed the most was 1997-2000 where he was on the writing staff. That also seems to be when wrestling was at its height in popularity among the mainstream.

If it’s any consolation, Russo can now say he is not the worst Vince in the history of wrestling.

Who was lying when Hulk Hogan was quoted about Vince Russo? You can't trust either of them

Every UK Wrestling RU-vidr is a clone of the last. All the same opinions. All the same sanitized WWE Network narratives. All the same vapid, statist political stances. Pointless, witless and talentless in equal measure.

Might be wrong so do correct me if I'm wrong but I feel the start of this video is a bit glorifying the work he did in WWE(F). Sure they turned the tide and everything but this makes it seem it was pretty much all Russo which it definitely wasn't

Russo is the same guy who complained to McMahon about writing for 2 shows when Smackdown additionally aired on TV and yet he also complained in his brief return in 2002 that there was a writing committee instead of 3 people like they did in 1998, not realizing they would relieve his work so he could have spent more time with his family.

I alone was responsible for the success with the Attitude era. Also. I left WWE, in part, to get more creative freedom.

Remember he said all stay out of the camera but then he was always on tv.he just stood out like a cow turd.

Vince Russo has never had a 100% bad idea rate. I'd say his ideas were more 90/10. And those 10 ideas were HEAVILY vetted by Vince McMahon. But when he went to WCW and then TNA he had no filter to separate the good from the bad and thus both latter companies suffered. TNA suffers to this day because of Russo. A fact i can never forgive him for.

Anyone who thinks Russo killed WCW is a mark. Finger poke of doom anyone ? Starcade 97? The Taser? That shit was dead in the water

LaParka was more over than Buff ever was

The cage match that russo won the title, the winner being the first to leave the cage made no sense at all in that type of cage with the only exit, other than the one russo used being a small door. Also russo going thru the cage made no sense as there was no room for goldberg to even do a proper spear.

37:10 I will never forgive Vince Russo for booking a Viagra on a pole Match and not using the wrestler whose name is literally 'Hugh G. Rection.'

Basically Russo is like belichek.. u thought he was great but then u realized it was brady

Bro, listen bro. Bro, are you listening? Hand. To. God bro, this was a great video.

Pretty good documentary. I’m surprised you however you didn’t mention the fact that TNA lost their tv deal with I think spike (I forget) due to Russo’s secret role in the company in 2014

Russo didnt make anyone, especially austin or mick, its well known he did have some ideas that were different and worked but only because vince chose what he felt was good or not and didnt give russo full reign on his own because he sucked horribly at writing, he only had good ideas but never caused anyone to get over, austin was 100% his doing not russo, he also had nothing to do with the vince and austin feud, that was something that organically built to with austin being anti authority and attacking staff and at that time most didnt know vince actually was the owner and though monsoon was since his role on tv was being president, and vince being on commentary up until the screwjob and then vince organically became one of the most hated people in wrestling for the screwjob and his promos after. Russo did have some great ideas but like cornette said if vince didnt sift through the bullshit and ridiculous shit russo pushed then wwf wouldve been what russo did with wcw.

A great video about Russo but im disappointed with not hearing " Bro " in every sentence 😅

Now he Spends time educating Tony khan

Hey Im on the Good Times!! 90s was my teenage years, ARE YOU KIDDING ME!! I BOL with Corny and his Russo Disses, but Hey that time was so GOOD and JUST IN TIME!! Only Complaint, RIP Owen Hart, Hey that F'D me up!! Its been stories/ Rumors on that but SMH, Im not blaming Russo but wow, I wish things would've been different. RIP OWEN

Vince russo had some good ideas His decision to finally gave Bret hart a run with the gold (even if it was too late at that point and injury cut the entire angle from even starting properly) or his decision to give space to young/new wrestler was commendable Sadly his bad ideas far outnumbers the good ones His tna run is something out of a nightmare

Russo, as much as his work was mostly a dumpster fire, did actually have a legit talent; he could hot shot. He was very good at shock TV, in so much as that's a skill. He could have been used for short term hotshotting, then pushed out the door.

According to things Eric Bischoff says it was the lack of a tv deal that sealed the death of WCW.

I think Russo was a genius with no filter. Vince McMahon was not there to tell him his idea was terrible so we got EVERYTHING instead of the good ideas. I like him trying to make new stars because the former guys running the show never tried to do that and its one of the main reason they failed. He wanted to move on from the NWO because that line was dead. He just had to much power and no one stopping him so we got all the crap along with the brilliance. He should have stayed out of the ring though that was way to far

38:42 Kevin Dunn was sent to Pro Wrestling USA (I think that’s what it was called) by Vince McMahon as a producer working in the TV truck/studio where the AWA, Jim Crockett and Memphis all joined together to fight the WWE. And when they were to put their shows on TV the signal was blocked buy the main producer and WWE was shown instead, that’s why Kevin Dunn had a job for life or as long as Vince McMahon was in charge. This is a story Roddy Piper said on Kayfabe Commentary’s WWE 1984 Timeline show, Piper never said Kevin Dunn’s name but Piper wrote a name down on a piece of paper and showed it to the host Sean Oliver who said “you will all know him as a long serving high ranking executive in WWE.” And who is a high ranking executive in WWE with the knowledge to sabotage a TV signal and made sure WWE’s programming was sent out to people’s homes instead? It could only be Kevin ‘Bucky Beaver’ Dunn

Vince McMahon and Vince Russo using First Names with each other is Painful. "Vince, If I have to fly back to see them on the weekends" "Well, Vince, I dont understand your Problem there Vince." Ect and so forth...calling somebody by my own first name just feels very weird to me.

I always agreed wit Russos wrestling philosophy, not many of his ideas but his character/storyline first then in ring second philosophy is really good in my eyes.

26:47 was the spill meant to symbolise 'The New Blood' that Russo would never shut up about?

More like "Wrestling's Most Scapegoated"

44:18 Sounds like standard Russo BS to me. "I'm the greatest and I made something to great that everyone was scared of me."

5:17 you know, The Undertaker spends a surprising amount of time watching TV, sports & movies. Ig being immortal he can do all that guilt-free.

AEW needs someone like Russo, not Russo, but someone that can at least link the reasoning together through storyline over competitive output, the first year of AEW focused so hard on the win/loss record and statistics the booking made sense as it was planned out, since then, its declined massively.

All Russo needed to do was bring back glacier and Alex wright

I did like Razor Ramon but I hated Diesel in WWE but come 97 Kevin Nash had become my 3rd favourite wrestler after Stone Cold Steve Austin and the Undertaker. Wasn’t a big fan of the Rock, I preferred Ken Shamrock and Dan Severn as I watched the UFC in it’s early no holds barred and lawless days, Shamrock was certainly the better pro wrestler as he had so much more charisma than Dan but Dan was a badass who even beat Kurt Angle in freestyle wrestling match in the early 90’s (might have been late 80’s but sure it was the 90’s)

Idk I was done with him when he was on i think Austin pod and he was going on about how he misses the days of characters like Chief Jay Strongbow. Idk nothing about Chief Jay Strongbow I’ve never heard of him but something about that statement just feels absurd and out of touch. I still hear his voice saying “chief Jay strong bow” and it makes me laugh

I did not hear Vince Russo speak until last year and I am amazed he got anyone to listen to him. He clearly has room temperature IQ and I wouldn't trust him to get groceries.

Can't blame him too much for WCW..he tried to save a sinking ship

Russo is a legend

That cheap shot at Kidman was totally uncalled for. What was that for?

Fantastic content! Thanks!

Russo's belief that "The Titles don't matter, they're just props" proves he never understood anything about putting on a wrestling promotion. The entire central thesis of a wrestling show is "These people are wrestlers, and they work here to become the best and win the title". All the crash TV stuff has to be in service to this central point, otherwise, why are all these people here? Why are they fighting each-other and doing all these wacky hijinks? If the titles don't matter and you don't want to put on matches because you'd rather do back-stage drama, then why are you writing wrestling instead of... I don't know, any other kind of show? Look at WWE's crown jewel. The "Austin Vs McMahon" feud. Take away all the over the top hijinks and what is the core conflict between them? The title. At the end of the day Austin Vs McMahon boiled down to "Austin wants to be champion and McMahon doesn't want him to be". That's it. Everything else was window dressing for the core conflict, which was a fight over control of the title. The Title was always the central issue. The focal point of every storyline. Russo never understood this. The stories in the WWE were in service to the fight over the title, but Russo thought the Titles should be sacrificed in service to the story. Well, he got is way and did just that in WCW, and what happened when he turned the titles into props for his "Crash TV" stories? People stopped caring. They stopped watching. Stopped buying tickets. Without the narrative through-line of "These people are wrestlers and the most important thing is to win the title", without that grounding point to keep coming back to, all of the crash TV stuff lost meaning. It became white-noise. The titles don't matter. So why were they there? Why were they doing all this stupid stuff to each-other? Who cares? Russo sure swerved you though, bro! And that's what matters right?

Vince should've saved himself & others the trouble & gott writing jobs in something other than wrestling. If everywhere Vince goes there's a problem ,9x out of 10 it's him...unless it involves Hogan's trash a**

Now do one on Cornette getting fired everywhere and failing at SMW

Come on, it’s not a plot twist, it’s a swerve bro!

I always thought he looked like AngryJoe 😂

Listening to this while taking my morning Russo

I don't think it was steroids that contributed to Vince Russoo's suicide.

Hogan and Mike Awesome werent related. Awesome and Horace Hogan were cousins. Its not relevant. But just a quick nod. Great job

As much as I hate Vince Russo (not as much as Jim Cornette does) and know he’s a liar as I’ve seen him many times tell a story and depending who he’s talking to makes slight changes to the story to put over the person he’s talking to. For example on Kayfabe Commentary’s Vince Russo’s Attitude with Ken Shamrock and he tells a story about how Ken took Big Show Dow in catering, put him in a heel hook and made Big Show tap and scream in pain. Then when he had Steve Blackman on his podcast he said the same story except put Steve’s name in instead of Ken’s, then when Shamrock was on his podcast he told the original story. There’s also times where he has said that he was responsible for getting Vince McMahon to allow Stone Cold Steve Austin to speak for himself in promos after hearing Steve do commentary on a match and originally the Million Dollar Man spoke for Austin and Austin wasn’t to speak in promos. He also said he heard the Rock backstage refer to himself in the 3rd person playing around and Russo told him that he should start doing that in promos along with his catchphrases he was only using in the locker room at the time while joking around with the other wrestlers. So basically Russo has claimed that he was responsible the new popularity of Stone Cold Steve Austin and the Rock as it was him who told them what to do and they got over. Then in Kayfabe Commentary’s YouShoot Live someone said that he takes responsibility for the Rock and Austin careers becoming so big and Russo said “I’ve never said I was responsible for Rock and Austin being the biggest stars in wrestling bro”. But despite all his bullshit and just being a all out twat he still was the head writer of my favourite WWE shows I watched from the age of 15-16yrs old (when he became head writer in 97).

Very well written 👍

Idk attitude era was my favorite and when he was in wcw was my favorite wcw .... i always liked the edgy crash tv style russo brought in both companies

Russo wasn't "replaced", he was sent to the WCW by Vince to ruin the company so Vince could buy it

Still cant believe Vince Russo killed Glenn with a baseball bat. How is this guy not in jail?

He would have had a hole on a pole if he could have figured it out, the guy was the shits.

Russo really hasn't accomplished anything in the wrestling business. Nothing positive I should say. The only place he worked that had success just so happened to have the greatest draw in wrestling history at the time, Stone Cold. Everywhere else he's been it's been a shitshow, not necessarily because of him, but he also didn't help. The one area where Russo does get high marks and is a big reason why not everyone in the wrestling industry hates him, is because he pushed younger, smaller mid card guys.

He's only polarizing to basement virgin internet smarks

I like the 2000 version of war games the best lol probably because of RTR

Does anybody have any of his radio work from 94 before he got hired by wwe .

#Bro

''Rope opera''...somewhere Jim Cornette just had a shitty diarrhea dump after hearing those two words put together

Outside of stone cold and the rock I’d argue WCW had bigger star power in the 90’s/early 00’s. Wasted almost all of it

Good work man. I liked this. I don’t think the title of the doc is fair. Reading the title, I would think you set out to make a negative doc on the man. But after watching, it’s not that at all. You didn’t focus on the “lies” and there is no demise. He seems to be doing well.just a thought

Looking at the ratings and not comparing them to wwe is a crime

Vince Russo once called me a homophobic slur on twitter

YES! Ralphus sighting at 19:46!

Aw bro, here we go again

Good ole vinny roooo!

Vince Russo,a family man? I had no idea he had a wife and kids until i saw this.

No one hates Vince Russo more than Jim Cornette.

Wrestling isn't a sport. Referring to it as a sport only serves to detract from the documentary.

I see his face.....but I hear Jim Cornette's voice 😂😂😂

I actually got attacked by some Russo fan boys on one of these videos. At the end of the day, Russo got away with what he did in the wwf because Vince M. Kept a leash on him and tugged on it if russos ideas went a little to far out in left field. Russo had more free range in WCW which didn’t help. I also feel like WCW was already a sinking ship when Russo came in. At the same time, I’m willing to give credit where credit is due. He did have some decent ideas during the attitude era. Hell he helped build the attitude era. But it was a combination of Vince M., Vince Russo, and many other minds and talent.

Bro.