YMMV / Vince Russo

• Broken Base: His booking style has created this. While the idea that he has been behind some of the more questionable angles in wrestling appears to be virtually undisputed, the division seems to be on whether all of his ideas were just bad or that if with the right person reviewing his ideas he was capable of good storylines. The stark contrast between his WWF and WCW runs being generally attributed to whether or not his torrent of ideas was being filtered through someone with good sense lends credence to the latter—but that even some of his more questionable ideas managed to slip through in the WWF, such as the infamous "Brawl For All", also help to prop up the former.
• Continuity Lock-Out: Russo's storylines are built around an assumption of knowledge of obscure pieces of wrestling trivia by every fans, which simply put can be a little too much to ask. Perhaps one of the best examples of this was on the episode of Nitro in which Russo and Eric Bischoff came back to WCW and "rebooted" the promotion, where Bischoff taunted Sid Vicious by saying "What's the matter Sid, can't find your scissors?" Those in the know would recognize this as a reference to a real-life altercation Sid once had with Arn Anderson years before, in which Sid stabbed Arn with a pair of scissors, but most of the people watching that show had never heard of the incident.^note (Keep in mind that this happened in 2000, where the internet wrestling community, where reports on such incidents are abundant nowadays, was just getting started at the time.) Eric thought they didn't hear it the first time, so he said it again, also to no reaction.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: He has a fair share of detractors in Canada (where he is hated for burying Bret Hart), Mexico (where he is hated for burying and unmasking wrestlers) and Japan (where he is hated for burying No Limit and his racist remarks), but Russo does have his friends and defenders in the business. TNA's popularity in the UK means that, when he's not working for TNA, it's about the only place that will still hire him as part of creative.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Though by no means the only example, the "Fire Russo" chants are most associated with the "Last Rites Match" between Sting and Abyss and the electrified steel cage match (Team 3D vs. LAX), despite him and Dixie Carter shifting the blame to Dutch Mantel. This was merely amusing until the injury and medical bill scandals of TNA came out, of which both Mantel and Russo were repeatedly sourced as key figures.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In an interview in 1999, he said "You will never ever, ever, ever, ever see the Japanese wrestler or the Mexican wrestler over in American mainstream wrestling". Vince, there are some people who want a word with you...
  • When the infamous "DQ in a Cage match" happened in TNA, Russo defended it saying that there was no reason why DQs shouldn't happen in a Cage match. WWE tried it in 2019, to a result so laughable and insane that it nearly tanked the careers of Seth Rollins and Bray Wyatt and won the WrestleCrap "Gooker Award" poll for that year.
• Memetic Mutation
  • *Thinks about swerves*^note If you're lucky, you may see an explanation for one of Vince Russo's plot twists, but don't count on it. He values stories that are unpredictable over stories that make sense.
  • [X] on a pole
  • "LOL listen bro I lov da IWC. You guys are da best an I mean dat, tanks fo da support I got da best fans inda world, I sweah tah gawd."
  • "SPAULDINGS to the WALL, bro!"
  • From the podcast: "Bro, Bro, Bro, I gotta ask you bro", and "Bro? Take us into your frame a' mind."
    • Also from the podcast: "Jabrone."
• Mis-blamed:
  • A tragic example: Some people, like Jim Cornette and Roddy Piper, blamed Vince Russo for the death of Owen Hart. While Russo came up with the harnessing spot, no one could have foreseen the tragedy that happened at the 1999 Over the Edge PPV. Hell, even Russo blames himself to this day for letting Owen do that spot (Steve Austin even mentioned comforting him and reminding him it wasn't his fault during the Raw is Owen tribute show). But while, as Dark Side of the Ring revealed, it was an accident that could have been prevented with due care, Russo wasn't responsible for the incompetent safety precautions WWF had put in place, or the use of inadequate equipment for the stunt. He was responsible for the idea, but not its shoddy implementation.
  • A lighthearted example: He wasn't responsible for angles like Triple H's necrophilia or Mae Young giving birth to a hand, as he'd left the WWE by the time those hit the screen. Those two scenes are commonly-cited as contributing to the downfall of the Attitude Era, as they were tasteless and WWE were trying too hard to shock people by that point.
  • Ric Flair actually came out in defense of Russo regarding the death of WCW. People also forget that Vince Russo is usually not the only person involved in writing or booking.
  • The "on a pole" match isn't a Russo creation. Starrcade '85 had a "Mexican Death Match" which was essentially a "Sombrero on a Pole Match". Leather Jacket on a Pole (SuperBrawl 2000) was promoted as a "skins match". The commentators tried to build up the leather jacket as being a huge deal in biker culture. Almost like when US commentators try to explain the importance of luchador masks, but worse. Russo wasn't the booker at this time, and even if he was, a wrestler blowing his spot is not the fault of the booker's.
  • Big T (Ahmed Johnson) and Booker T feuding over the rights to the letter "T". WrestleCrap wrote an induction of the angle while making fun of Russo in the process, since it's supposedly right up his alley. However, in The Death of WCW, the same author (RD Reynolds) points out that it was Kevin Sullivan who booked that angle.
  • The story was that Goldberg joined the New Blood for a bigger paycheck, and was a hired assassin. Many fans were shown holding anti-Goldberg fans calling him "$oldberg". The common belief seems to be that Russo tried and failed to turn Goldberg heel, and then Goldberg changed back quickly because the fans didn't believe it. There is an interview with Goldberg where he stated that he saw a Make-A-Wish kid in the back crying after his heel turn, and Goldberg demanded to be made a face again.
  • On the broadest level, you can't really say Russo "killed" WCW. WCW was dying already by the time he showed up (in fact, since Russo had managed to become so strongly associated with the most successful ideas of the early Attitude era at the WWF, some wrestling commentators actually opined that him joining WCW may help to shift the Monday Night Wars back in their favour) and he was no longer booking it before its last gasp. Maybe he didn't make things any better and arguably made things worse, but his lousy booking wasn't the irreversible deathblow solely responsible for the company's failure that it's often portrayed as (if anything is singled out as the fatal blow it was the infamous Fingerpoke Of Doom, which happened over half a year before Russo was hired by WCW).
  • A plethora of Gimmick Matches and overbooked main events in TNA. The fans often blamed Russo for the more-ridiculous ideas being allowed to air. However, Russo was only head of creative from mid-2009 (after Jarrett's departure) to the beginning of 2010 (when Hulk Hogan and Bischoff arrived).
  • While the angle was written by him, Russo isn't to blame for the idea of the Immortal angle in itself. In a ReAction interview in 2015, Russo said he knew this storyline would bomb, and was just being pressured by Hulk Hogan and Bischoff to rehash the nWo. When Vince Russo is getting cold feet? Chances are you shouldn't do it.
• Never Live It Down: Him winning the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. If he hadn't given himself the belt so soon after Arquette's reviled run, it might have just been forgotten the way Mr. McMahon winning the WWF Championship is... which was also a Russo angle.
• No Such Thing as Bad Publicity:
  • When viewers voted him as You Shoot's "Most Despised Person In Wrestling" he proudly accepted the title with a smile.
  • While defending the David Arquette title reign, Russo argued that since people are still talking about the angle (and Russo himself) nearly a decade later, it was a success and a "money-maker". Because nobody ever talks about or makes movies about bad things that have happened in history...
• Shock Fatigue: A large part of what makes Russo so infamous as a booker is his notorious overindulgence in what he codified as "shocking swerves". Russo had already received much criticism for making twists that were either way too esoteric or just plain nonsensical, but compounding this is how frequently he would try to pull his twists, and with the final years in TNA being denoted by commentator Tony Schiavone "This is the most shocking swerve ever!" every week, it's no surprise that "Fi-re Ru-sso! (clap clap clapclapclap)" became such a common Crowd Chant.
• Tear Jerker:
  • His video talking about the death of his friend Chyna. Right from the beginning you can tell he's absolutely heart broken and in tears.
  • As mentioned in Mis-blamed, Russo blamed himself for the death of Owen Hart, and he's not the only one, even though there was no way he could really be responsible for what was ultimately a tragic freak accident. Steve Austin even had to comfort him by reassuring him it wasn't his fault.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring:
  • Aside from the fact that Russo doesn't believe in heels or faces, his booking in WCW stopped having good feuds between distinct characters, and instead had faction vs. faction, with wrestlers as characterless cannon fodder. There were hardly any clean matches, and zero blowoffs for feuds. No one had an individual storyline which was separate from the big complicated one (which itself was trying desperately to come off as "part-shoot").
    Eric Bischoff: Right now I would describe WCW as various shades of gray. The stories are hard to follow; the characters are all kind of the same. It just feels dark, gloomy and foggy to me. It doesn’t feel like there’s energy in it.
  • A related issue is that wrestlers placed on the lower part of the card need titles to get over, but they're not getting heat with the methods they use to obtain the belt. Heels cheat, yes, but they need to go over cleanly in big matches to gain credibility, something which rarely happens in Russo's world.
• X-Pac Heat: One of the few non-wrestlers to receive this kind of heat. TNA fans were so disgusted with how matches were booked, that some fans started "Fire Russo!" chants, aimed at Vince Russo. Russo's not the only one behind the shows, of course, but his track record with the WWF (with stuff like Big Bossman feeding Al Snow the remains of his pet dog) and WCW (with stuff like giving himself and David Arquette the Heavyweight Championship) made him a convenient lightning rod for fans' wrath. He's so reviled to the point that literally anything subpar was sure to elicit "FI-RE RU-SSO" chants.

FI-RE RU-SSO *clapclapclapclapclap* FI-RE RU-SSO *clapclapclapclapclap*

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