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Vince Russo Attitude ERA

10K views 89 replies 27 participants last post by  DoctorWhosawhatsit 
#1 ·
I keep hearing that Russo supposedly was the architect of the Attitude ERA. I have my doubts, but on the off chance that I am wrong, what exactly did he contribute that made AE what it was?

Reason why I am asking is that from what I hear, the AE was successful because the talent was allowed to be an exaggerated version of themselves.
 
#7 · (Edited)
He came up with the Val Venis character, which was obviously a very over gimmick at the time. Same with Goldust (which I've heard was his idea) - one of the most innovative characters ever, and certainly a catalyst for "edgier" programming. I also think he was the one that wanted to push Booker T in a title run. He also pushed the idea that everyone on the card should be involved in some sort of angle, so not to just disregard the undercard.

Not completely sure, but I think he had the idea of The Rock joining the corporation.

People always bring up the "McMahon filter", but I would submit that McMahon has consistently had far worse ideas in terms of angles and booking. Listening to his podcast, I find it very difficult to disagree with him 90% of the time. He's not always right, and certainly had some awful ideas, but I generally (not always) agree with his opinions on today's product and what the writing should be like to improve it.


Edit: didn't he come up with the Kane/Underaker angle, or am I imagining that?
 
#8 ·
Not completely sure, but I think he had the idea of The Rock joining the corporation.
Yeah, he did.

Survivor Series 1998 is the greatest PPV of all time in terms of storyline. I mean wow it was so geniusely written and filled with so many shocking twists and turns and that ended up with a new mega-star created at the end of the night.

Pure brilliance from Russo.
 
#13 ·
Russo happened to be on board during one of WWE's most successful periods and takes a LOT more credit for it than he deserves. He contributed some to a few good story lines, but his bullshit ideas also had a lot more to do with WWE's decline from its highs than with its climb. If you ask me, his greatest contribution to the business is heading it in the direction that lead it to being in the sorry-ass state it is in today.
 
#17 ·
I am starting to believe this post.

Think about it, everywhere that Russo went to besides WWE, he was an utter failure; WCW, TNA. He pretty much killed WCW and almost put TNA out of business.

I think his contributions to the WWE were; maybe a germ of an idea that McMahon or Prichard or Cornette or Patternson improved upon. I do believe that Russo gets a lot more credit than he deserves especially in this forum.
 
#78 ·
The hardest concept for me to grasp is that McMahon was his "filter." The same "genius" that approved nearly everything in the past 15 years, pushed an incest angle with his daughter, the Katie Vick angle, the bodybuilding league, the XFL, Hornswoggle as his illegitimate son, the mystery Raw GM, the entire Shane/Undertaker angle, being against DX initially, pushing gimmicky characters like trashmen, Mae Young giving birth to a hand, Natalia having a farting angle, dying in a limo explosion, wanting Melina to be a man in drag, literally the entire Invasion angle, considering having Goldust get breast implants, the God angle, Triple H's rectal exam, Jim Ross's rectal exam, endless sex angles, having people running around trying to catch midgets with a net, putting A 50+ year old commentator over young talent, and basically destroying the entire wrestling business
 
#82 ·
Like them or not but Shawn Michaels, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash were the ones pushing hard backstage to change the direction of the company to fit more with the times and that added to the cult following ECW was creating from the same direction plus WCW destroying WWE in the ratings from May/June in 1996 through to April 1998 meant WWE simply HAD to change a lot of things.

There were subtle hints towards that direction as far back as late 1995 with Diesel as a tweener, the character of Goldust and Sunny glamourising sheer sex appeal and then through 1996 with Steve Austin, Mankind, a darker Undertaker, the return of Sid Vicious, Sable and matches like Michaels/Mankind and Undertaker/Mankind. If you look from latter 1996 onwards you'll see it was already gearing that way and became full blown the night after Summerslam in 1997 but at that point I'm sure Pat Patterson, Vince Russo and Jim Cornette were all booking together so Russo can't claim sole credit or claim to be the architect for something that was already happening and had been pushed for since 1995 which was before he was even a booker.
 
#3 ·
He owned movie store's prior to working for the WWE thus watched tons of movies, inheriting a natural creative nack for producing creative STORIES and storylines....which ultimately was probably the largest part of the AE's success imo. Obviously the edgyness made it "cool", but the stories are what sucked people in. Characters were huge too, but I feel like every era has the tools to create good characters, but without compelling stories, youll never see a character shine, or mold into a character at all really.
 
#30 ·
On face value, I don't believe this at all. Vince always wanted to be some sort of performer and he even had his 1993 heel stint in SMW. Perhaps if I heard Vince, HHH, Dunn, Take, Cornette, and the dead Heavenly Body say that that was true, I'd believe it.
 
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#4 · (Edited)
I keep hearing that Russo supposedly was the architect of the Attitude ERA. I have my doubts, but on the off chance that I am wrong, what exactly did he contribute that made AE what it was?
Even as a Russo hater, I'm curious about this as well. The sad thing is that we'll never know. I wouldn't trust a word of out Russo's mouth and the only other person that I think would have that info to tell would be McMahon and I don't think he'd tell the truth either.

edit: I agree with the guy above but I want to know exactly what. Like what stories, how much of whatever he said was rejected and I, maybe wrongly, assumed that's what OP meant as well.
 
#5 ·
This doesn't answer the OP
Given the evidence I've provided, I'd say that it backs that he could have been more than capable to be the architect for the era's on screen success. It was pretty well known during the time that he played a huge part, and even though he gets heat for being a goof when he tried to revive the WCW that he was partially responsible for burying in the first place, he was still a major catalyst for the AE.
 
#10 · (Edited)
wrt his podcast: of course he's saying things the intanet's going to agree with. If he didn't cater to that opinion, he'd make less money. Not exactly an in depth marketing strategy.


I mostly meant that with respect to his side comments and ideas for how to cater to new fans. Honestly, I'd assume his comments would ruffle the feathers of most of the hardcores/internet fans (though, this is the only forum that I frequent, so I'm not sure if it's a proper representation). He's always been big on the stories and light on the wrestling, as well as the importance of having "the look" and things like that that I feel like most people around here disagree with.


Edit: I didn't realize there was a lawsuit regarding racism. That's interesting. I always thought the story was the Hogan (or whoever it was) didn't want to do business and drop the title to Booker
 
#11 ·
I will say that I've never listened to his podcast or any podcast featuring him. His accent and use of "bro" and no relenting on him doing nothing wrong in WCW with the exception of one thing just make me tune out.

Edit: I didn't realize there was a lawsuit regarding racism. That's interesting. I always thought the story was the Hogan (or whoever it was) didn't want to do business and drop the title to Booker
Yeah there were at least two lawsuits at play. Booker got the title at Bash at the Beach 2000 because of a lawsuit and Russo himself got slapped with a defamation lawsuit by Hogan for the slanderous things he said in the promo after Hogan pinned Jeff and left.
 
#14 ·
Russo was doing a thing on his podcast a while back(haven't listened in a while) where he'd review the weekly Raw along with one from the era when he he was involved. I always especially enjoy hearing his insight into the thoughts that went into the AE shows. He's not above calling some of his ideas stinkers. He will never admit that Arquette was a terrible idea, but he has on other stuff. He doesn't try to take credit for everything. If a great idea wasn't his he gives credit to the person who it belonged to.

I also enjoy him offering things that he would do differently on the current show. I do agree that there is a degree of pandering to the smark crowd here, but I do find myself agreeing with him on changes needed more often than not.
 
#15 ·
When a "filter" can't filter an angle that results in someone's death. I question that filter's abilities.

It's undeniable from Russo's statements online and videos that he says a lot of dumb shit and then he later backtracks and goes no, no, no I really meant this. So yeah Russo needs a filter and that was probably a lot of guys not just Vince McMahon probably mostly Ed Ferrara.

Russo is a master of structure and pacing though rather than having a lot of great ideas. Russo could make a wrestling show flow.

If Russo was booking Raw the show would flow better even if the content wasn't different.
 
#19 ·
We actually talked to Russo today, one of the things he talked about was DX and how it was McMahon's idea to plug Billy Gunn and Road Dogg into the group, and HHH and Shawn wouldn't go for it which is why they started as a tag team on their own, the New Age Outlaws, to see if they'd get over.

FYI - Russo also said he's spoken to McMahon over the last week.

I'll link the clip once it's posted.
 
#21 ·
The thing that gets me is, while Russo doesn't hesitate to take credit for his genius & innovative ideas, there doesn't seem to be a lot of people that come forward & give him credit, without the vague explanation of "coming up with something for everybody".

And for me, that's what makes it hard to accept & admit he did all these wonderful things. In most cases, he seems to be the only one will say so. So, it kind of comes off as self-aggrandizing. And what furthers that is how he distances himself from any wrong, by always passing the buck.

Aside from Disco, I don't really hear anybody in the business put over his writing. Not to say nobody has but...who has? Surely a helluva lot more people than Disco?
 
#24 ·
Conspiracy theory and conjecture. The reason no one champions Vince Russo is because everybody knows how toxic he is. His car crash style of entertainment managed to please some mouth-breathers in the late 90's, but it's not something that actually drew or made money. Austin, Rock and Vince did that -- and Austin, Rock and Vince were so far removed from Vince Russo it wasn't funny. I can't think of one thing Russo did, actually definitively his, that drew money. I can think of a lot of things he's done to hurt wrestling (getting TNA kicked off Spike being his latest one).
 
#29 ·
No, I credit Vince McMahon for the Mr. McMahon character. The evil authority figure rarely works in wrestling. For example, Stephanie McMahon has been nothing but a detriment. She shows ass once a year and just spends the rest of the time burying the weekly talent. Vince had a better handle on things. It has nothing to do with "Mr. McMahon being an evil boss," and all to do with how he went about portraying that character. It was in his remarkable chemistry with Steve Austin, and if he didn't have that foil, then it wouldn't have worked anywhere nearly as well. Case in point: See Mr. McMahon anytime he's been outside the Austin feud.
 
#32 ·
I think Russo, at the end of the day, may have had some good ideas overall during the AE - But as others have said, his podcasts and post-AE interviews show me that he cannot admit being wrong, and placing blame on everyone else but himself. Could the WWF have survived the MNW's (the AE) without Austin, Rock, DX, etc /with/ Russo? Doubtful. Can we blame WCW's fall on Russo? Doubtful. Look at the other things, like the horrible pre-russo booking that just didn't make sense, Hogan's politics, the tired NWO angles, etc.

He was probably at least somewhat responsible for some of the negative things - as well as the positive. Russo was in the right place at the right time, but then he left and the ratings for the WWE/F were still growing. It's also likely long term storylines Russo et al came up with were at least partially in play, after he left for WCW. Sadly, we will never really know what was legitimately his own ideas which were promoted.
 
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