[JigsawKrueger]

Dozens of angles from Raw is War between 98 and 99.

• New Age Outlaw's pushing Foley and Funk off the stage
• Vince McMahon and the stooges getting arrested
• The cement corvette
• Austin disguised as a doctor attacking McMahon at a hospital
• Austin holding Vince at gunpoint, and Vinnie peeing himself
• The Corporate beer bath
• The Rock throwing Austin into a river
• Austin crushing Rocky's sports car

 

[Stinger Fan]

Okay he gets a lot of flack, but what about the stuff he booked that people liked?

Survivor Series 1998, and The Rock turning heel.

Some of the new blood versus the millionaire's club. Which at least was an interesting idea.

Val/Sonjay/Lethal. Although I know a lot of people who detested this angle.

Some of the early SEX stuff in TNA.


Russo is great when he has people (MacMahon) to bounce off and control him. Giving him free reign or total control is doom. Or what I like to call "Attack of the Clones Syndrome".

He recycles storylines, he's not good he hardly ever makes GOOD choices. He comes up with 2 good choices for ever 25 bad ones.I don't understand how people say"oh see he make a good thing there but people won't talk about it" well thats because one little thing shouldn't mean he's amazing all of the sudden.I think its time for him to go for TNA to grow and have better writing. TOO many things happen during the show

As for the topic Fortune turning on Immortal was good but only because they messed up in not getting Nash,Booker and Sting for MEM which would end up failing becasue of stealing the young guys spotlight

 

[M.S.I.I.]

RAW 98-99
TNA after Victory Road 2009-December 2009.

 

[miles berg]

Yeah, Booker/Nash caused it but some of the best stuff in wrestling history happened on accident. Bret Hart, not Hulk Hogan, was supposed to be the 3rd guy in the nWo. The nWo wouldnt have been the trendsetting, gamechanging, industry revolutionizing thing it was had Hulk Hogan not shocked the world by turning heel and joining Nash & Hall in the nWo as their leader.

Stone Cold Steve Austin should have never happened, why in the world did WCW release this guy? Would be like TNA releasing Robert Roode for no real reason. Or WWE releasing Randy Orton when he was in Evolution. Stunning Steve should have never left WCW and been in a position to lead the WWF out of bankruptcy and WCW into its grave.

There are a ton of examples.

As for Russo, he has had many great moments. His ideas were unique to the industry in 1997. Giving babyfaces heel like personas was unique. Before Russo, it was good guy vs bad guy. Russo changed that and between 1997-99 guys like Stone Cold & The Rock were born from his formula. No one had ever seen a babyface flip people off and beat his bosses ass. No one had ever seen anything like a cocky, self absorbed, egomaniac like The Rock be cheered by the millions and millions of The Rocks fans. It was unique. Hogan was the biggest babyface ever up to that point and he was just like John Cena, he catered to the kids, told them to eat their vitamins and say their prayers.

Rock & Austin were different. Russo pushed that type of stuff when he was in the WWF and it worked because:

A. No one had ever seen it before
B. The production values of the WWF were superior. Would Stone Cold had been 1/2 as big had he not had his theme song? Would DX be DX without their entrance? I mean, this stuff is huge. When The Miz walks out you think for half a second that the guy is a megastar due to his entrance.

That is where TNA fails. They dont make people feel larger than life. The WWF mastered this. The WWF isnt nearly as good at it as it used to be, the days of having 15 great themes on a CD, all current stars in the federation, those days are gone. Im not sure why the WWF doesnt have the music it had in the late 90s/early 00s but half the reason Evolution was so badass was their theme song. Sounds stupid but fans dig that shit. Kurt Angles theme was classic in the WWF. The music in TNA that he has seems so damn generic but in the WWF it was crazy how over his theme was. Fans chanting "you suck" througout his song, that shit was awesome.

 

[MovieStarR™]

Russo's booking in 2011, so far, has been impressive. We've had NO bad IMPACTs this year.

 

[murder]

Surprisingly, no one mentioned it yet: Mick Foley putting butts in the seats on January 4th 1999.
And again later during "Rock: This is your Life"

 

[wweundertaker]

I wish he would bring new idea this could take TNA to next level and huge.

 

[SHIRLEY]

It's pretty funny how OP mentioned all of Russo's classic archetypes.

- Wild heel turns
- Young vs. Old feuds
- Love triangles that end in crazy stipulation matches
- Faction warfare

Basically everything that's wrong with Vince Russo's booking.

 

[dave 1981]

I can only really think of the original feud amd build up storyline with The Undertaker and Kane from mid 1997 through to mid 1998 which was for me storyline wise is the best that WWE has ever seen and probably only behind the build from Bash at the Beach in 1996 through to Starrcade in late 1997 between Sting and Hollywood Hogan. I have read before that Vince Russo was behind virtually the whole thing but had wanted for Kane to win at WrestleMania 14 so that he looked even stronger for when he faced Stone Cold Steve Austin a couple of months later.

A lot of the feud between Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Undertaker from mid 1998 through to mid 1999 was Vince Russo inspired and a really enjoyed that feud as well as The Rock and Triple H in 1999. What needs to be remembered though is that whilst Vince Russo was the head writer from early 1997 through to late summer in 1999 a lot of his potential storylines were rejected by Vince McMahon and he still had to go through Vince McMahon for final approval before anything would air on tv and was proved in WCW and TNA without Vince Russo being filtered as he was by Vince Russo we see a lot of complete madness because he can now put out everything he wants.

 

[SpeedStick]

August 2009 - Jan 4 2010

 

[SuperDuperSonic]

Russo's booking in 2011, so far, has been impressive. We've had NO bad IMPACTs this year.

Uh huh. So matches on Impact are being booked to make people wanna pay to see the PPVs, correct?

 

[TNAwesomeness]

Theres no point to this thread, Russo could make tna the top company in the world and people will still bitch about the things he does wrong. Not saying he's the greatest, but he has done a pretty good job the last 6 months or so.

 

[Mr. Kennedy]

This thread. Good lord.

 

[wiseone]

Well the Angle/JJ angle with Karen has Russo's fingerprints all over it. That is the best feud TNA has put together in years. Yet no one gives Russo credit for its fantastic build (JJ's MMA stuff, involving the families etc).

 

[M.S.I.I.]

Theres no point to this thread, Russo could make tna the top company in the world and people will still bitch about the things he does wrong. Not saying he's the greatest, but he has done a pretty good job the last 6 months or so.

Like a head coach's job is to get his team the most wins, isn't a professional wrestling writer's job to get the audience to buy the most PPV's possible? Usually that's done by producing a show that doesn't well...suck.

TNA doesn't have decades of history and credibility to fall back on like WWE does when their writing sucks (always), so it's tougher for TNA. Russo doesn't accomplish the basics, so I would imagine buyrates are in the shit right now.

 

[Mr. Kennedy]

Buyrates are shit, they delved as low as 8,000 last year apparently.

I wanted to get into this thread, but the proposterosity (to coin a phrase) of people giving Russo credit for stuff he supposedly did in WWF that I question he really did to when you look at how different that is to the nonsense he's produced outside the WWF, combined with people praising some utter shit from this TNA run has made me give up before I began. I will disagree strongly with one point - TNAwesomeness said that this thread is pointless because even if Russo was a massive success people would hate him. Now I won't be so arrogant to say you're right, because everybody, when they are successful, has detractors, but I'll guess that the vast majority of the people that are pissed at Russo are annoyed because his style clearly doesn't work and yet he makes the same mistakes again and again, and they really do want TNA to succeed.

 

[Boom Baby]

Foley vs Balboa ws pretty funny/smart. Perfect for Foley's character at that time. Remember how he wanted to defend TNA title once a year after that? I thought it was really good.

 

[Bleeding_Walls]

When he booked himself to get speared and got a concussion was pretty good.

 

[nekro]

IMO, I thought the AJ heel turn was very well done.