How Vince Russo's Secret Employment Almost Killed Impact Wrestling
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To many… many of his critics, former wrestling writer Vince Russo is the absolute scourge of the wrestling industry. A New Yorker who charmed his way into the right hand of Vince McMahon. But also someone who without Vince’s guidance has proven time and time again is no more than just a hack.
RELATED: 5 Current AEW Wrestlers Vince Russo Would Have Pushed (& 5 He Would Have Ruined)
To his fans and “Vinny-Roo” himself, he was the predominant voice of the early Attitude Era and then got hamstrung in WCW politics, and later on, the TNA politics were total nonstop action (pun intended). Despite what anyone thinks of Russo, former TNA head, Dixie Carter not only wanted him on her team, even though it nearly cost her the company she owned.
Russo Had Two Good Years With WWE
Depending on what stories you subscribe to, either Vince Russo was an absolute genius for two years before heading to WCW, or the more likely version of that story is true. Russo was the lead writer of a think tank that Vince McMahon took any and all ideas. McMahon was then able to tweak any and all of those ideas (just like he always does). As plenty will tell you, Russo was just able to provide a different perspective. He left WWE basically in the middle of the night to head to WCW. Without the WWE method of doing things and having more or less complete autonomy, Russo tried to run amok in WCW and got hampered by their standards and practices. Whether he likes it or not, without “The Great Filter,” Vince McMahon, Russo was completely exposed in WCW. However, as it goes in wrestling, the end of WCW wasn’t the end of Russo in wrestling.
Russo Had A Friendship With Double J
Thanks to a friendship with Jeff Jarrett that spanned back to their WWE days, Russo was invited by the Jarretts to be the head creative writer for the new promotion they were starting up. Russo claims he came up with the name TNA; considering his love of entendre, that actually tracks. The early years of Russo’s tenure and the early years of TNA, saw all sorts of creative people come in, not to challenge Russo’s ideas, but help the company.
RELATED: Jeff Jarrett Talks Why Vince Russo Pushed Him So Much In WCW
Unfortunately, depending on who you ask, that also did mean challenging Russo’s idea. According to Eric Bischoff, while Russo could be very charming, his creative ideas were often dreamed up on a house of cards, where he had little to no follow through on any of his angles. It also didn’t help that the fans were not accepting of what Russo was doing anymore.
“Fire Russo”
The fans chant all sorts of wild things. But they seldom call for the head of one of the writers. During a ridiculous Last Rites match between Sting and Abyss, the TNA faithful were doing just that - vehemently screaming “Fire Russo,” and it wasn’t the only time either - the poorly received and executed electrified steel cage between Team 3D and LAX match didn’t help fans perceptions of Russo. After several years, Russo and TNA parted ways amicably. However, it was eventually reported by Mike Johnson at the website PWInsider had reported that Russo was actually still employed by the company in secret and reported to Dixie Carter. It all had stemmed from an email he had meant to send to Mike Tenay and instead sent it to Mike Johnson and clearly couldn’t hit the recall button on his Outlook fast enough. When the website decided to run the story, Russo tried to do damage control and tweeted “WOW-just amazing to see that anybody will print anything as TRUTH without checking on it. Nice to see the SWERVE still works!!” He also tweeted a thank you to the site’s editor Dave Scherer for all of the free promotion. The damage was done of course and Russo was relieved of his services. But the damage was very already done, and it was one of many reasons that Spike opted to not renew their relationship with TNA
RELATED: 10 Ways Vince Russo Failed TNA
Not learning from his prior mistakes the whole ordeal happened again several years later when Impact was gearing up for their No Place Like Home PPV that had to be shelved because of the pandemic. This time around Impact got in front of the story and insisted that Russo was not working for the company in no way shape or form.
You would think the guy would delete Mike Johnson from his contacts. Clearly, he doesn’t seem to mind sending out the wrong email every now and again to get out of a job.
