Why WWE Needs Vince Russo… ASAP
Alright before the angry mob starts getting the torches and pitchforks, let me be clear. Vince Russo should not be head of creative altogether. That was an unmitigated disaster in WCW and nobody can argue that.
But after several months of Triple H and Co booking RAW and Smackdown, it’s clear that changes need to be made. If you could some up RAW right now and Smackdown it’s the dreaded P word.
Predictable. And that is not a good thing.
And what is worse is that half to three quarters of the roster feel as if they are just there. If you put in a masked wrestler in their place, you would get the same reaction. For every Cody Rhodes, LA Knight, and Roman Reigns who get huge crowd reactions, you’re getting a ton of wrestlers who come out to a fart or tepid reaction. And it’s not their fault as the storylines and logic of most of WWE is boring and forces you to just zone out.
Don’t believe me, just watch the product, and realize how boring the show is and predictable. On Raw, we are getting the same matches over and repeatedly to the point where it feels like Groundhog Day. Every babyface wrestler comes across like a flaming idiot, every heel always seems to have the insight to have the numbers game in their matches.
And mainstream fans have literally tuned out of pro wrestling. The numbers for TV ratings don’t lie. RAW in 2010 was getting 4.6 TV ratings per episode. Now, they are averaging 1.7 million per episode. It’s not entertaining anymore, and the storylines reflect it.
(For anyone who says that ratings don’t matter… NFL’s ratings keep going up. So you can take that for what its worth.)
Bring Russo back as he understands what younger and more casual fans want. He was the one behind Goldust, Booker T’s push, D’Lo Brown and The Godfather, Val Venis and other mid card acts getting over. He helped craft The Rock and Mankind’s friendship. Compared that to Austin Theory being irrelevant, the Women’s Tag Team Titles being a joke and most NXT call ups failing and its clear Russo can book.
Right now Paul Levesque is listening to Jim Cornette and the old school wrestling crowd more. No offense, they will stick with the product through thick and thin. They are lifers just like Star Trek nerds and Star Wars geeks who will come back again and again even if the product sucks.
Vince Russo understood the 18–34-year-old crowd and also was a non-wrestling guy who understood what casuals liked. Again, this is where Vince McMahon and Nick Khan would have to edit his ideas at times. He needs to sometimes be told no and some of his ideas were god awful (Oklahoma… nuff said).
But right now, I would rather Russo’s fun but sometimes wild and crass storylines rather than just the tofu we are getting on Raw. Russo is exciting… Levesque and co… are just boring.