How much did Vince Russo contribute to the attitude era?

[Dusty Bake Activate]

I know what people say. He had a bunch of stupid ideas and a couple of them would be good so McMahon would use them. He convinced WCW he was responsible for everything in he attitude era. WCW quickly realized he was full of shyt as his product there was

What are his confirmed positive contributions to WWF while he was there though... other than the brawl for it all? Anybody know?

 

[VegetasHairline]

 

[NkrumahWasRight Is Wrong]

Seems unclear

Some are working

Some are shooting

Some claim X is lying

X then claims Y is lying

Until VKM writes a book im discounting everything

 

[CM_Burns]

He contributed a lot. Rock and Austin alone can't be credited for the boom. If they were, then things wouldn't have died down as they did from 2001 onward, when they had Rock, Austin, and a more star powered roster than 98-99 but ratings continually fell.

His biggest confirmed positive is in the tone format/pace of the show. Many of the WM14-Summer 99 segments were written by him or he had a major hand in, including the classic Austin segments of the time, as Austin himself has confirmed in his interview with Russo.

Internet writers talk about 2000 like they took the good from the Attitude Era and made it even better with Kreski, by having more logical storylines and an undercard with better workers. But the reality is, 2000 was the beginning of the downturn. Wrestling wasn't as hot in 2000 as it was in 99. WWF itself's TV numbers might be, but they had also completely won the war by then and there was no point in channel switching to most people. Wrestlemania 14 through Summer 99 was a year and a half of wrestling TV like nothing anyone had seen before and they haven't been able to recreate for more than a month or two since.

 

[Norrin Radd]

Too much.

 

[FunkDoc1112]

'98 Survivor Series

 

[Love Sosa]

Everyone on the card was over

 

[CM_Burns]

Everyone on the card was over bro

Fixed

 

[TheAlbionist]

Even people who hate his guts admit he had a fair bit of influence. He went kind of rogue editing Raw magazine edging on breaking kayfabe in wrestler interviews - Prichard ran to Vince in order to either get Russo in shyt or because he genuinely thought it was bad for business - Vince initially agreed, but ended up pivoting the whole product to the more 'real life' magazine style creating Attitude. None of it was Vince Russo's IDEA - "WWF Attitude" was what Vince called HBK wanting to play with his dikk on live TV.

He did some occasional good shyt (bro) but especially keeping every TV worker involved in something to keep the fans engaged even if it was bullshyt most of the time.

He's not the Satan people want him to be, but he's nowhere near the fukking wrestling Jesus he thinks he is and he was basically lucky that his taste aligned with mainstream taste at the time it did - his luck ran out pretty quickly.

Most people that work back stage in wrestling are shyt at it.

 

[Dusty Bake Activate]

Even people who hate his guts admit he had a fair bit of influence. He went kind of rogue editing Raw magazine edging on breaking kayfabe in wrestler interviews - Prichard ran to Vince in order to either get Russo in shyt or because he genuinely thought it was bad for business - Vince initially agreed, but ended up pivoting the whole product to the more 'real life' magazine style creating Attitude. None of it was Vince Russo's IDEA - "WWF Attitude" was what Vince called HBK wanting to play with his dikk on live TV.

He did some occasional good shyt (bro) but especially keeping every TV worker involved in something to keep the fans engaged even if it was bullshyt most of the time.

He's not the Satan people want him to be, but he's nowhere near the fukking wrestling Jesus he thinks he is and he was basically lucky that his taste aligned with mainstream taste at the time it did - his luck ran out pretty quickly.

Most people that work back stage in wrestling are shyt at it.

Seems like people say he wasn’t shyt without Vince to edit his edgy soap opera antics...and a great young roster of wrestlers including 2 of the top 3 most popular wrestlers ever.

I’m curious about specific examples of what his influence was though. Like were there any great angles or gimmicks he came up with.

His WCW shyt seemed like he was starting from scratch every week. Eric Bischoff described him as having a bunch of angles, most of them suck, some of them good, but no sense of planning and building a long story.

 

[Henzo]

Russo was able to make a connection with all the wrestlers on a level that no writer has been able to since. He convinced them, for better or worse, that he was on their team.
Russo was so personable (and talented) that nobody could deny him.

 

[Bob Loblaw]

Russo was able to make a connection with all the wrestlers on a level that no writer has been able to since. He convinced them, for better or worse, that he was on their team.
Russo was so personable (and talented) that nobody could deny him.

Much like heyman in the ecw days...

 

[Henzo]

Much like heyman in the ecw days...

absolutely. notice how as many enemies as russo and heyman had, they never really went at each other. mutual respect!

 

[NYChase718]

 

[TheAlbionist]

’Im curious about specific examples of what his influence was though. Like were there any great angles or gimmicks he came up with.

Hawk's alcoholism angle ending in him falling/being push by Droz off the Titantron.

Terri Runnels miscarriage angle.

Val Venis pornstar gimmick

Diva's Paddle On A Pole, Bike Chain On A Pole... stuff on poles.