He also said this yesterday
Vince Russo.....making some fair points
- Thread starter Kidd Dibiase
- Start date
Beautiful Bobby Eatin
SWEEEEEEEEEETNESS!
Theres a very simple fix to this and its this. Change your production intent. WWE from what it seems is running business as usual which yes, does ignore the issue, but they also for once doesnt talk down to you like you dont know whats happening. We know why theres no fans. A lot of them had tickets that were cancelled. That isnt the issue.
The issue is holding a show like the fans are still there to deafening silence. What they should do and AEW has done this to a minute degree, is hold it in a fight club fashion. This is Vince's time to jack the entire Lucha Underground concept.
Have some wrestlers out to cheer on the fights but hold out in a fight club atmosphere (Heyman is built for this btw). Then hold vignettes in the back that only we see and announcers cannot comment on to let us follow the story without beating us over the head like we cant understand text. From there let the story play out in the ring.
This should be a rebirth for the WWE but Vince is too damn inept to see opportunity when it is slapping him in the face.
The issue is holding a show like the fans are still there to deafening silence. What they should do and AEW has done this to a minute degree, is hold it in a fight club fashion. This is Vince's time to jack the entire Lucha Underground concept.
Have some wrestlers out to cheer on the fights but hold out in a fight club atmosphere (Heyman is built for this btw). Then hold vignettes in the back that only we see and announcers cannot comment on to let us follow the story without beating us over the head like we cant understand text. From there let the story play out in the ring.
This should be a rebirth for the WWE but Vince is too damn inept to see opportunity when it is slapping him in the face.
I haven't been watching but if Drew is doing comedy? That's a big fukking mistake. Its alright to do the countdown thing but his forte isn't in jokes. If he says something real enough that sounds funny? Thats alright but going for a comedy punchline? Dumb. They did that with Blandy after Summerslam 04. Just stupid.
supertrekker
Superstar
He's an arrogant prick who's only good idea was to push the envelope and he's been living off of it for the past 20 plus years. He's like a chef that's writes a cook book but can't cook for shyt. His booking is the same way.
I have less than zero interest in how wrestlers are dealing with the coronavirus. I'm dealing with the effects of the coronavirus my damn self and the last thing I want when I turn on a wrestling show is to watch people explain to me how they are sheltering in place and going to the supermarket once every 3 weeks.
That's my reality...I'm watching this play fighting for the escapism.
Focusing on Sami Zayn the WWE character acting like he's pissed that he has been stripped of his title and making regular vignettes on that could be interesting.
Having heartfelt videos of Sami Zayn the person whining about losing his fake belt because he has decided not to show up for work at a job that hasn't fired him because he is fearful of catching a deadly virus would be one of the most tone deaf things WWE could do.
JerseyBoy23
Veteran
Saw someone on 411mania try to say Russo was wrong but he makes a lot of good points.
Daniel.
BK to NJ, but always a New York Knicka
So many extreme and literal responses in this thread.
Dude is making a lot of good points and the biggest one, even though I don't believe it was explicitly Russo's, was running the show as business as usual. The little bits I've made an effort to see, I'm seeing people looking at the empty seats when they come out, pausing in promos for crowd response. Presentation doing wide shots to an empty crowd. It's silly.
Character development is the biggest opportunity here. You don't need to go all After School Special to sell why some of these guys aren't there.
You could have a Roman cite his health reasons and present Braun like dude said earlier.
You could have Sami "broadcast via satellite" why he's the still the champ.
More out of the arena, specialized matches to give a different atmosphere.
Build stables around people supporting each other during the pandemic to give more context to wrestlers in the crowd.
Make chicken shyt heel champs that follow Sami's lead and refuse to wrestle in these conditions or gimmicks of guys wrestling in protective gear (as tastefully as you can do that) to try to bring some levity to the difficulty of whats going on.
Could have had an "open invitational" at the start of this where you know some people are not going to be medically cleared to compete and invite those willing to wrestle to come out and do so and have almost a reset to push new guys, then when things return to "normal" you have the "temporary" or replacement champs or top guys feuding with the "established" roster from before and build heels/faces around that. Have a love Twitter feed running or something to see how people are reacting to guys to get a gauge for crowd response.
The heel proclaiming to be a man for staying around and throwing it in everyone's face, the face staying to fight to provide for their family, identifying themselves with the essential workers, the wrestler fighting to keep their job and not be laid off, make those real storylines.
Have Brock claim he lost did to his symptoms and question the legitimacy of Drew's win.
Have announcers/other wrestlers serve as the moral compasses and agitators so you see both perspectives presented on TV, so it's not about something being made fun of or not being taken seriously, but presenting life as it is right now.
Some of this may not be tasteful, but wrestling by and large isn't tasteful. People will complain on social media, but fukk it. It blends reality with wrestling in a way that isn't completely over the top but also isn't preachy and creates space for pushing people within the COVID space, while setting up the stars that aren't around for something big when they come back. There's an opportunity to blend this without beating people over the head with it and weaving it into their world. Just seems like it's the same shyt with less people from what I can tell.
Dude is making a lot of good points and the biggest one, even though I don't believe it was explicitly Russo's, was running the show as business as usual. The little bits I've made an effort to see, I'm seeing people looking at the empty seats when they come out, pausing in promos for crowd response. Presentation doing wide shots to an empty crowd. It's silly.
Character development is the biggest opportunity here. You don't need to go all After School Special to sell why some of these guys aren't there.
You could have a Roman cite his health reasons and present Braun like dude said earlier.
You could have Sami "broadcast via satellite" why he's the still the champ.
More out of the arena, specialized matches to give a different atmosphere.
Build stables around people supporting each other during the pandemic to give more context to wrestlers in the crowd.
Make chicken shyt heel champs that follow Sami's lead and refuse to wrestle in these conditions or gimmicks of guys wrestling in protective gear (as tastefully as you can do that) to try to bring some levity to the difficulty of whats going on.
Could have had an "open invitational" at the start of this where you know some people are not going to be medically cleared to compete and invite those willing to wrestle to come out and do so and have almost a reset to push new guys, then when things return to "normal" you have the "temporary" or replacement champs or top guys feuding with the "established" roster from before and build heels/faces around that. Have a love Twitter feed running or something to see how people are reacting to guys to get a gauge for crowd response.
The heel proclaiming to be a man for staying around and throwing it in everyone's face, the face staying to fight to provide for their family, identifying themselves with the essential workers, the wrestler fighting to keep their job and not be laid off, make those real storylines.
Have Brock claim he lost did to his symptoms and question the legitimacy of Drew's win.
Have announcers/other wrestlers serve as the moral compasses and agitators so you see both perspectives presented on TV, so it's not about something being made fun of or not being taken seriously, but presenting life as it is right now.
Some of this may not be tasteful, but wrestling by and large isn't tasteful. People will complain on social media, but fukk it. It blends reality with wrestling in a way that isn't completely over the top but also isn't preachy and creates space for pushing people within the COVID space, while setting up the stars that aren't around for something big when they come back. There's an opportunity to blend this without beating people over the head with it and weaving it into their world. Just seems like it's the same shyt with less people from what I can tell.
Elim Garak
Veteran
Yeah the ratings will not get worse wwe has taken no chances for 15 years always so safe makes no sense lol.Excellent points, and someone in that New Day/Nation thread even said something like “if the WWE is ignoring COVID-19, why would they have storylines about social injustice?” and it’s so trueHHH is the only one that acknowledged there was something out of the norm going on, and that was the very first show one they started suspending everything.
Russo is 100% right on guys not getting over through wrestling alone, and a lot of us have been saying that already, even before the Rona happened. This was the perfect opportunity for them to try something different yet they basically have been doing the same stuff outside of a lot of the promos being better without crowds, cause the wrestlers don’t have to worry about goofy WHAT chants or “this is awesome”.
WWE is literally using those ideas. He’s stupid as shyt in complete shocker. Drake Maverick ‘real’ storyline of having to save his job isn’t doing anything for NXT. If you have a show that’s all fake with one real segment, everyone will think the real segment is fake anyway and it has no impact. Vince grew up with a WWF that had a couple of storylines PER YEAR that was very memorable and when he grew up he wanted those ‘moments’ every single week. No.
Last edited:
I mean I’d take that over reliving the times pretending Cena or Roman were underdogs. Drew shouldn’t be going back and forth with Andrade if it’s a side program on Raw
Reality Check
Keepin' it 100
To AEW's credit, they've actually understood this isn't business as normal and adapted by putting wrestlers in the crowd or in the case of BTE, having matches on the show that wreslters who are locked down during COVID can participate in. I'm surprised they didn't have more "from home" promos given about half the active roster didn't participate in tapings for weeks due to being quarantined. WWE's big problem is they've carried on like there's 10,000 people in the crowd on Mondays and Fridays and it leads to cringeworthy moments like this
Co sign. I said it before, but WWE running shows nearly the exact same way as of absolutely nothing is happening is having the opposite effect of being an escape. It's somehow surreal to a level that it makes the show largely irrelevant.
What's funny is that those pretaped Dynamite shows were actually really good. They were doing the stuff he was talking about. There were those great Britt Baker vignettes that built her character. The Bubbly Bunch segments were all good, too. But the important thing is that it let those featured show personalities.
Don't go full Russo level fukkery, but get weird with it. They're already flirting with all time lows in ratings. Might as well use that time to throw some shyt at a wall to see what sticks.
