You are here

/wrestling
/guests
/botter

Guest Columns

Jeremy Botter

Main

BLAH

THE COLUMN I DIDN'T WANT TO WRITE

There's an old saying that goes a bit like this....

"The more things change, the more they stay the same."

I've been searching for words to describe the past two days surrounding the wrestling business and WCW in particular, but that old quote just seems to fit the situation like a glove.

Let me preface what I'm about to say by saying exactly what I did on The Edge three weeks ago: I am not a Vince Russo fan. I respect some of the guy's work from recent years, but for the most part I think he's a lone good guy sailing in a sea of crooked pirates. The guy brings an unbelievable work ethic to the table, and until recently seemed geniunely interested in what we, the fans, had to say.

Oh, I've had my run-ins with Russo in the past. Back in the day, when I worked for Scoops as their marketing director, we had a little scandal involving a rumor Al posted about Craig Pittman. Some of you old-schoolers will remember that one, and suffice to say I unknowingly had a hand in it. Russo hated me for quite awhile there, but in the end we were able to work things out...once I convinced him I had nothing to do with the rumor getting started.

He's a nice guy. Really.

And that's the exact reason I feel bad for Vince Russo right now.

Okay, the guy had a few bad ideas. Actually, it would be better if I said he had a few GOOD ideas, because 90% of what Russo put on WCW TV since starting in October was pure crap. To be honest, if Vince had told me that he wanted Tank Abbott to go over as World Champion, I would have questioned his sanity as well.

But there might just be a reason for all the crap.

I had a conversation with Tony Schiavone in early December, and I asked him about the Ross jokes and all the shots at the WWF. Tony said that all the shots at the boys up north were just in-jokes for the staff of WCW, and that they were having a great time with it all. I asked Tony if they were programming for themselves or for ratings. He paused for awhile, and then said...

"I trust Vince."

Those are the three words that this entire crapfest boils down to. When it comes right down to it, Vince Russo was undermined from day one of his tenure in WCW by Kevin Sullivan and Kevin Nash, and quite frankly, he didn't have a chance in hell of making it.

Kevin Sullivan and Nash are masters at the game of backstage politics, and from day one they had the ear of Bill Busch, privately pointing out flaws in Russo's booking style...waiting patiently for the day when Russo would make a mistake too big to ignore.

But you know what? Nash and Sullivan aren't the only ones responsible for ousting Russo three months into a 2 year contract.

In fact, you probably know someone who had a hand in it.

It could be you.

I've long made the statement that the biggest WWF mark in history is the internet wrestling community as a whole, and the past three months has only served to make that opinion stronger in my mind.

Vince Russo did a lot of incredibly stupid, inane things while under the employ of the World Wrestling Federation, but how did the internet community respond?

"Russo's having an off-week. Give him a few days and he'll be back to normal."

He also did a lot of stupid things during his tenure as WCW Creative Director. How did you respond? I can't even bring myself to print some of the things said about Russo in various discussion forums around the net.

My question to you is this: what happened to Vince Russo when he left the beloved WWF for WCW that suddenly made him an equal to Satan?

The answer is simple....

He began working for WCW.

That's the plain and simple truth, folks.

Pat yourselves on the back and raise a toast...

You helped run Vince Russo out of town.

Jeremy Botter
Senior Editor
EmZee.com


Mail the Author
EmZee.com - coming 23.1.0

BLAH

Main

Design copyright (C) 1999, 2000 Christopher Robin Zimmerman & KZiM Communications
Guest column text copyright (C) 2000 by the individual author and used with permission