Background and career
Vincent James Russo (born January 24, 1961) is an American professional wrestling writer, booker, and pundit. He is working for Juggalo Championship Wrestling where he serves as an authority figure and co-owner. He is notable for his tenures in creative roles with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE), World Championship Wrestling (WCW), and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA). He also occasionally made appearances as an on-screen authority figure, and professional wrestler, in WCW and TNA. During a self-booked in-ring career in WCW, Russo became a one-time WCW World Heavyweight Champion. Russo's writing style often blurs the line between reality and fiction, while also favoring elements such as shock twists, grand moments, and larger-than-life characters over in-ring action, which made him a controversial figure among some wrestling fans. Russo was part of the WWF's creative department during the widely acclaimed Attitude Era, during which the company achieved record high television ratings.
Vincent James Russo is of Italian descent, grew up in Farmingville, New York, and graduated from the University of Southern Indiana (then known as Indiana State University Evansville) in 1983 with a degree in journalism. He worked for the school newspaper The Shield as an assistant sports editor and later editor-in-chief. Russo got his start in professional wrestling when he began training with Johnny Rodz at Gleason's Gym in Brooklyn. He owned two video stores on Long Island. Russo also hosted his own local radio show from 1992 to 1993 called Vicious Vincent's World of Wrestling, which aired Sunday nights on WGBB in Freeport. The program ran for exactly one year, the final show being the one-year anniversary.
In 1992, Russo was hired as a freelance writer for WWF Magazine after writing Linda McMahon a letter, and he became an editor in 1994 under the pseudonym Vic Venom. He was promoted to the WWF Creative Team in 1996. That year, Monday Night Raw hit a ratings low of 1.8, as Monday Nitro (Raw's chief competition), was in the midst of an 83-week winning streak against Raw head-to-head (see Monday Night War). With World Championship Wrestling (WCW) eclipsing the WWF, WWF chairman Vince McMahon asked Russo to make changes to the televised product. Russo contributed edgy, controversial storylines involving sexual content, profanity, swerves or unexpected heel turns, and worked shoots, as well as short matches, backstage vignettes, and shocking angles and levels of depicted violence. Russo's style of writing came to be known as "Crash TV" and was heavily inspired by The Jerry Springer Show. "Crash TV" centered on Russo's philosophy that every character on WWF television should be involved in a storyline (feud). This contrasted conventional wrestling booking, which typically saw a number of matches between wrestlers who were not necessarily in feuds. Russo believed that if storyline material were constantly on screen, the audience would be more reluctant to change the channel for fear of missing something. In 1997, Russo became head writer for the WWF and wrote its flagship show Raw Is War as well as its monthly pay-per-views. With the angles he created, Russo had a big part in putting WWF ahead of WCW in the Monday night rating war during the Attitude Era. In a 2015 interview with Jeff Lane, Russo said the first thing he wrote as WWF head writer was the episode of Raw that aired on December 15, 1997. At the King of the Ring pay-per-view in 1998, Ed Ferrara joined the WWF creative team and was paired with Russo. Some of the more controversial characters during this time, often cited by Russo's critics, include Sable, Val Venis, and The Godfather. Russo devised the Brawl for All tournament, and contributed to the formation of D-Generation X (DX), The Undertaker vs. Kane feud, the Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Mr. McMahon feud, the rise of The Rock, and Mick Foley's three-face pushes. In the two years after Russo's promotion to head writer, Raw surpassed WCW's Nitro in head-to-head ratings. In October 1999, Russo was replaced by Chris Kreski as WWF head writer, after Russo departed the company.
On October 3, 1999, Russo and Ed Ferrara signed with WCW; Russo contends that his reason for leaving the WWF was a dispute with Vince McMahon over the increased workload caused by the introduction of the new SmackDown! broadcast and McMahon's disregard of Russo's family. Russo and Ferrara attempted to use the same "Crash TV" style on Monday Nitro, which was similar to Raw Is War but at an accelerated pace, including soapier storylines, lengthier non-wrestling segments, constant heel/face turns, more female representation, fake retirements, more backstage vignettes, expanded storyline depth, constant title changes, and using midcard talent more effectively. Russo and Ferrara often poked fun at the WWF. Russo's writing style created a large turnover in title changes, reflecting his "crash TV" philosophy. His booking of Jushin Thunder Liger losing and regaining the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship on Nitro in late 1999 was not recognized by New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) in the title lineage until 2007; Liger lost the title to Juventud Guerrera, a luchador, after being hit on the head with a tequila bottle. Swerves and scenarios treated as "shoots" were heavily emphasized, as wrestlers supposedly gave unscripted interviews using "insider" terms recognized only by the Internet smarks; chaotic broadcasts became the norm.
In January 2000, Russo received two phone calls, one from Bret Hart (then WCW World Heavyweight Champion) and one from Jeff Jarrett (then WCW United States Heavyweight Champion), both saying they were injured, could not wrestle, and had to vacate their championships. This required Russo to alter his plans for Hart and the New World Order. Russo and his booking committee sat down to determine what would now happen at Souled Out. One of the ideas included putting the now-vacated WCW Title on the shoot fighter Tank Abbott, a former UFC fighter. In an attempt to do something believable, the idea was originally to have a "rumble match" in which Sid Vicious would be an early entrant in the match and would last all the way to the end, when Abbott would come into the match and eliminate him with one punch. Russo said that Abbott might not have held the belt for more than 24 hours if this title change had actually occurred. But the day after he and his committee came up with the idea, he was asked to work in a committee and no longer be head writer. Russo declined the offer and left the company, with his immediate replacement being Kevin Sullivan, who along with other bookers chose Chris Benoit to win the title from Vicious in a singles bout with Arn Anderson as referee. Sullivan was relieved of his duties in March 2000 and Russo returned as lead writer, alongside the returning Eric Bischoff. The idea was that Russo and Bischoff would reboot WCW into a more modern, streamlined company that would allow younger talent to work with established stars. On the April 10, 2000, WCW Monday Nitro episode, Russo was introduced as an on-screen antagonist authority figure. Notable storyline points for his character include "The New Blood vs. The Millionaire's Club"; his feud with Ric Flair, in which he and David Flair shaved Ric's hair and Reid Flair's hair; his feud with Goldberg; and his short reign as world champion. On May 8, 2000, Russo booked Miss Elizabeth in her first official wrestling match against Daffney. Elizabeth left the company shortly thereafter.
At Bash at the Beach 2000, Russo was involved in an incident with Hollywood Hogan where Hogan was booked to lose a match against reigning WCW World Heavyweight Champion Jeff Jarrett. Hogan refused to lose the match (invoking his contract's "creative control" clause to override Russo), due to Russo's apparent lack of direction for Hogan's character following the planned loss. In the end, Russo booked Jarrett to literally lie down for Hogan, which resulted in Hogan doing a worked shoot on Russo saying, "That's why this company is in the damn shape it's in; because of bullshit like this" and scoring the pinfall victory by placing his foot on Jarrett's chest. Russo came out later in the broadcast to nullify the match's result, as he publicly fired Hogan. This action restored the title to Jarrett, which set up a new title match between Jarrett and Booker T, with Booker T winning the match and the title. As Russo promised, Hogan never resurfaced in WCW and even sued Russo for defamation. The suit was dismissed in 2003 as "groundless". Hogan claims in his autobiography Hollywood Hulk Hogan that Russo turned the angle into a shoot, and that he was double-crossed by Turner executive Brad Siegel, who did not want to use him anymore due to his costs per appearance. Bischoff wrote in his autobiography, Controversy Creates Ca$h, that Hogan winning and leaving with the title was a work that would result in his return several months later and that the plan was to crown a new champion at Halloween Havoc, where Hogan would come out at the end of the show and win a champion vs. champion match—but that Russo coming out to fire him was in fact a shoot which led to Hogan's lawsuit. Bischoff says he and Hogan celebrated after the event over the angle, but were distraught to hear of Russo's in-ring shoot after Hogan left the arena. Mike Awesome, cousin to Hogan's nephew Horace Hogan (who also left WCW after the incident) also alleged in a shoot interview published by Highspots that the disputes and the incident affected his WCW run, as Russo allegedly took out his problems with Hulk Hogan on Awesome, saying he was "too close of kin" to Hogan, by portraying several poorly received gimmicks.
