TMZ reported that Spike has not renewed TNA.

jaykhunter

imadouche wrote: »

I could never figure that out. he never came up with any good ideas on his own from 1999-2014. Butt when mcmahon was telling him what he could and couldn't do he was "brilliant". Obviously he's not brilliant. as far as I'm concerned mcmahon deserves more of the credit.

Agreed. It's like asking "what's a normal platelet count in billions?" and Russo replies "10. 50. 250. 500. 1,000. 1 million!" and Vince picks 250 (the right one)

takamichinoku

I always assumed it was a case that Russo's incessant pitching of ideas diverted McMahon away from the kind of awful ideas he'd normally fall back on when left to himself?

imadouche

I think russo had a lot of ideas. Then mcmahon tweaked and structured them.

bradlente

We're talking about the head writer employed by Mcmahon during the Attitude Era,surely he deserves some credit for that?
I pretty much agree that most of his output beyond that time was garbage,maybe he even managed to bluff his way through that boom period too but I find that hard to believe.Some of Vince's ideas through the years whether they got on tv or not have been a little insane.I'd say they were a good foil for each other in that they were able to reign in each others ideas to some point.Russo never has or will work under an authoritarian like Vince again,maybe that kind of a partnership helped things flourish.

imadouche

He has 15 straight years of failure.

Why would 97 have been any different?

imadouche

Mcmahon has had a lot of crap ideas too. but he has had a lot of sucess before and after russo,who. has the worst record of any modern day booker.

ShagNastii

Wouldn’t be too up on the whole timescale of Russo but I think his time helming WCW during it’s dying days is proof enough he is an idiot devoid of any real creative talent.

Oklamhoma. The joke he made of the Luchadors. His booking of Goldberg.

It is often stated that all this crap only went through cause there was no Vince McMahon to give it a huge thumbs down.

You also have to remember the Attitude Era wasn’t actually flawless. Good few turd angles and storylines if you take a closer look.

bradlente

Yeah that's fair enough.The amount of talent in the locker room around the late nineties combined with less exposure every week on tv probably helped the product a lot as well.

beakerjoe

ShagNastii wrote: »

Wouldn’t be too up on the whole timescale of Russo but I think his time helming WCW during it’s dying days is proof enough he is an idiot devoid of any real creative talent.

Oklamhoma. The joke he made of the Luchadors. His booking of Goldberg.

It is often stated that all this crap only went through cause there was no Vince McMahon to give it a huge thumbs down.

You also have to remember the Attitude Era wasn’t actually flawless. Good few turd angles and storylines if you take a closer look.

Judging by the way McMahon bullied JR, Id say he would have loved Oklahoma had it been in the WWE

Reebrock

beakerjoe wrote: »

Judging by the way McMahon bullied JR, Id say he would have loved Oklahoma had it been in the WWE

It was in the WWE. People tend to forget that when they get on their high horse about nasty WCW. Ed did it on Heat, in the ring with Shane.

Agent Coulson

Vince didn't need Oklamhoma. He could do it himself.

imadouche

Oh yeah i agree. every era has it'd fails but even after russo left wwe their ship stayed steady. as far as wcw goes and in defense of russo wcw waas just about to hit. the iceberg. i wouldn't say russo killed it completely,he just helped it sink .faster

imadouche

Reebrock wrote: »

It was in the WWE. People tend to forget that when they get on their high horse about nasty WCW. Ed did it on Heat, in the ring with Shane.

Ed ferrara did his jr in wcw not wwe

imadouche

My bad. i see it was done in wwe first. good call.

briany

WCW didn't go down 'cause of Russo. They went down because,

1. They had almost no good ideas. The one great idea WCW ever truly had was played out after 2 years.

2. Their management became a mess. Like, "8 different bosses, Bob! Eight!" level mess.

3. They let some of their top guys have way too much say in booking and hold other talent down.

4. Their locker room morale took a never ending slide from '98 onward, and it showed on camera.

5. They didn't really develop new stars. Their idea of developing new stars was buying WWF talent, to begin with, or talent from ECW. The ones they did develop were catastrophically mishandled, like Goldberg.

All of this was already endemic in WCW when Russo joined. If you want to make an analogy to what Russo was to WCW, he was like some kind of termite that infests rotten wooden structures. Maybe his presence there hastened the inevitable conclusion, but the natural forces would have eventually done their job soon after as well.

imadouche

The guaranteed contracts helped as well. no motivation. got paid no matter how they half assed it.

imadouche

Though i am a little shocked that Glacier wasn't able to put wcw back on top.

briany

imadouche wrote: »

Though i am a little shocked that Glacier wasn't able to put wcw back on top.

I'm still coming to terms with the fact that Ice Warriors wasn't quite the ratings success that ITV had anticipated.

gnfnrhead

Eric Bischoff deserves the vast majority of the blame for WCW going out of business. Russo simply jumped onto a cruise liner, not realising it was the Titanic. It was doomed long before he ever got there. If anything, he dragged a few extra years out of WCW.

In TNA, he was under Jeff Jarrett (and various others) up until the second half of 2009. He was in charge then for the first time and it was the best TNA had been since 2005-2006. He wasn't under any pressure as he was just put in charge until January. Hogan and Bischoff then took over at the start of 2010 and the rest we all know. Only now have they shown any signs of recovery.

Russo gets a lot of unfair hate despite showing he can produce in the right circumstances.

imadouche

Bryan alvarez from wrestling observer has a 10 year anniversary extended book of Death of wcw coming out in the fall. for those that haven't read it,its pretty solid.

Lord TSC

imadouche wrote: »

Bryan alvarez from wrestling observer has a 10 year anniversary extended book of Death of wcw coming out in the fall. for those that haven't read it,its pretty solid.

One of my favorite books ever

imadouche

These days I'm not much of an alvarez guy but the book stands pn its own.