No one divides opinion in the annals of pro wrestling in the same way as Vince Russo. Russo was a former writer for WWE during the Attitude Era before he jumped ship to WCW at the height of the Monday Night Wars. While he had his fair share of bad ideas during his WWE stint itself, Vince McMahon vetoed the ideas he believed wouldn’t work – and thankfully so, as his WCW record showed us.
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As head booker in WCW, Russo ran wild with the intention to create must-see-television. His terrible booking decisions and ideas almost certainly led to, or at the very least began, the decline and eventual death of WCW. It’s also difficult to ignore the negative impact he had on TNA wrestling, pitching some of the worst storylines in TNA’s history.
Even while we criticize Russo, let’s not forget that he had a lot of good ideas during his WWE tenure such as pushing Triple H and The Rock. The problem with Russo was that even though he had a good idea once in a while, the sheer volume of terrible ideas he had needed filtering – something that wasn’t done in WCW because he was the top creative guy there during a major part of his tenure. His obsession for gimmick matches, getting mainstream attention no matter what and “breaking the fourth wall’ ruined most of his good ideas.
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If Russo had retired from the business at the moment when he’d left WWE for WCW, he would still be considered a genius today instead of being held responsible for the death of WCW by many and the brain behind some of the worst pro wrestling angles in history.
5: Reverse Battle Royal
When we start off our list with an idea as bad as the Reverse Battle Royal, you know that this list is going to have at least a couple of absolute stinkers.
The TNA Reverse Battle Royal was the first stage in the Fight For The Right tournament that was held in 2006 and 2007. Although it was never confirmed that Russo was TNA’s chief writer during this point, he is definitely the brains behind this doozy of an idea. 16 wrestlers started off outside the ring with the first 8 to get into the ring moving onto the next round. After that, the 8 wrestlers inside the ring had a regular battle royal till two wrestlers were left standing in the ring. The final two would have a match between them to decide the winner. There was also a complicated seeding system involved that had an effect on the tournament that’s too complicated for me to bother getting into.
The logic of wrestlers fighting each other to get into the ring was just dumb. There were points where wrestlers just stood there because no one was working with them but they couldn’t get into the ring. It just left the wrestlers looking like they didn’t have a clue. It’s alarming to think that TNA liked the original event in 2006 enough to try it again the following year.
4: All the “pole” matches
If there’s anything that Vince Russo is more synonymous with that bad storylines, it’s his obsession with various kinds of “pole” matches. From his idea of the “pole” match with Judy Bagwell on a forklift to the absolutely horrible piñata on a pole match, these were aberrations to wrestling and not the cutting age product that Russo had envisioned them to be. And, let’s not forget the “Viagra on a pole match” between Shane Douglas and Billy Kidman nor the “leather jacket on a pole match” that involved Tank Abbott of all people.
It is matches like these that sometimes make wrestling fans look like absolute nutjobs. Thanks for that Vince, now go back to being the “creative genius” you are.
3: David Flair and Stacey Keibler
I’m shaking my head even as I’m writing this.
Keibler first got her foot in through the door at WCW by winning a $10,000 contest to become a part of the Nitro girls. Her career began to take off soon after as the gorgeous Miss Hancock as part of the stable Standards and Practices. Following her association with the, she became the love interest of David Flair, son of the legendary Ric Flair. As part of the storyline, she got into a series of matches with Daffney, who was Flair Jr’s girlfriend before Kiebler arrived on the scene. She had a series of terrible matches with Daffney including a “wedding gown match” and “mud pit matches”.
All this led to a terrible wedding angle between Flair and Keibler which led to Keibler announcing that she was ‘pregnant’. Apparently, the original idea for this angle was for Russo himself to be declared the father before being changed to Ric being the father, which was even more disgusting but thanfully, the idea never made it to the screen as Russo was shelved before it could be.
2: Making himself as WCW Champion
When you talk about devaluing a belt, making one of your head writers the promotion’s top champion is right at the top of the list. Clearly, Russo was going into it for himself at this point and saw himself as the top heel in the entire WCW brand.
Russo pushed himself in a cage match against Booker T for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship before intervention by Goldberg inadvertently saw Russo being speared through the cage, thus escaping before Booker T. Even though Russo only held the belt for a little while, he devalued the belt for a long while to come.
1: David Arquette as WCW Champion
Although this idea is sometimes attributed to Tony Schiavone, he only meant it as a joke when he pitched it. Russo took the ball and ran with it to the extent that it killed the credibility of WCW’s prestigious World Heavyweight Championship.
Arquette originally got involved with WCW with the terrible “Ready To Rumble” movie which gave Russo the idea that making him World Heavyweight Champion around the same time as the movie released would get WCW a lot of mainstream attention. Even though it did get WCW attention, it was all negative and mainstream fans began to see WCW as a joke. No matter what WCW did, they never recovered from this body blow.
