Former WWE writer takes a shot at Vince McMahon's booking style [Exclusive]
Vince Russo recently revealed that he's not a big fan of Nikki Cross' new superhero gimmick. Cross was in singles action on WWE RAW last night, and she beat Shayna Baszler.
On this week's edition of Sportskeeda's RAW review show, Legion of RAW, the former WWE writer opened up about his experience working with Vince McMahon. He reflected on this experience during a discussion about Cross' new superhero character. Russo criticized McMahon's booking and noted that his storylines are simplistic.
"I'm being dead serious now, I worked with him [Vince McMahon] for a very long time," said Russo. "There are no storylines on Vince McMahon's watch that are very cerebral. They're not. Vince McMahon does not come up with storylines that are cerebral. By that I mean, there are levels, they take time to play out, you've got to think about them. Ed Ferrara and I did a lot of that because we controlled it. He didn't write that, we wrote it."
Russo argued that McMahon doesn't book any "cerebral" storylines and stated that the writers under him were responsible for the layered programs that unfolded on WWE TV during the Attitude Era. He then shared an example of a problematic segment McMahon presumably booked shortly after Russo left for WCW in 1999:
" We knew where we were going, we knew the levels, you know, The Rock joining The Corporation and all that, we wrote that stuff," Russo continued." When we left... Vince McMahon is entertained by visual slapstick third-grade comedy, he really is. I'll never forget, the week we left the first thing Vince McMahon did when Russo and Ferrera weren't there, he had some kind of a match that somehow someway Davey Boy Smith wound up in dog cr*p."
Vince Russo left WWE in 1999
Vince Russo started off as a writer for WWF's magazine, and he rose to head writer in 1997. Russo was on the creative team during some of WWE's most successful years. But he left the company and signed with its biggest rival, WCW in 1999.
Unfortunately, Vince Russo's WCW run wasn't as successful and WWE bought the promotion in 2001. Russo later worked for TNA (IMPACT Wrestling) for several years, and he also booked several memorable angles during his time there.
If any quotes are used from this article, please add an H/T to Sportskeeda Wrestling
Hi! We'd love to hear from all you Wrestling fans. Please spare 2 minutes to take this short survey