Source: 411 Mania and Facebook
Vince Russo Interview – 2/18/2010
Wrestling Elite
Detroit Sports Talk – 1130AM WDFN
Recap by Marty Hotts
Russo talked about Rope Opera and said the perfect time to end “Rope Opera”, his new book that is out, at the point where Hogan and Bischoff came to TNA because there’s no doubt that the Russo/Bischoff/Hogan era is a new one. Russo says he sees a 3rd book coming out and that he likes writing as things happen due to there always being things happening in wrestling.
Russo talks about David Arquette winning the belt again and the host mentions that Arquette/Bash At The Beach incidents are brought up to him frequently.
When asked about taking audience from Raw when TNA goes Mondays, Russo says it’s not going to happen “anytime soon” or overnight. Russo said it took 2-3 years for WWE to beat WCW. He said anyone that expects “instant gratification” – it’s not going to happen. Russo said it takes weeks and weeks and weeks of good programming that is better than the competition to get word of mouth, getting people to talk about TNA. In time, Russo says they will “start to bite in the audience”, but it’s nothing they expect to happen overnight.
Host says that TNA is a much more interesting show and asks if Russo watches WWE. Russo says WWE is going through the motions and are on “cruise control”. Russo says they have been doing a 3.5 rating for at least the last five years. He says that’s a very good rating, but it has been cruise control.
Russo says he doesn’t watch their show from start to finish because he can’t. He says from what he has seen, he has seen it before. There is nothing good to him. He says he’d rather be criticized for trying new things that don’t work than not try anything at all. He says he will continue to throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks and what doesn’t rather than stay complacent and put on the same old show week in and week out. He says that is not going to happen as long as he’s writing.
Host says one criticism TNA receives is the gimmick matches (Ultimate X, Feast or Fired, King of the Mountain) TNA relies on and whether Russo believes it’s a fair criticism. Russo says he doesn’t think it’s a fair criticism. He says more-or-less, he has been head of creative of TNA in July 2009. He says July to now, they’ve done away with a lot of that. He says people can criticize Russo about anything all they want about anything that happened before July – he says he wasn’t in charge of creative during that time. He says a lot of those calls weren’t his doing. From July to this point, he says they’ve done away with a lot of that.
Russo says he doesn’t look at gimmick matches as gimmick matches. He looks at it as a “spectacle”. He says if he’s not a wrestling fan and flips a channel, he says is he going to stop on a channel with two guys wrestling or a better chance stopping on a channel if there’s two guys in a wrestling ring wrestling with a ladder involved. He looks at it as a spectacle and what’s a better way to draw that casual fan that may not be a wrestling fan. Russo and the host then talk about baseball and sports.
Russo talks about keeping a low profile when it comes to any websites or social interaction websites as critics have been known to take what he says and twist it completely upside down. He says it has not been worth it but if people would like to know what he’s thinking and what is on his mind, they should check out “Rope Opera”.
This interview can be seen on Vince Russo’s Facebook Fanpage http://facebook.com/vinnyru and http://www.wdfn.com/pages/wrestling.html.
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