Former WWE and WCW writer Vince Russo has outlined what he would be doing differently if he were booking AEW today.
The high point of Russo’s wrestling career came during his time in the WWE, then WWF wher he worked from 1992 until 1999. After initially working on WWF Magazine, Russo eventually became a part of the writing team during the mid-90’s gaining the title of head writer in 1997. During his time in this role, Russo is credited with being behind much of WWE’s television output during the much-loved Attitude Era.
Russo left WWF in 1999, joining rivals WCW, before later joining TNA.
Speaking in a new interview with Chris Van Vliet, Russo looked back at his long and storied career in wrestling while also taking a look at WWE’s new competition, AEW. This lead WWE’s former head writer to discuss what he could change about AEW if he were booking the promotion today.
“The first things I would change is cut down the matches. I mean bro there have been studies over the years of the attention span of people. Every year the attention span gets shorter and shorter. The only person that’s going to watch a 10 minute match, 15 minute, 20 minute, maybe even an 8 minute match, are going to be die hard wrestling fans. If you go back and you study the attitude era, you will see one thing, no wrestling match went through a break. Once in a while, there was an exception in the main event, if it was a big main event. Bro 99% of the time, a match is a part of the segment, no matches made it through the commercial breaks. We were addressing the attention span. For the average casual fan, the minute the bell rings, they want to know 2 things. They want to know who is going over and what’s next? That’s what the casual fan wants to know. If they [AEW] are drawing 750,000 people, and you want to turn that into 3 million, bro you’ve get to masses. And you’re not going to get the masses through wrestling matches.”
The former WCW World Heavyweight Champion also revealed his biggest regret in wrestling. Explaining how he wished he’d pushed the envelope even more.
Vince Russo stands as one of the most divisive and controversial figures in the history of professional wrestling. Following his move to WCW, Russo failed to hit the heights that he had done previously in the WWE, and has been blamed as one of the reasons for WCW’s eventual collapse by the likes of Eric Bischoff.
Speaking on a recent episode of his 83 Weeks podcast, Bischoff described the hiring of Vince Russo as “the nail in the coffin” of the ailing promotion.
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