Clark’s Corner: Fire Russo

Clark’s Corner: Fire Russo
By Phil Clark

The chants had never been more apropos

In September, TNA (Jeff Jarrett mainly) made the adventurous, puzzling, and dangerous move of hiring back Vince Russo after he was away from the company for nearly two years (more than that from the creative end). After that announcement I wrote a column (Link Here) where I expressed my concern for this move, but my reluctance to say that Russo would be a failure right off the bat. Well, the reverse battle royal (something more out of Dusty’s playbook than Russo’s) showed that I had indeed given Russo too much credit, that nothing had changed, and that TNA’s product was about to get very different. How right that line of thinking was as more than six months of Russo’s booking has actually caused The E to think about focusing more on wrestling!

Feuds Done The Wrong Way

One of Vince Russo’s longtime problems was his lack of attention. He has never, ever been a guy you would want to book a long-term feud because long-term to Vinnie Roo is the time in-between PPV’s. The problem with that has been a mix of the wasteful and the ludicrous during these first six months.

Angle/Joe was TNA’s first money feud. During these five years, TNA has never really had someone of name value that could be inserted against one of their guys to create that kind of a feud; granted Hogan/Jarrett would’ve been in ’03, but that didn’t pan out did it? Samoa Joe vs. Kurt Angle was a dream only at the beginning of 2006. Vince Russo did make it a reality by November, but he also managed to flush it down the drain by January by having them headline three straight PPV’s. Some might be saying, “What’s wrong with Joe/Angle three times a month?” From a fan’s perspective: nothing; in fact, these two basically saved TNA’s December and January PPV’s from mediocrity. However, if TNA was looking to cash in on Kurt Angle’s name and the feud in general, this was exactly the wrong way to go about it. Nothing has been more historically evident as the fact that the chase makes money in wrestling. If you tease people with a long awaited match or title win, it will make you money (Brock/Rock, Austin’s win at WM XIV, Sting/Hogan in ’97). The Angle/Joe feud could’ve easily ran for nearly a year without them actually having to feud full-time. Here’s how I would’ve done it:

I would’ve done the match in November the way it was, but then I would’ve inserted Angle into the world title picture and have Joe cost Angle the belt at Turning Point. Then, have Joe get a shot in February with Angle costing Joe the belt setting up the big rematch in March. The rematch would go as their rematch in reality did with Joe getting the win to even the series. After that, they would both be in the world title picture and thus would be interacting with each other on T.V. regardless of feud. This would all lead to the big match for Bound for Glory: Joe/Angle for the TNA world title.

You see that: one year, three matches, and plenty of build. Agree with it or not, but it wouldn’t be as wasteful as what we got. The matches were great, but at what cost to TNA as a whole?

Sting/Abyss was another feud that just wasn’t there. And even though Dixie Carter absolved Russo on this one, he is still to blame for one big reason: HE’S THE HEAD OF CREATIVE. Even if Sting is big enough of a star to book his own feuds (he is big enough in TNA), Russo still could’ve stepped in and said, “[on the Last Rites Match at Desintation X] This is too stupid, even for me.” But he didn’t, probably because he was cool with the match, and what ensued was the first instance of the now consistently used “Fire Russo” chants. The feud itself would’ve been fine without all the soap opera involved. Did people care more about Abyss feuding with Sting because his mom shot his dad in the back and he took the blame? No, in fact that has nothing to do with Sting so who cares? And the whole “James Mitchell is not looking out for Abyss while controlling him” thing was better played with the Goldilocks angle back in ’04, but wasn’t needed here, especially while Abyss was the world champion. That’s one thing that Russo never fully understood: when a guy is world champion, a light touch is usually all that is needed.

The potential Shelley/Austin Starr feud is the one that disappoints me the most because it had the potential to help both men (probably why it didn’t happen). At BFG, Starr went wire-to-wire and won Kevin Nash’s X-Division Battle Royal (I’m not going to write the excruciatingly long, yet funny name). Nash congratulated him, but Shelley—Nash’s protégé—in The Paparazzi, wasn’t pleased. While this did end up leading to a match between the two in January at the end of the Paparazzi Championship Series (more on that later), it could’ve been so much more. The jealousy angle is an easy one to book and usually doesn’t even have to make the person who is jealous look like a whiny bitch. In the case of Shelley/Starr:

After BFG, Shelley complains to Nash that he feels disrespected, Nash blows him off saying it’s nothing. At Turning Point these two are in a tag match and win (instead of lose like they did) with Starr getting all the love from Nash. Shelley is pissed and Nash makes a best of three series between the two ending at Final Resolution in January. Shelley wins the series 2-1 at Final Resolution, but Nash seems more impressed with Starr’s performance than Shelley’s win. Shelley flips out on both of them going it on his own. Nash is so pissed that he and Shelley have a match at Against All Odds with Shelley getting DQ’d (as if Nash would job even in my booking) for killing Nash with a chair. This sets up another Aries/Shelley match at Destination X (this time 2/3 falls, like their series) with Shelley getting a fluke win via the tights. Finally, we get the blowoff between the two with Starr getting the win over Shelley clean in the cage at Lockdown.

That’s a long feud that could work more effectively than a couple of Russo’s have.

Time Mismanagement

One aspect of Russo’s poor performance that even Vinnie Roo himself was pissed off about was the fact that he only had one hour of television to work with. I will not claim to know everything about booking wrestling and one hour really isn’t a lot to work with, but even in this case, he doesn’t get off the hook. To put it plain and simply, Russo sent TNA’s booking of T.V. into full cracked out mode when he took over trying to get every single possible person on camera within the one hour. Fine—if the talent is still being paid per appearance I see why—if the product that we got resembled what TNA was doing pre-Russo. However, when you look at things from the perspective of T.V. product and ratings, you’ll understand why I do blame Russo: the ratings haven’t changed at all and remain as consistent as they were back in September and the weekly shows themselves seem to be going about 120mph over the speed limit with matches becoming even shorter than they were before Russo. An extra hour will definitely allow Russo some legroom to hit the proverbial brake and create (hopefully) a more watchable show where you may care or even remember what you just saw. Until then, he has failed to build something when he was pretty much given the blueprint from the day he was hired.

The Death of the X-Division?

Of all the victims of Russo’s first six months, the X-Division easily took the biggest hit. To put it simply: VINCE RUSSO DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO BOOK LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHTS. If TNA had brought him in for the purpose of booking their heavyweight division, fine, because he has had a hell of a lot more success there during his time than he will ever have booking people under 220 lbs. Personally, I’ve always believed that Mike Tenay should be in charge of the X-Division and the past six months should be vindication for anyone who would have the slightest doubt about that opinion. What Tenay has that Russo doesn’t when it comes to the wrestlers in the X-Division is knowledge; he actually does his homework. With Russo, it seems he did a complete reboot and killed everything.

Chris Sabin’s title win over Senshi at BFG looked to be the start of TNA’s final try at giving Sabin a decent push. Russo killed that by having Sabin drop the belt less than two weeks later to A.J. Styles who dropped it to Chrstopher Daniels two weeks later. Three title changes in less than a month equals the devaluing of a title. And Sabin’s heel turn really has only begun to show shines of worth. The feud with Jerry Lynn could’ve been a simple old v. new feud and would’ve worked more effectively playing on Lynn’s legend and Sabin’s progress from the beginning of TNA to the present. Instead, Russo books an old v. new feud with Sabin mocking Lynn’s age going as far as to interfere in a Lynn match wearing depends! Sadly, even the matches couldn’t save this as my #1 rule with shitty booking is: if the match is great, all is forgiven. Because that is what it comes to in the end.

Why has Bob Backlund become the most popular figure in the X-Division over the past six months? That is a question that should puzzle, confuse, and probably irritate. While Backlund has been able to get over being his old, crazy self, how does that help anyone in the X-Division? Granted, seeing him and Senshi bow to each other was a cool moment, the rest of the time all Backlund’s presence is doing is taking away from the guys in the ring and devaluing them by telling the audience at home, “the guy who’s really important is doing calisthenics by the announce table.” And while Kevin Nash’s work with The Paparazzi was incredibly funny stuff and almost made up for him beginning the downfall of the X-Division last summer, it has worn out its welcome because it’s simply too much. I get Nash playing the de facto guru to the X-Division wrestlers trying to help them build characters and all that, but in reality all the segments are are Nash being funny and the X-Division guys trying to hang with him in the comedy department and .that’s about it. What’s the only real character development to come of all of this: Jay Lethal turning into the smaller, darker version of Randy Savage because he can do an awesome impression of him saying “OH YEAH!” Six months and that’s it: sorry Kev, you’re great, but maybe you should move up to the heavyweight division and offer your services to Ricky Banderas because despite having James Mitchell as a manager, Russo will probably f*ck his push up too.

I do believe that Senshi (Low-Ki) may be the X-Division’s biggest victim of the new Russo era in TNA. At the time of Russo’s hiring, Senshi was set to lose the X-Division title and become the newest member of LAX with Konnan needing surgery. However, that plan was nixed right after Russo took over for reasons that we still haven’t been told to this day. While losing a push due to an angle being nixed isn’t new, this one was particularly costly to Senshi. Think about this: the push would mean being part of a stable meaning a more identifiable identity meaning more exposure on T.V. meaning more time on the mic meaning a greater chance of becoming a bigger draw. That’s a hell of a better gig than being Kevin Nash’s sidekick. Not only that, but can you imagine Senshi & Homicide as a tag team? (Any RoHbots know what I’m talking about) Plus, if Homicide and Senshi were a team than Hernandez would be moved to the heavyweight division adding another giant—an always sought after commodity—to the division, but this one has a fun finisher and can do a couple of tricks. Has this move been made, then more than likely LAX would’ve spread to all three divisions and would’ve become TNA’s big stable—something The E doesn’t have at this moment, something that can become a draw by itself.

The One Thing Done Right

I didn’t write this column with the purpose of bashing Russo page after page. I will give credit where credit is due: The feud with Angle has solidified Joe as a real player in the wrestling industry, Elevation X was a new idea if not the best one, and A.J. Styles’ hopefully permanent move to the heavyweight division is a good thing. However, in the first six months of Russo’s new tenure, I can cite only one instance where there were no extenuating screw up’s or no negatives that were identified after the face: the main-event of Destination X pitting Christian Cage and Samoa Joe for Cage’s NWA title.

The Joe/Cage title match was done in a way that a true NWA title match should’ve gone done. The interference and ref bumps were both isolated to one instance a piece, there was no interference from any of Cage’s peeps and the action was kept in the ring for pretty much all of the match, and the finish—while a cop out—was one of Russo’s rare hits when it came to match finishes. All of this added up to a **** match and one of TNA’s best NWA title match in almost a year. Not only that, but the streamers upon Joe’s arrival to the ring, the dancers introducing Joe, and the fact that this was the first time these two had a singles match in TNA all added up to one thing that actually helped the match from the get go: the big match atmosphere.

How Russo can better TNA’s current product

Can Vince Russo save himself from adding one more tally to his list of shitty booking tenures? Yes. And I have my list of suggestions to Vinnie Roo that, if implanted, could add some of the pizzazz that TNA’s product seems to have lost over the last half of a year, and could help the company rise to another level.

1. More Japanese wrestlers
People who watch wrestling know by now that those involved with American pro wrestling revere Japanese pro wrestling. Its history and tradition of stiff, realistic matches without all of the hoopla have created that image. Japanese light heavyweights are at the base of this aura and have been used effectively by TNA in the past. With Tiger Mask IV in TNA for a brief period, it would be interesting to think back to the weekly PPV’s and the World X Cup where the teams from different countries stuck around for a while afterwards becoming stables, and then wonder what if?

In preparing to write this article, I read a chapter on Russo in R.D. Reynolds’ book Wrestlecrap and am always a bit sickened and angered when I read an excerpt where Russo was quoted back in ’99 as saying that foreign wrestlers couldn’t get over in America because they weren’t from America. Hopefully, Vinnie Roo has gotten over that because if there’s one thing that could save the X-Division and add to the mid-card it would be participation from Japanese pro wrestlers. In the case of TNA as of now, it wouldn’t be too hard to incorporate Japanese wrestlers into an actual angle and get away with it—several wrestlers including Jado, Gedo, Minoru Suzuki, and Shinjiro Ohtani could get over in America tomorrow based solely on their matches and their personalities in the ring—without the wrestlers themselves ever getting on the mic:

A group of light heavyweights from New Japan form a group to feud with TNA’s X-Division wrestlers who form their own group (heels and faces together) to fight them. This could be spanned as long or as short as needed, but it could be done by having the matches involving this feud basically fill the mid-card. The end match (whenever it is): an elimination match between the two factions.

There are several factors involved with a feud like this (What about heavyweight midcarders? What about other angles going on at the time? What about how long the elimination match will be?) and the answers are actually quite simple: heavyweight midcarders will always be worked into the fold in some way (pre-show, quick matches on the PPV, etc.), some angles can be (and should be) T.V. show-only angles that really don’t need to be on PPV’s and are cited as instances where time is simply wasted, and if the elimination match at 2005’s Genesis PPV—at 23 minutes—proved anything, it’s that it can be done in TNA and it can be done effectively.

2. Break the shackles
It seems to me that the quality of TNA’s product has gone down as of late. What I’m talking about here is not the overall quality of the product, but the quality of each individual wrestler’s performance since Russo’s arrival. This is not true for every PPV and every match each person has been in since Russo came back, but it does seem that more times than before certain wrestlers that are usually reliable to do good whenever they’re in a TNA ring are either unmotivated or are being told to tone it down so as not to embarrass less talented, but bigger name value wrestlers. My favorite example of this was the legend that Bill Watts specifically told Masahiro Chono and The Great Muta to tank their match at Starrcade ’92 so they wouldn’t embarrass the less talented wrestlers in WCW at the time. For the record, Chono/Muta in late-92 would’ve been good-great instead of what the fans got that night. While this may or may not be Russo’s fault (it more often is the doing of the person in charge than the wrestler’s themselves), if Russo is behind this, please shut that shit down and let these guys go balls to the wall. That is exactly what TNA needs to set themselves apart from The E, especially if The E is going to focus more on wrestling. Ever wonder why the good Indy promotions (ROH particularly) seem to always be full of great matches and angles and personalities? It’s because they HAVE TO or they may not be around tomorrow. Well, if TNA turns into a carbon copy of The E, they may not either. It’s time they live up to the “We Are Wrestling” label they put under their name.

3. Less sports entertainment
Do I even need to explain this one when Russo is involved? Sports Entertainment can be a good thing in small doses and as a side dish instead of the entrée. It may be a metaphor involving food, but it’s good advice.

4. Give the tag division to the X-Division
This is the most radical of my suggestions, but I can explain. As of now, Team 3-D are the tag champs. Well, that’s gotta change. I think that sometime soon LAX has to win those babies back because they’re the only ones capable of creating a good match in the tag division. Consider all of the X-Division guys without anything to do; those guys should be formed into tag teams and put out there getting seasoned as tag wrestlers more than X-Division wrestlers at this time. While the X guys are getting seasoned, whatever heavyweight tag teams are left (there aren’t many) can continue doing whatever until people are used to seeing these X-Division tag teams in the tag division; this should take a month, maybe two. At this point, LAX gets the belts back and begins defending them against these X-Division tag teams (this was put into work with the AMW/Dutt & Sabin match last February) creating good matches, entertaining the crowd and making the title defenses against heavyweight tag teams more special and giving set title matches a little added drawing power. This experiment doesn’t have to become a permanent staple of the tag-team championship picture (even if used it won’t be), it would at least leave time for new heavyweight tag teams to be built up. Will this plan work in practice? Who knows, but it’s worth a try as TNA’s tag division has taken a hit as of late with AMW’s breakup, The Naturals getting fired, and Scott Steiner & Tomko being formed as a team.

So, has Vince Russo once again screwed the pooch? Yes. However, this time he can be saved. In WCW, fans weren’t chanting “Fire Russo” and back then, Russo had more control and credibility than he’ll ever get again. While Russo may have the right ideas about how to improve TNA (I think his heart is in the right place), it’s the process of implanting those ideas that has lead to a downswing for TNA’s product and this column. Maybe Vinnie Roo needs a support system to filter out the good from the wrestlecrap. In The E, it gave him his name and reputation. In WCW, when he didn’t have people watching over him and his decisions, he sunk the promotion. People within TNA, Dixie Carter and Jeff Jarrett especially, should used those two examples and think on them. Because it could be like looking into a crystal ball either way.