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Here is the third and final instalment of WrestleTalk TV’s interview with OSR member Vince Russo. This time, interviewer Ben Spindler tries to get Russo to accept some responsibility for World Championship Wrestling going under.
Spindler opened up by admitting that a lot of people blamed Russo entirely for WCW closing down. But he clarified that there had been a lot of people and a lot of reasons why WCW closed down. He felt that after 15 years, Russo still hadn’t taken responsibility for his part. He asked Russo to admit that some of the things that he had done had helped kill WCW. Russo promised to answer every single allegation.
The interview started with Spindler pointing out that Russo had been in charge of creative for 9 of WCW’s final 18 months. As WCW lasted 13 years, then Russo was in charge for 6% of that time. So he wanted Russo to accept 6% of the blame. They disagreed over whether or not 9 months was really a long time in a job like that.
• Russo asked how his 6% could have killed off the other 94%. Spindler clarified that he was only being asked about his own 6%. Russo claimed that WCW was dead before they (he and Ed Ferrera) came in.
• Spindler mentioned a previous claim by Russo that he had improved the ratings. He asked if getting up from 2.8 to 3.2 was actually that good. Russo said “absolutely without a doubtâ€.
• Ignoring the ratings, Russo said that they needed to stop the bleeding before they could think about rebuilding the house. He said that the rating before he took over was 2.2. They needed to undo the old stuff that had caused ratings to drop so low. So an increase of 0.4 within three months was brilliant.
• Spindler asked Russo if he stopped the bleeding at that time and Russo said yes.
• Spindler then asked why did PPV ratings continue to fall while Russo was there. Russo said that it was because the TV ratings had been so low for so long. They had affected PPV and merchandise sales. They needed to rebuild the house and improve the TV show before they could think about PPV buys.
• When they came into WCW, they had 6 successful years with the WWE. They needed to rebuild the TV product first. When Raw improved, merchandise and PPV sales also improved. He wanted to do the same with WCW.
• Spindler said that PPVs actually got worse under Russo. Russo said this was because of the success of the WWE. The fans that used to buy WCW PPVs were already buying WWE PPVs instead. He believed that Nitro had been getting worse, thus making it easier for Raw to kill Nitro in the ratings. Once Nitro improved and got the ratings back up, he felt that PPVs would increase too. He noted that merchandise (including nWo t-shirts) and house show tickets were no longer selling. He thought that fixing the ratings would get people interested in buying these again.
• Spindler tried to say something about Hallowe’en Havoc, but Russo cut him off. Russo said that they were only there for 3 weeks before the show and had no influence on it. Spindler said that he was actually planning on congratulating Russo on the PPV’s success. But Russo had just admitted that he has no influence on it.
• Spindler pointed out that after the success of Hallowe’en Havoc, all of the following Russo-led PPVs did worse and worse. One of them was Starrcade, which was normally WCW’s biggest show. It wound up being the worst-selling PPV in WCW history.
• Russo tried to explain the bad PPV buy-rates on low television ratings, as they were still rebuilding the house. But Spindler pointed out that the trend continued after Nitro ratings went up.
• Russo said that WCW had the same problem that TNA had in 2009. They needed to stop focusing on former big names that were being paid a lot while not bringing in so much money. They needed to start building up younger talent and turning them into stars. As they were not established stars yet, it was harder for fans to get behind them at first.
• Spindler again pointed out that Russo had “stopped the bleeding†and had gotten Nitro ratings up, but PPVs continued to do badly.
• Russo sarcastically asked if he believed that WCW went out of business because one Starrcade did badly. Spindler said no, but he believed that the PPVs did badly because fans didn’t like the television shows Russo was giving them. Fans were not prepared to pay for WCW content of that quality.
• Once again, Russo told Spindler that he cannot blame one show for killing the company. But Spindler again pointed out that PPV buy-rates were plummeting.
• Russo dared Spindler to go and find out what the actual buy rates for Hallowe’en Havoc, Mayhem and Starrcade really were. Spindler had them memorised, and explained that each drop was quite big. Russo dismissed this as “what happens when you rebuild the houseâ€.
• Spindler asked Russo if WCW would have been in a better position if they did not hire him. Russo said that WCW’s owners had already decided that they didn’t want to own a wrestling company anymore. It didn’t matter if they hired Russo, Hulk Hogan or William Shakesphere to write. Once that decision was made, nobody could turn things around.
• Russo recommended the book ‘The Death Of WCW’, and said that the final chapter will tell you the same thing he just did.
• Spindler said that no business would abandon a product that was making money, but WCW was losing money. He said that WCW lost $62 million while Russo was there. Russo said this meant nothing to him without knowing what that money was being spent on. Spindler only said that they didn’t lose $62 million the year before he came in.
• Russo suggest that one potential reason for the money loss was big-money contracts coming to term. He noted that Hogan was not appearing on television, but was still guaranteed $5 million. He had nothing to do with contracts, so he shouldn’t have to answer for that money being lost.
• He was asked why Hogan was not on television, and Russo admitted that he had been keeping Hogan off television to bring him back as something bigger later on. He claimed that Hogan was unhappy with WCW when he came in and that they were embarrassing Hogan.
• Spindler reminded Russo that Hogan walked out of WCW because of something Russo did in 2000. Russo had no idea what he was talking about. He brought up Bash At The Beach, but Russo went into denial and said it didn’t happen. He demanded to know where Spindler had heard this.
• Russo claimed that Spindler had no credibility for claiming that Hogan walked out and refusing to give a source. He suggested that the claim about WCW losing $62 million could just be another rumour that Spindler chose to believe.
• Russo said that the day after BATB, Brad Segal called Russo into his office and asked what had happened. Russo told him the scripted version, and that he needed to call Hogan and arrange when he would be back on television. Segal told Russo not to call Hogan because they could not afford to pay him to be on television anymore.
• Spindler asked Russo if he was saying that Hogan did not try to sue WCW. Russo got really defensive and insisted that he never said this. He then agreed that Hogan did sue the company.
• Spindler than asked if Hogan was willing to come back, then why would he sue. He said that he was not involved with Hogan’s legal decisions, so he had no idea. He repeated his claim that Segal had told Russo to keep Hogan off television because they could not afford him.
• When Spindler tried to move on, Russo said it was only because Spindler was wrong. He wanted Spindler to apologise but Spindler refused. He said that he did not accept Russo’s version. He denied calling Russo a liar. Russo said that it didn’t make sense for him to make his first ever trip to the UK to do this interview if he had been lying for 15 years. Spindler back-peddled and said that he wasn’t accusing Russo of lying, but still didn’t accept his version. He felt that Russo actually believed what he had said because Russo himself did not know the truth.
• Russo was asked if he made any mistakes with his job, and he said taking the job was a mistake.
• He was asked if he had made any creative mistakes. Russo initially said no, but then said that Oklahoma was a mistake.
• Spindler understood what Russo meant, but Oklahoma was designed to insult somebody. He asked the same question again, wondering if Russo had made any decisions that were bad for business. He was asked three further times, and she responded “No†each time.
• Russo said that he had a specific formula that he used in WWE which worked phenomenally well. He then tried to use this formula in WCW.
• He was asked if he used this formula in TNA. He said that he “wasn’t in charge of thatâ€. He was then asked if he used the formula when pitching ideas, and he said no. When asked why not, he said that he knew that TNA management would not be interested.
• S
• Spindler couldn’t believe that Russo had no creative regrets. Russo simply said that if he thought he would regret something, then he would not have pitched it.
• Spindler gave the example of Goldberg’s heel turn, as Goldberg was the most popular guy. Russo believes that it would have worked if Goldberg had went with it. He didn’t know that Goldberg wasn’t going to co-operate until they started. Goldberg had no interest in being a heel and didn’t put in any real effort. Russo believed that it could have been huge if Goldberg had just went with it.
• Russo was asked about devaluing the title belts. When asked to clarify, Spindler gave the specific example of Russo making himself of WCW World Heavyweight Champion. Russo said that it was only for 2 days, and Vince McMahon was WWE Champion for 6 days. If Russo devalued the WCW title, then McMahon devalued the WWE Championship. Spindler disagreed because Russo didn’t have the star power that McMahon did.
• Russo wanted to be sure that Spindler understood that nobody really “wins†titles and that it is just a television show. Nobody “wins†anything and it is written like a sitcom. He didn’t really “win†the title and neither did Goldberg.
• Spindler argued that non-wrestling fans need to believe that there is a point to winning matches and titles. Regular wrestling fans will know how it works and will watch for entertainment. Non-wrestling fans need to believe it is real, and that the titles have some kind of prestige, and that there is a point to winning matches. Russo assumed he meant that wrestling fans were smarter. He said that “casual†wrestling fans do not care about any of that stuff and only care about entertainment. They agree to disagree.
• Now that they had covered all the bases of improving television, Spindler tried to follow up on Russo’s hypothesis by asking what happened with the PPVs. Russo lost his cool because they had been brought again. He jokingly said that they had already agreed that WCW went out of business because of three bad PPVs and “Colonel Rectionâ€
• Spindler tried to ask his question, but Russo interrupted him to see if he believed what he was saying. Spindler said yes. Spindler opened the question with “I think…â€. Russo interrupted again to say that this makes the comment his own opinion. Spindler accepted this, and said that it agrees with Russo’s.
• Spindler felt that TV ratings improved under Russo because fans were entertained. But he theorised that PPV buys dropped because fans didn’t care. They weren’t going to pay for something they didn’t care about. With matches and title wins not mattering, they had nothing to care about.
• Russo defended the decline in WCW PPVs by bringing up WWE PPVs. He admitted that he did not know actual figures, but was certain that they had been in decline over the last 15 years since 2000.
• He said that one of the big reasons why WCW and WWE PPVs have been going downhill is the rise of UFC. Why would anyone pay for fake fights when someone was offering real fights?
• After this, Spindler made a stupid argument. Russo claimed that UFC PPVs were taking buys away from pro wrestling. Spindler theorised that this meant that Russo’s PPVs were especially bad because he had been brought in 15 years before UFC became a major factor (Spindler’s argument depends on UFC not being popular until this year).
• Russo dared Spindler to compare WWE’s PPV buy rates in 2000 with WCW’s. Spindler didn’t know what the rates were, but knew that the drops were not nearly as sharp.
• Russo said that the nWo angle was the hottest and most successful angle that WCW has ever done. WCW were destined to do their best PPVs during the peak of the nWo. It is not possible for anyone to repeat that success.
• Spindler pointed out that WCW PPVs were at his lowest when he came in. But then they went lower. Russo claimed that he had admitted that those three PPVs and “Colonel Rection†had hurt the company. He then admitted that those things DID contribute to hurting WCW.
Let me tell you guys, this was a real b***hoff to write up. I couldn't even be bothered making a Hogan in prison joke at the end.
Spindler opened up by admitting that a lot of people blamed Russo entirely for WCW closing down. But he clarified that there had been a lot of people and a lot of reasons why WCW closed down. He felt that after 15 years, Russo still hadn’t taken responsibility for his part. He asked Russo to admit that some of the things that he had done had helped kill WCW. Russo promised to answer every single allegation.
The interview started with Spindler pointing out that Russo had been in charge of creative for 9 of WCW’s final 18 months. As WCW lasted 13 years, then Russo was in charge for 6% of that time. So he wanted Russo to accept 6% of the blame. They disagreed over whether or not 9 months was really a long time in a job like that.
• Russo asked how his 6% could have killed off the other 94%. Spindler clarified that he was only being asked about his own 6%. Russo claimed that WCW was dead before they (he and Ed Ferrera) came in.
• Spindler mentioned a previous claim by Russo that he had improved the ratings. He asked if getting up from 2.8 to 3.2 was actually that good. Russo said “absolutely without a doubtâ€.
• Ignoring the ratings, Russo said that they needed to stop the bleeding before they could think about rebuilding the house. He said that the rating before he took over was 2.2. They needed to undo the old stuff that had caused ratings to drop so low. So an increase of 0.4 within three months was brilliant.
• Spindler asked Russo if he stopped the bleeding at that time and Russo said yes.
• Spindler then asked why did PPV ratings continue to fall while Russo was there. Russo said that it was because the TV ratings had been so low for so long. They had affected PPV and merchandise sales. They needed to rebuild the house and improve the TV show before they could think about PPV buys.
• When they came into WCW, they had 6 successful years with the WWE. They needed to rebuild the TV product first. When Raw improved, merchandise and PPV sales also improved. He wanted to do the same with WCW.
• Spindler said that PPVs actually got worse under Russo. Russo said this was because of the success of the WWE. The fans that used to buy WCW PPVs were already buying WWE PPVs instead. He believed that Nitro had been getting worse, thus making it easier for Raw to kill Nitro in the ratings. Once Nitro improved and got the ratings back up, he felt that PPVs would increase too. He noted that merchandise (including nWo t-shirts) and house show tickets were no longer selling. He thought that fixing the ratings would get people interested in buying these again.
• Spindler tried to say something about Hallowe’en Havoc, but Russo cut him off. Russo said that they were only there for 3 weeks before the show and had no influence on it. Spindler said that he was actually planning on congratulating Russo on the PPV’s success. But Russo had just admitted that he has no influence on it.
• Spindler pointed out that after the success of Hallowe’en Havoc, all of the following Russo-led PPVs did worse and worse. One of them was Starrcade, which was normally WCW’s biggest show. It wound up being the worst-selling PPV in WCW history.
• Russo tried to explain the bad PPV buy-rates on low television ratings, as they were still rebuilding the house. But Spindler pointed out that the trend continued after Nitro ratings went up.
• Russo said that WCW had the same problem that TNA had in 2009. They needed to stop focusing on former big names that were being paid a lot while not bringing in so much money. They needed to start building up younger talent and turning them into stars. As they were not established stars yet, it was harder for fans to get behind them at first.
• Spindler again pointed out that Russo had “stopped the bleeding†and had gotten Nitro ratings up, but PPVs continued to do badly.
• Russo sarcastically asked if he believed that WCW went out of business because one Starrcade did badly. Spindler said no, but he believed that the PPVs did badly because fans didn’t like the television shows Russo was giving them. Fans were not prepared to pay for WCW content of that quality.
• Once again, Russo told Spindler that he cannot blame one show for killing the company. But Spindler again pointed out that PPV buy-rates were plummeting.
• Russo dared Spindler to go and find out what the actual buy rates for Hallowe’en Havoc, Mayhem and Starrcade really were. Spindler had them memorised, and explained that each drop was quite big. Russo dismissed this as “what happens when you rebuild the houseâ€.
• Spindler asked Russo if WCW would have been in a better position if they did not hire him. Russo said that WCW’s owners had already decided that they didn’t want to own a wrestling company anymore. It didn’t matter if they hired Russo, Hulk Hogan or William Shakesphere to write. Once that decision was made, nobody could turn things around.
• Russo recommended the book ‘The Death Of WCW’, and said that the final chapter will tell you the same thing he just did.
• Spindler said that no business would abandon a product that was making money, but WCW was losing money. He said that WCW lost $62 million while Russo was there. Russo said this meant nothing to him without knowing what that money was being spent on. Spindler only said that they didn’t lose $62 million the year before he came in.
• Russo suggest that one potential reason for the money loss was big-money contracts coming to term. He noted that Hogan was not appearing on television, but was still guaranteed $5 million. He had nothing to do with contracts, so he shouldn’t have to answer for that money being lost.
• He was asked why Hogan was not on television, and Russo admitted that he had been keeping Hogan off television to bring him back as something bigger later on. He claimed that Hogan was unhappy with WCW when he came in and that they were embarrassing Hogan.
• Spindler reminded Russo that Hogan walked out of WCW because of something Russo did in 2000. Russo had no idea what he was talking about. He brought up Bash At The Beach, but Russo went into denial and said it didn’t happen. He demanded to know where Spindler had heard this.
• Russo claimed that Spindler had no credibility for claiming that Hogan walked out and refusing to give a source. He suggested that the claim about WCW losing $62 million could just be another rumour that Spindler chose to believe.
• Russo said that the day after BATB, Brad Segal called Russo into his office and asked what had happened. Russo told him the scripted version, and that he needed to call Hogan and arrange when he would be back on television. Segal told Russo not to call Hogan because they could not afford to pay him to be on television anymore.
• Spindler asked Russo if he was saying that Hogan did not try to sue WCW. Russo got really defensive and insisted that he never said this. He then agreed that Hogan did sue the company.
• Spindler than asked if Hogan was willing to come back, then why would he sue. He said that he was not involved with Hogan’s legal decisions, so he had no idea. He repeated his claim that Segal had told Russo to keep Hogan off television because they could not afford him.
• When Spindler tried to move on, Russo said it was only because Spindler was wrong. He wanted Spindler to apologise but Spindler refused. He said that he did not accept Russo’s version. He denied calling Russo a liar. Russo said that it didn’t make sense for him to make his first ever trip to the UK to do this interview if he had been lying for 15 years. Spindler back-peddled and said that he wasn’t accusing Russo of lying, but still didn’t accept his version. He felt that Russo actually believed what he had said because Russo himself did not know the truth.
• Russo was asked if he made any mistakes with his job, and he said taking the job was a mistake.
• He was asked if he had made any creative mistakes. Russo initially said no, but then said that Oklahoma was a mistake.
• Spindler understood what Russo meant, but Oklahoma was designed to insult somebody. He asked the same question again, wondering if Russo had made any decisions that were bad for business. He was asked three further times, and she responded “No†each time.
• Russo said that he had a specific formula that he used in WWE which worked phenomenally well. He then tried to use this formula in WCW.
• He was asked if he used this formula in TNA. He said that he “wasn’t in charge of thatâ€. He was then asked if he used the formula when pitching ideas, and he said no. When asked why not, he said that he knew that TNA management would not be interested.
• S
• Spindler couldn’t believe that Russo had no creative regrets. Russo simply said that if he thought he would regret something, then he would not have pitched it.
• Spindler gave the example of Goldberg’s heel turn, as Goldberg was the most popular guy. Russo believes that it would have worked if Goldberg had went with it. He didn’t know that Goldberg wasn’t going to co-operate until they started. Goldberg had no interest in being a heel and didn’t put in any real effort. Russo believed that it could have been huge if Goldberg had just went with it.
• Russo was asked about devaluing the title belts. When asked to clarify, Spindler gave the specific example of Russo making himself of WCW World Heavyweight Champion. Russo said that it was only for 2 days, and Vince McMahon was WWE Champion for 6 days. If Russo devalued the WCW title, then McMahon devalued the WWE Championship. Spindler disagreed because Russo didn’t have the star power that McMahon did.
• Russo wanted to be sure that Spindler understood that nobody really “wins†titles and that it is just a television show. Nobody “wins†anything and it is written like a sitcom. He didn’t really “win†the title and neither did Goldberg.
• Spindler argued that non-wrestling fans need to believe that there is a point to winning matches and titles. Regular wrestling fans will know how it works and will watch for entertainment. Non-wrestling fans need to believe it is real, and that the titles have some kind of prestige, and that there is a point to winning matches. Russo assumed he meant that wrestling fans were smarter. He said that “casual†wrestling fans do not care about any of that stuff and only care about entertainment. They agree to disagree.
• Now that they had covered all the bases of improving television, Spindler tried to follow up on Russo’s hypothesis by asking what happened with the PPVs. Russo lost his cool because they had been brought again. He jokingly said that they had already agreed that WCW went out of business because of three bad PPVs and “Colonel Rectionâ€
• Spindler tried to ask his question, but Russo interrupted him to see if he believed what he was saying. Spindler said yes. Spindler opened the question with “I think…â€. Russo interrupted again to say that this makes the comment his own opinion. Spindler accepted this, and said that it agrees with Russo’s.
• Spindler felt that TV ratings improved under Russo because fans were entertained. But he theorised that PPV buys dropped because fans didn’t care. They weren’t going to pay for something they didn’t care about. With matches and title wins not mattering, they had nothing to care about.
• Russo defended the decline in WCW PPVs by bringing up WWE PPVs. He admitted that he did not know actual figures, but was certain that they had been in decline over the last 15 years since 2000.
• He said that one of the big reasons why WCW and WWE PPVs have been going downhill is the rise of UFC. Why would anyone pay for fake fights when someone was offering real fights?
• After this, Spindler made a stupid argument. Russo claimed that UFC PPVs were taking buys away from pro wrestling. Spindler theorised that this meant that Russo’s PPVs were especially bad because he had been brought in 15 years before UFC became a major factor (Spindler’s argument depends on UFC not being popular until this year).
• Russo dared Spindler to compare WWE’s PPV buy rates in 2000 with WCW’s. Spindler didn’t know what the rates were, but knew that the drops were not nearly as sharp.
• Russo said that the nWo angle was the hottest and most successful angle that WCW has ever done. WCW were destined to do their best PPVs during the peak of the nWo. It is not possible for anyone to repeat that success.
• Spindler pointed out that WCW PPVs were at his lowest when he came in. But then they went lower. Russo claimed that he had admitted that those three PPVs and “Colonel Rection†had hurt the company. He then admitted that those things DID contribute to hurting WCW.
Let me tell you guys, this was a real b***hoff to write up. I couldn't even be bothered making a Hogan in prison joke at the end.