Donald Wood: In one of your columns in May, you said, “Wrestling Will Die If It Doesn’t Grow,” saying that wrestling has stayed the same for the last 15 years. Despite this, WWE has changed to a PG format, Ring of Honor and many other Indy promotions have given fans something different and even Lucha Underground is offering something completely off the map. Do you view this as the growth the business needs or do you truly believe wrestling is going to die?
Vince Russo: I think as we speak, wrestling right now is a niche market. Look at your numbers. Less than five years ago, TNA was doing 5,000,000 people. Nowadays they are doing a quarter of that. Look at the fifteen-year decline of the WWE. The people watching wrestling in 2015 are wrestling fans that are always going to be watching wrestling. The problem is they have lost the casual TV viewers. Those were the 5,000,000 people that are now gone. Wrestling has already become a niche market. Anybody can study and look at the numbers, see where it once was, and see where it is today. I want to say this; I publically want to totally separate Lucha Underground from all of that. Lucha Underground is not a wrestling company, they are a TV show. They treat the product like a TV show, they produce it like a TV show, and they treat the wrestlers like TV stars. So in my opinion they are in a category all by itself because they are not a wrestling company, they are a TV company.
Mike Chiari: One of the biggest narratives with regard to you and your success in WWF, whether it’s true or not, is that it only happened because Vince McMahon acted as a filter. And then when that filter wasn’t present in WCW things didn’t go as well. Do you think that’s a fair criticism? And if not, what do you believe are the primary reasons for the lack of success in WCW in comparison to WWF?
Vince Russo: There wasn’t a lack of success. I am a numbers guy and people’s opinions and what I think and what you think doesn’t not matter. The only thing that matters is the numbers. To address the question, Ed Ferrara and I went to WCW and the first three months of the company we were running the show. We had our plan in place and we were doing what we wanted to do. Anyone can look it up, the numbers were there, and the ratings were up. It wasn’t until three months in when I went home because of politics that the ratings went right back down to the point where they were before we even got hired. As far as Vince as a filter, the whole premise of that is just ridiculous. The fact of the matter is he is still there now. So you got the same guy there now, that was there for the Attitude era, Vince Russo had no impact, Vince McMahon had to filter him, well Vince McMahon is still there running the show. How did they go from an 8.2 rating to a 3.5 million people? From a factual basis, someone has to explain that to me since the same guy is running the show.
Brandon Galvin: When you left WWE for WCW, it seemed that a lot of the top storylines you were working on were coming to a close. The Corporation and Ministry of Darkness were essentially no more and Stone Cold was battling injury. I’m sure when you left you still followed what they were doing, what were your thoughts on some of their top storylines at the end of 1999? More specifically, Stone Cold getting ran over by a car and Triple H interrupting Stephanie McMahon and Test’s wedding since those two segments have become two of the most memorable.
Vince Russo: I’ll be honest with you; the day I left WWE I never watched another show. I did not follow what they were doing. I didn’t even know about Austin getting hit by a car. I did know about the Triple H and Stephanie wedding angle and I did like that, I helped put it over. The Austin and the car I never saw that or was aware of it. When I went to WCW, I was focused on WCW and never watched a Raw show while working for WCW.
Mike Chiari: Someone you’ve been very vocal about lately is Chyna. She’s seemingly been trying to get back in WWE’s good graces and you sent out what turned out to be a pretty controversial tweet wondering why WWE doesn’t champion Chyna like they did Connor the Crusher. Firstly, explain what you meant by that tweet and also, touch on why you feel it’s so important for Chyna to get back involved with WWE or just wrestling in general.
Vince Russo: I don’t think it’s important at all for Chyna to get involved with wrestling or the WWE in general. I never said that and I don’t think that’s important at all. Any comment I ever made about Chyna is my concern for her wellbeing as a person. If she ever works for the WWE again, goes into the Hall of Fame, or wrestlers again, that’s absolutely of no concern to me, that’s Chyna’s business. I am more concerned about her health and her mental state of mind, and a tragedy happening. That’s what the comment was about Connor. Chyna needs help. If you have the opportunity to help Chyna, then reach out and help her. I know the Connor story and it is a beautiful story and I commend them for what they are doing. I just don’t agree with picking and choosing who you are going to help and who you aren’t going to help. If they have the money and resources to help Chyna, who needs the help on a completely different level, then why not help her? That’s basically what I was saying.
Nick was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and lived there until the age of 18, when he decided to pack his flack jacket and move to New York City.
