Back then, if you had one conversation with WCW there was no two weeks notice. I had to explain to Vince what happened and at the beginning he thought I was ribbing him. I told him this was no joke and I start work with them tomorrow. At that time, Vince was floored. There was a point where he tried to make it ugly by sending every lawyer after me and WCW. I said 'Vince we don't have a contract. We never had a contract. You never cared enough to give me a contract. You're going to send a lawyer based on what?' I eventually said I'm not going to let this get ugly, that's not how I want this to go. I shut it down and told Vince I wasn't going down that road with him. I made a decision that was best for me and my family. Finally, I got Vince at the end of the conversation to say I hope our paths would cross again and I said, so do I. Rewind back a week and he should have thought twice about those comments about my family and me. There was nothing, is nothing, and never will be anything more important to me than family. When he made light of that in his office, to me, right then and there it was over.
Wrestling INC: At that time, WCW might have had the most stacked roster in the history of the business. There were lots of the older talent on top and much of the younger talent staying put. When you went into WCW, what was your vision for what they were doing and where they should go?
Russo: The vision was to flip the roster to get the middle guys out of that middle slot and start rising them to the top to be built around. With this format, I went into WCW with a giant target on my back from the veterans. I still went ahead with the plan because it was the right thing to do. As much as these guys are going to kill me, bury me behind my back, try to get me out quicker than I came, I stuck to the plan because I knew it was the right thing to do. To this day, I don't regret that because that's what needed to be done at the time.
Wrestling INC: Did you feel right off the bat that the top guys weren't responsive?
Russo: I knew it the minute Hulk Hogan laid eyes on me. It wasn't just Hulk. [Ric] Flair back then had a lot of stroke with the office. The minute I met Hulk, I could feel it and that's the sad thing. At that point in time, I was a huge fan of Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair. WCW still had those guys main-eventing weeks before I came. I wanted to put those guys in the proper light. I wanted to put them on a pedestal where they still had major impact in that company, but I didn't think they should be the main event of Nitro every other week. It's not like I was going to progress the midcard and these guys were out the door. That's ridiculous. I was an idiot if I did not understand that Hogan and Flair were the ratings and drawing card. They needed to be put in the proper situation where they are almost looked at as royalty. A wrestlers' mentality is if they're not in the main event wrestling, then they're not the main event. I don't think that's true. In their mind, if they weren't on top the way they felt they should have been, then there would be issues.
Wrestling INC: When you came into WCW, who were some of the midcard wrestlers you wanted to push up to the main event level?
Russo: [Chris] Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, and Dean Malenko. There were a slew of guys in that middle card. There were a lot of guys in that middle who weren't able to move anywhere. Rey Mysterio was there at the time. I knew what was coming with that psychology and didn't back off because I knew it was the right thing to do.
Read more at http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/2014/0604/576697/vince-russo-on-why-he-left-wwe/#QB9hzP8A3xSe95jq.99
No comments:
Post a Comment