Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
In 2002, WWE had hit a major lull both creatively and financially. The Monday Night Wars were all over as their main rival in World Championship Wrestling was bought by Vince McMahon and WWE. With no competition, fans tuned out in droves with ratings, attendance and pay per view buy rates dropping precipitously. Desperate times called for desperate measures and in June of 2002…Vince McMahon did the “unthinkable.”
In a development that shocked almost everyone at the time, McMahon rehired his former head of creative in Vince Russo. As many recall, Russo was the head creative writer during the start of the Attitude Era for the company. An era which saw WWF drop all of the cartoonish type gimmicks and become more adult oriented. An era which also saw the WWF overtake WCW in the ratings war. It helped make Vince Russo into a hot commodity in wrestling. So much so, WCW came knocking on his door wanting to poach him from the company.
Vince Russo basically quit the WWF without notice and joined the WWF’s main rival WCW. Russo claimed he left due to being overworked and not having enough time to spend with his family. Regardless of how and why he left the WWF, it seemed at the time, to be a major coup for WCW to get him. As we all know now…that wasn’t the case at all. Russo’s vision of ‘Crash TV’ for WCW proved to be a failure for various reasons and showed many that Russo needed to be controlled.
With the fall of WCW in 2001, Russo opened up a CD store in Atlanta, Georgia. Despite being out of the wrestling business…Russo was itching to return. As 2002 rolled in, Vince Russo quietly began working with his friend Jeff Jarrett on the upstart promotion TNA wrestling. It was all done secretly, because Russo was in the middle of a lawsuit with Hulk Hogan stemming from their days in WCW, where Russo “went off script” and started badmouthing Hogan during Bash at the Beach 2000 pay per view.
Time Warner was representing Russo and reportedly one of the conditions was that Russo could not work for another wrestling promotion while the lawsuit was going on. That did not stop McMahon to come calling in June of 2002 and shockingly announce Russo’s rehiring. It was not only shocking to many fans, but also shocking to those close to McMahon. In particular, Hulk Hogan who was back with WWE at the time and Stephanie McMahon…who was the head of the creative team.
Various wrestlers and personnel voiced their displeasure over Russo’s return including the Undertaker. Triple H actually voiced his support of McMahon’s rehiring of Russo saying whatever was best for business. Russo was going to have creative control over the company and would only answer to Stephanie McMahon. Russo had a day long meeting with McMahon and his inner circle at Titan Towers in which he laid out his vision of WWE. The people involved in the meeting included the likes of Paul Heyman, Michael Hayes, Pat Patterson and Jim Ross. The one person not involved in the meeting was Stephanie herself….who either refused to show or was on location elsewhere…she joined the meeting by phone.
After his meetings with WWE management, Russo got on a flight and returned to his home. When he arrived back home that evening, Vince McMahon called him and told him that plans have changed and would no longer head creative. Instead, Russo was made into a creative consultant who would watch WWE programming each week and critique what was good and bad with the shows. Russo was reportedly getting $1,000 a week to sit home and watch WWE. That job would last about two weeks before being let go altogether.
So what happened? Many reports came out that Russo simply wasn’t up to speed with the current WWE product. (Russo later admitted that he wasn’t watching WWE shows at that time) Other reports said that all of his ideas were quickly shot down and didn’t mesh well with what the company wanted.
Vince Russo would say years later, that his main idea was too reboot the Invasion angle and would involve Eric Bischoff as the brains behind it. The main characters involved would be Bischoff (who wasn’t signed to a WWE deal at the time) Vince McMahon and Shane McMahon. Russo said that when he proposed the idea to Stephanie…she immediately trashed it and gave him attitude. Later that night, Russo was out of a lucrative WWE job. His demotion and ultimate firing did not come as a shock to to Russo, who knew that as soon as he left WWE headquarters…his daughter and others would get into McMahon’s ear.
It wasn’t all bad for Vince Russo though. After his second stint with WWE ended in a matter of a couple of weeks, Russo was hired by the Jarretts to head creative for TNA.