[Rob]

Originally Posted by Mr Sunday Night I have to disagree with you there. The Bret Hart/Vince McMahon and Hulk Hogan/Vince Russo situations were completely different. Bret was leaving the WWF for WCW and Vince wanted him to drop the belt in his home country. Hogan and Russo were merely arguing over who got to get the belt: Hogan or Jarrett. Obviously Russo wanted to keep the title on the younger, more entertaining Jeff Jarrett, and Hogan wanted the belt for himself. Bret was being reasonable, opting to drop the title the next night on RAW (which could have been a great moment in WWF history, and would've left the doors open for Bret to return later on). Hogan was, as usual, pushing for himself to win the World Title, which went completely against Russo's booking plans to upgrade the younger guys. I don't care how big an ass Russo is, I believe that he was in the right. It was thanks to Russo that Hogan left the company and Booker T won the World Heavyweight Championship later that night. I personally don't blame Russo for the downfall of WCW. The ship was already sinking when he jumped aboard, and he atleast came up with a dynamic plan to save them, although it ultimately failed.

I disagree entirely.

For a start, in my opinion, Jeff Jarrett is not more entertaining than Hulk Hogan. Jarrett is one of the most stale acts I have ever seen. Aside from a haircut and a "slapnuts" catchphrase, he has done the exact same thing for the past 15 years. Hogan at least turned heel and was different in that time. Plus his stale act is actually marketable.

Hogan telling Russo he was invoking his creative control clause didn't even matter because not only was Booker T getting the title anyway, Hogan was double crossed. You don't agree on a finish and then change it without telling all parties involved. Also remember that the deal with Jarrett laying down and Hogan walking out was all a work. Russo's interview was the only shoot there.

Russo is obsessed with shoots. He is obsessed with Montreal and he is obsessed with the internet voice. The guy does not have a clue about professional wrestling. I said at the time and I'll say it again now, Vince Russo could have easy gave Hogan an ultimatium and said "Hey pal, lose to Jeff Jarrett or you'll be working with El Dandy every week on Thunder until your contract expires" and he would have been within his legal right to do so. The guy should have taken a look at RF Video's shoot interview tape sells and saw that only about 100 people care about shoots and they don't watch wrestling for shoots.

You might not blame Russo for the downfall of WCW but I certainly do give him his share (Bischoff, Hogan and Nash all have blame too) and it's probably the biggest share. He took control of that company on 3 separate ocassions and each time ratings went down, PPV buyrates went down and house show numbers were non existant. His ideas were piss poor. Who in their right mind puts the World Heavyweight Championship David Arquette and himself? He also wanted to put the belt on Tank Abbott who might have been the least over wrestler in the company as well as being the worst. TV was good for the two weeks after he and Bischoff returned and then it all went tits up. He had 2 good weeks of TV in 3 runs!!! You think that is good booking? For every good booking plan he had, he had 50 bad ones.

I can go on all night. Vince Russo was the worst thing that happened to pro wrestling in the last 20 years. He made me turn off WCW at the end and I grew up watching that show. Before he lost me as a fan, I only ever turned off one show in 10 years optionally and that was because Nitro clashed with Raw here on Friday nights and this was the night of the Owen Hart Raw special (I usually watched Nitro and caught the Raw replay).

After the way he pissed on this business, I would pay good money to piss on him. Hey Vince! That's a internet shoot for you. Get an Ebay auction up or something.