Vince Russo

Vincent James Russo (born January 24, 1961) is an American professional wrestling writer, booker and pundit.

He is notable for his tenures with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE), World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) in creative roles.

He also occasionally made appearances as an on-screen authority figure, and professional wrestler, in WCW and TNA.

Russo's writing style often blurred the lines between reality and fiction, while also favoring elements such as shock twists, grand moments and larger-than-life characters over in-ring action, which made him a controversial figure amongst certain wrestling fans.

Russo was head of the WWF's creative department during the widely acclaimed Attitude Era, during which the company achieved record high television ratings.

During a self-booked in-ring career in WCW, Russo became a one-time WCW World Heavyweight Champion, and scored televised singles victories over future WWE Hall of Famers Ric Flair and Booker T (the latter to win his world title).

Vincent James Russo grew up in Farmingville, New York, and graduated from the University of Southern Indiana (then known as Indiana State University Evansville) in 1983 with a degree in journalism.

He worked for the school newspaper The Shield as an assistant sports editor and later as editor-in-chief.

Russo got his start in professional wrestling when he began training under the tutelage of Johnny Rodz at Gleason's Gym in Brooklyn.

He owned two video stores on Long Island.

Russo also hosted his own local radio show from 1992 to 1993 called Vicious Vincent's World of Wrestling, which aired Sunday nights on WGBB in Freeport.

The program ran for exactly one year, the final show being the one-year anniversary.

In 1992, Russo was hired as a freelance writer for WWF Magazine following a letter that he had written to Linda McMahon, and would later become an editor in 1994 under the pseudonym of Vic Venom.

He was eventually promoted to the WWF Creative Team in 1996.

In that same year, Monday Night Raw hit a ratings low of 1.8, as Monday Nitro (Raw chief competition), was in the midst of an 83-week winning-streak against Raw head-to-head (see Monday Night Wars).

With World Championship Wrestling (WCW) eclipsing the WWF, WWF chairman Vince McMahon called upon Russo to make changes to the televised product.

Russo contributed edgy, controversial storylines involving sexual content, profanity, swerves or unexpected heel turns, and worked shoots, as well as short matches, backstage vignettes, shocking angles and levels of depicted violence.

Russo's style of writing came to be known as "Crash TV" and was heavily inspired by The Jerry Springer Show.

"Crash TV" centered on Russo's philosophy that every character on WWF television should be involved in a storyline (feud).

This contrasted conventional wrestling booking that would typically see a number of matches between wrestlers that were not necessarily involved in feuds.

Russo believed that by constantly having storyline material on-screen, the viewing audience would be more reluctant to change the channel for fear of missing something.

In 1997, Russo became head writer for the WWF and wrote their flagship show Raw Is War as well as their monthly pay-per-views.

With the angles that he created, Russo had a large hand in putting WWF ahead of WCW in the Monday night rating wars during the Attitude Era.

In an interview with Jeff Lane in 2015, Russo acknowledged that the first thing he wrote as WWF head writer was the episode of Raw that aired on December 15, 1997.

At the King of the Ring pay-per-view in 1998, Ed Ferrara joined the WWF creative team and was paired with Russo.

Some of the more controversial characters during this time, often cited by critics of Russo, include Sable, Val Venis and The Godfather.

Russo devised the infamous Brawl for All tournament.

Russo also contributed to the formation of D-Generation X, The Undertaker vs. Kane feud, the Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Mr. McMahon feud, the rise of The Rock, and Mick Foley's three-face pushes.

In the two years following Russo's promotion to head writer, Raw surpassed WCW's Nitro in head-to-head ratings.

In October 1999, Russo was replaced by Chris Kreski as WWF head writer, after Russo departed the company.

On October 3, 1999, Russo and Ed Ferrara signed with WCW; Russo contends that his reason for leaving the WWF was the result of a dispute with Vince McMahon over the increased workload caused by the introduction of the new SmackDown! broadcast and McMahon's disregard of Russo's family.

Russo and Ferrara attempted to make the same "Crash TV" style on Monday Nitro which was similar to Raw Is War, only at an accelerated pace, including soapier storylines, more lengthy non-wrestling segments, constant heel/face turns, an increased amount of female representation on the show, fake retirements, more backstage vignettes, expanded storyline depth, constant title changes, and the utilization of midcard talent in a more effective manner.

Russo and Ferrara often focused on poking fun at the WWF.

Russo's writing style created a large turnover in title changes, reflecting his "crash TV" writing philosophy.

His booking of Jushin Thunder Liger losing and regaining the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship on Nitro in late 1999 was not recognized by New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) in the title lineage until 2007; Liger lost the title to Juventud Guerrera, a luchador, after being hit over the head with a tequila bottle.

Swerves and scenarios treated as "shoots" were heavily emphasized, as wrestlers supposedly gave unscripted interviews using "insider" terms that were only recognized by the Internet smarks; chaotic broadcasts became the norm.

In January 2000, Russo received two phone calls, one from Bret Hart (then WCW World Heavyweight Champion) and another from Jeff Jarrett (then WCW United States Heavyweight Champion), both saying that they were injured, thus could not wrestle and forced to vacate their respective championships.

This required Russo to alter the plans he had in mind for Hart and the New World Order.

Russo and his booking committee sat down to determine what would now happen at Souled Out.

One of the ideas included putting the now-vacated WCW Title on the shoot fighter Tank Abbott, a former UFC fighter.