Reported by Adam Martin of WrestleView.com
On Monday, November 28, 2005 at 7:58 PM EST

Jimmy Van of JimmyVan.com sent in the following:

Part two of my exclusive audio interview with former WWE, WCW and TNA writer and performer Vince Russo is now online at JimmyVan.com in MP3 and Real Audio formats. You can also listen to a five-minute preview clip of the interview in Real Audio format at this link:

http://jimmyvan.win.lowfathost.com/russo/part2/russo-112005-clip2.mp3

Vince Russo's book, Forgiven: One Man's Journey from Self-Glorification to Sanctification, is available now through Amazon.com.

Visit Vince Russo's Ring of Glory at www.RingofGlory.com.

Here is a text transcript from this 41-minute portion of the interview.

October of 1999 is when the wrestling world was turned upside down when you left WWE along with Ed Ferrera and Bill Banks to go to WCW. The word is that you left because WWE launched SmackDown! and doubled your workload without doubling your salary, plus you weren't under contract and didn't have that job security. Why did you jump, and what did Vince McMahon think when you told him?

"All of those reasons had something to do with it, but I'll kind of tell you what I really think the main reason was," Vince said. He said his whole life, he thrived on challenge, and once he succeeded at one goal, it was on to the next. He said he was constantly trying to fill a void in his life that he couldn't fill without God, because God was the void, but he didn't know it at the time. "In October of '99, I knew in my heart of hearts that the WWF had peaked. I knew we were as hot and we were as big as we were ever going to get. There was nowhere else to go, that was it. As a matter of fact, my words to Vince and you can go back and look at the ratings now from where I left, and a year later. My words to Vince were, I said, "Vince, you have one year left, to ride the wave." Because I knew everything was in place. They just had to put the storylines and the characters and everything on cruise control for a year; the ratings were gonna continue for another year. I knew that we had peaked. So now that a guy that thrives on challenge, now I'm looking at WCW that was absolutely face-first in the ground. Here was the greatest challenge of all. Could we possibly do it again? And, part of the challenge was, could we do it this time without Vince McMahon? And that to be honest with you, that was really the driving factor above all. There were things that added to it, but that was really it."

Who made contact with whom, did somebody contact you from WCW?

"It was all me," Vince said.

What did Vince McMahon say when you told him about it?

"Well first he thought I was ribbing him," Vince said. "Then when he found out I wasn't ribbing him he threatened to sue me and I said, "Well Vince you've got nothing to sue anybody over because I never had a contract," which I don't even know if he knew or not. He had to know I didn't have a contract. Then you know, I think it was so shocking to him in the beginning that he tried everything to make the conversation turn ugly. And I told him, I said "Vince this ain't gonna get ugly."" Vince said he told McMahon that he looked to him as a mentor, and he loved him like a dad and loved his family. "After that, it was more civil, but I think more than anything else it just kind of took him back."

It couldn't have been a fun conversation for you I imagine.

"Of course not," Vince said. "What people don't understand is, I had to do it over a phone. I didn't choose to do it over a phone. There isn't anything that I couldn't have said to Vince's face, which is part of the reason I went back two or three years ago, because I wanted to tell him face-to-face, "Vince, this is why I did what I did." And I knew someday I had to tell him face to face and man to man, but under the circumstances at that time, the circumstances just didn't allow it."

The first time you attended a WCW taping, what did you think, and how did it differ from a WWE production?

"The one thing that blew my mind was, my first question was, what time's the production meeting and somebody said to me, what's a production meeting? That was the first thing that blew my mind. They had no production meetings. That was the first thing. But bro I gotta tell you, to be totally honest with you, two weeks in, I knew. Not that I had made a mistake because it was time for me to leave the WWF. But two weeks in I knew something dramatic is gonna go down here because this ain't happening. I knew it in two weeks."

From the time you started with WCW, you were under the microscope as far as the Internet and wrestling writers are concerned, and you were highly criticized...

"I've said it once and I'll say it a million times, anybody who wants can go look at the numbers. And I'll tell you because I know, because I constantly with the office, had to state my own case. That's why I feel like I know these numbers by heart. The last show WCW did before I came aboard, it was when Chris Benoit and Bret Hart had a three-segment match for Owen Hart, that was the last show they did before I started writing. That show, the rating was a 2.5, and anybody can go look it up, it's in the records. I came aboard, and Ed Ferrera and myself, we wrote the television for three months. The last show I wrote only three months in before the political positioning came into place, the last show we wrote three months later was a 3.5. So we went from a 2.5 to a 3.5 in a matter of three months. Three months later they called me back again to do the TV, guess where the rating was at when I went back. It was a 2.5. It was right back where it was when we took over, and I knew at that point, there was so much damage done at that point, I knew we were never gonna get these people back again. I mean I knew it. I knew it. Say whatever you want, I liked what I did in those three months, I was a fan of it, I had fun. We were creating a lot of new guys, we were doing a lot of things differently, we were creating a buzz, we were setting the ground work for things to come. And like I said, criticize me all you want, I don't have a problem with that. But on a professional level, I stick to my numbers. And in the realm of things, that's what I was getting paid for. I wasn't getting paid to make sure that Dave Meltzer liked the show, or Wade Keller liked the show, that's not what they were paying me for. They were paying me for that number that they got every Tuesday morning."

One of the things that was going on in WCW was, we were seeing some of the gimmick matches that had first happened in WWE like the Graveyard Match (Buried Alive Match), the Human Torch Match (Inferno Match), etc. You apparently claimed that you had created those matches in WWE and so they were your idea. The criticism was that you were rehashing those matches.

"I disagree with that because first of all, I remember specifically Sting and Vampiro in the graveyard, it was never a match. Vampiro called him out in a graveyard. And it was just a way to use some cool props and to be in a graveyard. So it was never a match to begin with. And as far as the Inferno thing, again, that was just to build the Vampiro character. I can't remember specifically but I think the whole deal was, he was gonna set Sting on fire in the match. Just something shocking. Even though yeah, I did create the Inferno Match and yeah, I did create the Buried Alive Match and Hell in a Cell and all that stuff, but I didn't necessarily look at those things at the same thing. I mean I didn't, I'll be honest with you. Think about it, if you want to... and I'm talking about, back then because I wouldn't do these things now... if you want fire to be part of a match, how many ways can you possibly do it? If you want a graveyard to be the back drop, there's only a couple of ways that you can do that. And that's the problem with wrestling. They're trying to rehash and rehash; there's only so many ways and so many times you can do something. But again, if that was the criticism, that's cool and it's almost like, I understand that. But that didn't even cross my mind at the time because the concepts and the situations are different."

Do you think that's one of the problems in wrestling now is that everything's been done?

"Absolutely. And they don't know how to bring it to the next level. You've gotta understand something, when I came aboard (WWE), all I did was mirror society. The minute I left, they went right back to what they know, and that's wrestling. And that's where they are now. I was watching a skit the other day with this Carlito guy, and I guess every time he chews the apple, he spits it in somebody's face. Now if that were the real world, after he did it one time, the next time somebody's in that ring with him, the minute this guy would pick up the apple, the guy would lay him out. Understand what I'm saying? You're not gonna wait until he chews it and then spits it in your face again. That is what I'm talking about when I talk about the reality of life. I love Jeff Jarrett, he's my friend and I love him to death. But to this day, I have yet to see anybody bring a guitar to a fight. This is what I'm talking about, about the reality of 2005. You've got to make it real, you've gotta have real characters based on real storylines. I'll give you another perfect example, and this is a lot of the stuff that I read. Ric Flair, however old he is, is never in anybody's wildest dream or in the realm of reality, is never going to win a steel cage match, in a cage with a guy that's in his prime. It's not gonna happen. I mean it's just not gonna happen. And this is the thing where, all the people that got hooked on the product in 1999, this is why they've all left. Because when you try to watch it now, it's just unbelievable. I mean you can't believe even if in your heart of hearts, you wanted to. It's just unbelievable."

Have you seen the Monday Night War DVD that WWE produced?

"No I haven't."

You were brought up when it came to WCW, and Gene Okerlund made a point that a lot of wrestlers have made. He said in WCW you didn't have Vince McMahon to cultivate your ideas which is what you needed.

"I'll tell you the differences between me and Vince. Vince McMahon cannot take a blank sheet of white paper and write a wrestling show. He can't do it. And if he tries to do it, if he tries to write the big ideas and the big concepts, it will be terrible. And in my book, I talk about some ideas and concepts that were the brainchilds of Vince McMahon that you wouldn't even believe. He is not capable of writing a show from scratch, which I can do. But here's the genius of Vince McMahon, and it's not about cultivating an idea. It's about Vince McMahon... here's the genius of him. Vince McMahon sees things that nobody else could ever see in a million years. In other words, he will take a story and a storyline, and he will take one small detail, he will change one thing that the naked eye wouldn't even see, and that one change would make it a hundred times better. Vince used to always call it the nuances, the nuances, the nuances. And my challenge became after a while, to write a show where Vince couldn't change anything to make it better. That was my challenge, but every week he found something. And you know what, everything he found made it better. But it had nothing to do with cultivating ideas because Vince never came up with the big picture. I mean he never did. We laid out the entire show and that's where he, because the entire show was laid out before him, that gave him the time to really sit down and look at the details. And that's his gift. That's what he can do better than anybody."

When Eric Bischoff was heading up WCW, he became a prominent character on TV. Kevin Nash the same when he was booking. We see it with Vince and Stephanie now in WWE. When you were heading up WCW you also became a prominent character on television. Do you think in retrospect that might have been a mistake putting yourself on TV a lot?

"Absolutely. And I'll tell you why I did it. And again, anybody who thinks they know me, they can say whatever they want. I'll tell you exactly why I did it. Number one, I told you WCW, they wanted ratings yesterday. And there was such pressure every single week for ratings. Forget Vince knowing that it's gonna take eight months to see this thing work. Forget about it. So what happened was, they put such pressure no me for ratings, in combination with that I also knew that a lot of the younger guys that we had on the roster at the time that we were trying to build, they didn't have the greatest TV presence because they were still learning. So basically I said two things. I said you know what, you want ratings? No problem, I'll give you ratings. I'll go out there and I'll do this thing myself. Really, that was my attitude. I'll do it myself, you want ratings, fine, I'll do it myself. And also the idea was, let me use myself to try to get these other younger guys over. That was the philosophy. I hated being on television. 90% of the time I went on television, I was hurt, I had a concussion, I didn't wanna be there. But again, it's like when you back somebody in a corner, they'll do some crazy things. And WCW backed me in a corner to the point of me saying, you know what, fine you want ratings, I'll get in there and do it myself. And that's really what I did. It had nothing to do with ego, it had nothing to do with me wanting to see myself on TV. I really believed that I could use myself to help get these younger more inexperienced guys over."

Did you get any kind of backlash internally when you became the WCW Champion?

"Oh no there was never backlash internally, because everybody was talking behind your back. But again, it just makes me laugh because it's like... the belt is a prop. I mean, what makes me laugh is, me winning the belt, David Arquette winning the belt, it was all part of a story. The way I won the belt was, Bill Goldberg drove me through a steel cage, so I was out of the cage first. That's how I won the belt. And the next day, I turned it over. It was just all part of the story, be unpredictable, what's Russo gonna do now that he's got the belt, is he gonna defend the belt, that's all it was. And people that put this belt thing on a pedestal and hold the belt so highly, I hate to break the news to these people but nobody wins the belt. It's written. Nobody goes out and wins a belt. And I just think sometimes they just go way, way too far with what a fake belt is supposed to represent in a fake wrestling organization."

You mentioned David Arquette. That was done I think for two reasons, one was to try to get mainstream press, and the other was to promote the movie coming out at the time, "Ready to Rumble".

"It wasn't that at all, I could have cared less about the movie. Me personally, it was to get mainstream publicity. But again the funny thing about that is, what nobody will tell you is, number one it wasn't my idea..."

Tony Schiavone I've heard.

"Tony Schiavone. When Tony Schiavone said it to me, it caught me so off guard that I said to myself, you know what, if I wasn't even thinking about that, how could anybody else think that? What they don't tell you is, at that point after Schiavone gave me the idea, I then held a meeting with every one of the agents. Johnny Ace, Eric Bischoff, Arn Anderson, you name it they were all there. Every single person in that room said what a great idea it was. Every single person. So you know what, to this day I have no problem taking all the heat for it because guess what, I would do the same thing again tomorrow. But for those people to point the finger at me, there were at least 15 people present, and there wasn't one person that said you know what, I don't think we should do that. Not a single one."

Do you think the idea worked?

"I think it worked because the next morning when I went down to the lobby and I picked up USA Today, there was a picture of David Arquette on top of Eric Bischoff on the cover of the Sports section. And that's all I wanted to achieve. And to this day, I don't have a problem with that. I would do the same thing."

Oftentimes in WCW you would do promos and make shoot comments. Do you think you catered too much to the Internet fans or the "smart" fans even though they represented a small percentage of the fanbase at the time?

"No not at all because I don't think any wrestling fan is stupid. I think the problem today is, they treat the wrestling fans like they're stupid. And that's why they're only drawing a 3.5. Because the wrestling fans who started watching the product because it was cool and because it was hip and it was smart, okay smart, they stopped watching. Because now again they're right back to, you know what, these people think it's real, they're gonna eat whatever we feed them, and we're gonna give it to them whether they like it or not."

You mentioned that you were in WCW for three months, and then they told you to be part of a booking committee and you refused. Why do you think that happened that they decided to go that route?

"I was working in WCW for maybe two weeks. All of a sudden now, every time I turned around, there was a meeting between a former booker... there were always constant meetings between a former booker and one of the people in the office. Every time I turned around they were talking in a corner, the minute I caught them in my eye they would break it up. I knew exactly what was going on. But you've gotta understand I never have, and never will play any political games. That is why I am not in TNA today. That is why I am not in the WWE today because that's part of it. And even back in WCW my philosophy was this: they pay me to write a show, and all I'm gonna do is write the best show I possibly can. If Bill Busch who was the boss at the time, if he wants to believe what they tell him about Vince Russo, then you know what, let them go ahead and replace me with these people, because I knew what was gonna happen. I knew these people couldn't write a wrestling show. And that's exactly what happened. Bill Busch, he wanted a committee, I said no, he put these people in charge, three months later Brad Siegel is calling me, Vince you need to come back. Okay Brad, are we done fooling around now? I mean really, I swear to you, that was my philosophy from day one."

One of the rumors at the time was that Bill Busch sent you home because you wanted to put the WCW Title on Tank Abbott. Is there any truth to that?

"Yeah there is truth to that, and again everybody hears stories like this. First of all you've gotta understand, Bret Hart got hurt. I literally found out two days before the PPV. So again, I called the committee together. And basically I can't even remember the idea, but basically we came up with the idea of some kind of a battle royal that was gonna crown a new champion. And the way it was was... you tell me if this doesn't make sense. The way it was was, Sid was gonna be one of the guys in there early. Like maybe number two or three or whatever it was. Sid was gonna make his way all the way to the end, absolutely exhausted. All of a sudden, here's an exhausted Sid at the end in the ring, and who comes down to the ring as the last guy? A fresh as a daisy shoot fighter, Tank Abbott. You see under those circumstances, that makes sense that Tank Abbott would hit this guy once and he would go over the top rope. Where it goes from there, that's where good story writing comes into play. I can't even tell you where it was gonna go from there because we were so pressed just to come up with the PPV two days from now, that we really didn't even have the opportunity to talk about it. But then again, I was in the room with five other guys that were on the creative team. We left that room all agreeing on it. And again Bill Busch didn't know enough about wrestling to know whether or not that was a good idea. But it was the people that were in his ear that said you know what Vince is crazy, look at what he's doing... which made Bill say you know what, we're gonna go to a committee now."

Ed Ferrera decided to stay on and be part of the committee, and there was tension between you after that. Did you still work with Ed after you came back to WCW?

"No... Ed and I... we didn't bury the hatchet until we were both out of the business, and we were both able to look at... I was able to look at what the business did to him. He was able to look at what the business did to me. We were able to understand each other on a much clearer level without the pressures of the business and the politics of the business involved. And since we've both been out of the business, we're as close now as we've ever been. If we were still in the business we probably wouldn't even be talking to each other, because that's what the business does to you."

It was Kevin Sullivan who ended up becaming the head writer on the committee. Instant turmoil - Chris Benoit wanted out, Guerrero, Saturn, Malenko, they all got their releases from WCW, then two months later they brought you back with Eric Bischoff. What did you think not only about the fact that they wanted you to work with Bischoff, but also that four of your top workers had left?

"Remember when I told you earlier, every time I turned my back, meetings were breaking up? All of the boys knew it. The boys knew exactly what happened. They knew who the politicians were. They knew Vince was a good guy, they knew Vince was a stand-up guy, they knew Vince was an honest guy, they knew Vince never lied to anybody. They knew exactly what happened. I mean, they all knew what happened. Eric and I were both put in a terrible, terrible position because neither one of us had any say in it. We were put together. And from day one, neither one of us trusted the other. I mean it's that simple. Eric Bischoff never did anything bad to me, but I can tell you I never trusted him. And the same goes for him, I know he didn't trust me. You can't be in a situation like that where you're working with someone you don't trust. And again, that wasn't Eric's fault and that wasn't my fault, we were put into this spot where neither one of us had any say about it. And I knew from the very first day, this is nuts. This is not going to work, but again, there was nothing neither one of us could do about it."

You started a storyline with The Millionaires Club vs. The New Blood. And it was decided to strip all of the current champions of their titles. Why was the decision made to do that?

"Well because the situation was like when we came in, it was just gonna be a new day. And we were absolutely gonna start from scratch, and it was gonna be a new day, and we were gonna start over and it was gonna be a clean slate. And we were gonna get rid of any damage they had done the previous three months. And that was basically the philosophy behind it."

How involved was Standards and Practices in the creative process?

"Oh man, they were so involved. That's just another thing that people don't understand. Going into WCW, I knew there was a Standards and Practices. I knew what we could do and what we couldn't do. The problem was, I never in my wildest dreams imagined that Standards and Practices would have problems with certain things that just were unbelievable to me. We had this one spot where these three heavy set women got out of a car, and there was Roddy Piper. Roddy Piper was gonna take some jabs at the heavy set women. Roddy Piper was not allowed to do that because we may have offended some heavy set women watching the show. These are the things that I'm talking about. Things like in my wildest dreams. We wanted Kevin Nash and Scott Hall to show up to the building drunk. Well they weren't allowed to show up to the building drunk, but they were allowed to drink Nyquil all night because they had colds, and get drunk that way. I mean that's what I'm talking about. It was things like, in my wildest dreams, I was like, you've got to be kidding me. It was all these kinds of things. I mean I knew what we couldn't do, but it was things like that that I was like, are you kidding me?" Vince said he'd asked for a handbook asking him what he could and could not do, but they were always changing the rules. So they would write the show not knowing whether they would let them do it. "Every week that went on because they wouldn't supply us with the guidelines."

So were you supplying them with the scripts after they were done?

"Oh yeah, absolutely."

Let's talk about Bash at the Beach. This again has been talked about to death. On your website RingofGlory.com you talked about it. The consensus is that the whole thing was a work as far as Jarrett laying down, Hogan walking out with the title and then Booker winning the title later on...

"The whole thing was a work, but Jeff wasn't in on it. Jeff did not know it was a work. When I kept going to Jeff and I was talking to Jeff the whole night, I was working Jeff. Jeff really believed that Hogan wouldn't do the job for him, and Jeff was not in on it. Jeff wasn't in on it until the very next day because I was really having a hard time working Jeff and he was involved in it. The next day I told Jeff at the following day's TV, I told Jeff what had happened. But that night, Jeff had no idea it was a work."

How did he respond when you told him later on?

"That night, Jeff was really PO'd."

At Hogan.

"Yes. But you've also gotta understand, Jeff is smart enough... I mean Jeff has been around the business forever. After sleeping on it for an entire night and kind of putting pieces together and looking at things and everything else, when I told him the following day, I think he kind of knew it at that point."

And it really only became a shoot because Hogan was supposed to come back but you didn't bring him back.

"No let me tell you where I went wrong. I'll tell you exactly where I went wrong. Everything was laid out... here was the key... going into this night, all I cared about was, I had to make sense of the Jarrett/Booker match at the end of the show. Regardless of all this turmoil, I had to make sense of that match so it all made sense. That's where my promo came in. My promo was gonna tie up all the loose ends. Okay? "You know Hulk, take your belt, go home with your belt because you're not the Champion anyway, we're gonna have a real match tonight." That promo enabled me to make sense out of the Jarrett/Booker match. Now you've gotta understand, we were trying to work all the boys. So how we did that was, I said to Eric and Hulk, I said guys, I need this promo burying Hogan so that I can make sense of the last match. But Hulk can't be in the building while I'm cutting this promo because if he was, he'd come out and rip my head off. So basically what has to happen is, after Jarrett lays down, Hulk's gotta be so irate that I showed him up in front of the boys, and him and Eric have to be so mad at me, that you guys have to leave the building so I can now go out and cut this promo burying you Hulk, so I can make sense of the last match. But I did tell Hulk, I said "Hulk, I will call you tomorrow and I will let you know where we go from here." Now you've gotta understand something, I had no idea where we were going from there. Because this stuff all came up that night. So the reality is, the next day I didn't call Hulk because I had nothing to tell him. I didn't know where we were going. I had to worry about the next day's TV, I couldn't worry about, what are we doing with Hulk now? Hulk wasn't there, I had to worry about the next day's TV. So my bad, I was wrong. I told him I was gonna call him, and I should have called him. But then on top of that, what happened was, the next day I go back to the office, and I sit down with Brad Siegel and I explain everything to Brad Siegel, and I said to Brad Siegel, I said, "Brad, I'm supposed to call Hulk to let him know where we go from here." Brad Siegel said to me, "Vince, don't call Hulk, because we cannot afford to use him now anyway." He said we can't afford to pay him right now, so don't call him. And you know what, my bad again because I still should have called Hulk and told him that. I should have called. But this is Brad Siegel telling me this. This is the head of everything. You know what I'm saying? But you know what, I still should have called Hulk and said, "You know what Hulk, I told you I'd call you to let you know, but here's the situation. Brad is telling me we can't use you now because we can't afford to pay you." But I didn't do that. So you know what, that's where I made my mistake. But other than that, I did nothing wrong because everything that happened that night, Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff were fully aware of."

I know that Hogan filed a lawsuit...

"He sued me personally for defamation of character."

Is that still in the courts?

"No that's been thrown out twice. He's got one more chance to go to a supreme court now with it if he wants to. But as of now that's been thrown out twice."

I've always been curious about a storyline that never got to play out, and that's the Stacy Keibler "Who's the Father" storyline with David Flair. There were two scenarios; Ric Flair mentioned in his book that you were going to be the father, or Ric was going to be the father. How were you looking to play that out because it ended up getting dropped and she came out with a baby carriage with pictures of Shawn Stasiak in it.

"That was horrible."

What was the story that was gonna go on?

Vince said he really had to think about it to try to remember. "Maybe it was supposed to be Ric, and I can't really make sense of that. I don't think it was supposed to be me. But I'll be honest with you, I don't... I know it was a good story. I know it was a good story, but I just can't remember."

It was January of 2001 when a couple of things happened. First, Fusient Media Ventures with Eric Bischoff announced that they had acquired WCW...

"Wait a second, I've got the story now. Stacy was going to turn out to be Ric's daughter. Ric had an affair way, way, way back, and Stacy Keibler was Ric's daughter."

Which means there was incest then with Stacy and David.

"Right, and they had no idea. Neither one of them had any idea."

You should have had Jerry Springer come on.

"We might have! We might have. But that was the deal."

Part two of my exclusive audio interview with former WWE, WCW and TNA writer and performer Vince Russo is now online at JimmyVan.com in MP3 and Real Audio formats. You can also listen to a five-minute preview clip of the interview in Real Audio format at this link:

http://jimmyvan.win.lowfathost.com/russo/part2/russo-112005-clip2.mp3