RECAP AND REVIEW: Truth With Consequences on Vince Russo’s worst ideas…or were they? Beaver Cleavage, Heel Goldberg, G.I. Bro, why he put Judy Bagwell on a forklift, the only time the WWE crew didn’t come through for him, the idea that cost him his job in WCW

Truth With Consequences Vince Russo’s Worst Ideas.Or Were They?

Release Date: 01/15/19

Running time: 1:53

Recap by: Joe Aguinaldo

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Vince has been maligned, cursed at and told to die because of wrestling angles he’s written. On this podcast, Matt and Vince go through some of these bad ideas, some which may have been attributed to Vince even though he may not have written them.

• Vince says the popular narrative is that he takes credit for everything but will never admit to a bad idea. Looking at it logically, if Vince puts it on television, he didn’t think it was a bad idea. He had a lot of bad ideas that didn’t make it to TV.
• If someone thinks it’s a bad idea, it doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea as that’s a subjective opinion. A lot of people want Vince to agree with what they think is a bad idea which Vince won’t do.
• Vince doesn’t feel he takes credit for everything and says he likes to analyze things that didn’t work.

The Beaver Cleavage Character

• Headbanger Mosh was involved and was supposedly in love with his mother
• To get out of the angle, Mosh came out during the last vignette, said this is stupid and I can’t do this anymore.
• Thrasher was injured and and they had to find something for Mosh to do. This was in the era where they were always pushing the envelope. It was insinuated that the woman was his mom but it would be revealed that she really wasn’t.
• Vince says this is similar to Goldust where everyone was on board with the story but suddenly one person gets uncomfortable and will say it may affect sponsorship then suddenly you have to find a way to get out.
• To Vince, this was edgy and a water cooler topic. He knew wrestling fans were going to hate it but that’s not who he was writing for.
• Vince refuses to call this a mistake because he wasn’t able to see it through. If he could have seen it through and it didn’t work then he would say it was a mistake.

Goldberg Turning Heel

• Matt says there are certain people you couldn’t turn heel and Vince says he should have been more in tune with that.
• When Vince went to WCW, Goldberg had gone through the streak and the only place he could go was to turn heel.
• Vince felt this was a mistake because Goldberg didn’t want to do it which meant his heart would not be in it. Vince knew that but he did it anyway.

G.I. Bro (Booker T)

• Many people thought this showed Vince was racist however, it was Booker T that came up with the name G.I. Bro which was a character he played early in his career in the indies. Vince loved the idea when Booker told him about it.
• Booker never really changed his name. He became part of Misfits In Action and when they were in that group they had gimmick names in that group.
• Vince says this wasn’t a mistake because Booker was into it and Vince was entertained by it.

The Greatest Tag Team That Never Was

• When TNA started it was supposed to be an R-rated company. Jeff Jarrett asked Vince and Disco Inferno to come up with a list of outrageous characters.
• One idea was ‘Cock and Balls’ (Terry Taylor and Balls Mahoney).
• Vince reiterates once an idea leaves his head it’s not stupid but he does reflect and revise stories and characters as he goes along.

The Johnsons and Seth Vs. Dean

• Matt brings up the Johnsons (The Shane Twins) who would dress in flesh colored outfits. This was an idea of Vince’s
• Vince mention of the main event of the January 7th Raw (Seth Rollins vs. Dean Ambrose for the IC title). By the time the main event came along, they lost 600,000 fans. He says if he had two guys come out dressed as two penises, he wouldn’t lose 600,000 fans.
• Matt disagrees but Vince says he’s not writing for the wrestling fans who he knows will hate that. He’s writing for the casual fans who won’t.

Katie Vick

• The Katie Vick storyline has always been pinned on Vince but he did not write that as he wasn’t working for the company
• A few of the next storylines are like the WWE writing Vince Russo style after Vince leaves the company

Judy Bagwell On A Forklift

• Vince says no-one talks about Judy Bagwell being part of the tag team champions even before Vince got to WCW
• Judy came in as a character when Buff Bagwell did one of his injury angles. She had a great appearance and they decided to have her out every week. Before Vince got to WCW she was already a commodity.
• With Vince, everything is visual. When you’re channel surfing and you see a middle aged woman attached to a forklift, he thinks people will stop and watch. The entire show should be a spectacle. The idea for putting Judy on the forklift was for the visual.
• Vince says Buff Bagwell was a mama’s boy. Judy would baby him and treat him like her 12 year old son.

<Insert Gimmick> on a pole

• Vince says there were only three ‘on a pole’ match (pinata, viagra and champagne bottle) but everyone says there were a bunch of pole matches.
• The viagra on a pole match storyline was that Shane Douglas stole Billy Kidman’s girlfriend but Shane couldn’t perform in the bedroom.

Finger Poke Of Doom

• Vince gets blamed for this but it wasn’t his idea. He was still in WWE when it happened.
• Matt calls it the best bump of Kevin Nash’s career.
• Vince did something similar with Triple H and Shawn Michaels’ over the European title.

The Wack Pack

• Vince has brought the Wack Pack from the Howard Stern show to both WWE and WCW. Jeff Jarrett hit Beetlejuice over the head with a guitar and Scott Steiner put him in a Steiner Recliner.
• Vince wanted the Stern characters in the WWE because he was a huge fan of Stern. He says if he was writing this for the ‘marks’ he wouldn’t have written them in. He believes Meltzer would critique a test pattern if you call it wrestling.

The Birth Of A Hand

• Mae Young had an affair with Mark Henry and gave birth to a hand. Vince gets blamed for this storyline and was in the WCW when this storyline came up.
• The writer who wrote this storyline was on one of Vince’s shows and said this was 1000% Vince McMahon’s idea. McMahon thought this was the funniest thing he had ever seen.

Marlena and Brian Pillman

• When Vince wrote Brian Pillman and Marlena having an affair and being in bed together, he did not know they had a previous relationship. He may not have done that if he knew or ask her beforehand.

The Dog Kennel From Hell Match

• The idea was the ring to be circled by wild attack dogs. However, the dogs were not attack dogs.
• Vince takes the blame for this because he didn’t have an alternative if they were not wild and vicious dogs.
• This was the only time the WWE crew didn’t come through for him.

The Human Oddities

• This was a Vince Mcmahon idea that started with Golga because he thought it was the greatest thing to have a humpback wrestler that couldn’t be pinned.
• This was something that smartened up Vince Russo (about WWE holding back talent)  for the first time because they put Sable in with the Oddities because she was getting too over.

The Artist Formerly Known As Goldust

• Vince said it sucked and was his mistake. Goldust was over and could have been huge had it not been for WWE getting cold feet due to sponsors.
• When someone is that over, it’s hard to go anywhere because Dustin/Goldust was so successful. Vince has no idea how he could have saved that character.

The Electrified Cage

• The electrified cage was not Vince’s idea. He had left TNA and came back. In his first creative meeting back, the match had already been booked.
• The WWE might have been able to pull this off but Vince didn’t think TNA had the resources to do it.
• During this match, a ‘Fire Russo’ chant started.

British Bulldog Bumping In Dog Poop

• This was not Vince’s idea as he had left the WWE.
• Vince McMahon thought this was hilarious.

Humiliating J.R.

• There was a skit were J.R. was at the hospital and they were pulling various things out of his butt.
• This was not a Vince Russo storyline as he was not in the WWE at the time.

Tank Abbott

• Vince had suggested Tank be the world champion which led to Vince being released from WCW.
• At the time, they had a PPV coming up but Jeff Jarrett and Bret Hart got hurt and they had to rewrite the PPV. They booked a battle royal for the title and Vince suggested having Sid be the first entrant until the very end. He would still be in the ring but the very last entrant would be Tank Abbott who would beat Sid. It would have been believable for Tank to throw a tired Sid out of the ring.
• Vince wanted to do this, see what the reaction was and when they had time to think, they could figure out where to go. Everyone he talked to creatively liked the idea however Bill Bush (who was running WCW) told Vince he couldn’t put the belt on Tank.

San Francisco 49ers Match

• Jeff Jarrett and Booker T took part in the match. Four boxes were hung around ring and you had to open the box with the title in it.
• Vince doesn’t think the idea is bad but the execution was poor. The boxes in this match were falling off the poles.
• When the ring crew can’t do their jobs properly, it’s hard for a writer to think out of the box

Oklahoma

• Vince admits this was a bad idea. Ed Ferrara’s impression was influenced by Vince McMahon who mocked J.R,’s bell’s palsy.
• To Vince and Ed, they were ribbing Vince McMahon but not thinking about J.R.’s feelings. Vince wishes this was one he could take back and admits it was bad taste.
• When J.R. had his second bell’s palsy attack, he had campaigned to get back on-air right away. Vince told J.R. that he didn’t think he should go back on the air because he wasn’t quite ready. He thought J.R.,’s fans wouldn’t want to see him like that and feels that fans would not want to feel sympathy for J.R.

Mark Henry & The Transvestite

• This was Vince’s idea and to him, it was a comedy spot for the pop.

Seven and Black Reign

• This was Dusty Rhodes’ idea but Vince liked it.
• Black Rain was in TNA. Vince says it was entertaining.

Stacy Keibler and David Flair

• Vince never got to play it out. His idea was to have Ric Flair be the father of Keibler’s baby.
• Vince had no reservations using David and Ric and was looking at it as a television show

M.I.A.

• Vince didn’t think this was a bad idea because it got a bunch of guys on TV who wouldn’t be otherwise.
• It was also a way to utilize a bunch of good guys.

Final Thoughts

• Matt went on a website with Vince Russo’s worst ideas and half of them weren’t his.
• People look to discredit Vince for not giving him credit for the good things or overly criticize him for attributing all bad ideas to him
• Vince says credit isn’t important to him. The issue is don’t belittle what he did. He worked harder than any writer/producer before or after him whether you liked his stuff or not.
• Vince was trying to give the business a different look and give people something they hadn’t seen before instead of the same thing over and over.
• The one idea he gets blamed for which wasn’t his idea was Mae Young giving birth to the hand. He doesn’t even know what that meant.
• Vince feels his best idea was Survivor Series 1998.

Rant Of The Week

• Vince rants about Bryan Alvarez thinking that a real bottle was used in a match and blaming Vince.
• Vince wants Bryan to admit to making a mistake (which hasn’t happened).
• Vince wants AEW to succeed but wants them to stop saying they’re going to change the game. The two times the game has changed is when Vince McMahon Jr. took over and the Attitude Era. Don’t say you’re going to change the game unless you’re going to do that. There are very few things today that can change the game.
• Most casual fans are television people and AEW is going to need to show something that shows they are not just a wrestling company
• Vince wants them to succeed and is keeping an open mind about them.

Rating – 8/10

I really liked this podcast. It was an entertaining and somewhat off the wall walk down some of wrestling’s not so popular angles. It was also a good reality check for anyone (including myself) who blamed Russo for some of these angles even though he wasn’t involved in them. Matt and Vince covered a lot and kept it fun. Definite recommend.

About Joe:

Joe is a long time wrestling fan from Toronto. He is a co-host on the Pull Apart Podcast with Jeff Rush and Caitlin Lavelle as well as a contributor to www.pwpodcasts.com. One of his life goals is to be a guest host on one of Wade Keller’s post-show podcasts. He doesn’t consider himself any sort of expert, he just likes wrestling. Check him out on Twitter and Instagram @ja113.