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LOOKING AT LAST NIGHT'S VINCE RUSSO YOUSHOOT, TNA LIVE AND MORE

I'll first start by saying that while I know what a YouShoot is, I've never ordered one on iPPV and I've never watched one from start to finish. The production value was good, the host was great, and the setup was really cool. Some of their "segments" that they seem to do on all of them was funny, but Russo isn't in the business of burying people in the business (more on that later). With that being typed I will also add that I am a Vince Russo fan. This is why I ordered this show to begin with. I had zero expectations going in, simply because I've never seen one of these before.

I'm sure you'll read reports/tweets recapping the event that will consist of such complaints like: Russo dodged questions; Russo didn't answer any of the questions that would require him to bury someone, and the like. First of all, the only time Russo dodged questions was when he didn't have an answer for them. As we all know, Russo is a Christian now and feels he doesn't need to bury someone for self-gratification. However, the Internet ass clown doesn't like that, and thrives for drama. There seems to be a misconception that shoots are only good when they bury people or go off like Iron Sheik. That's my biggest problem with people when it comes to Russo. They (Internet) want drama, they want Russo to start attacking Jim Cornette so that tennis racket will respond and we'd be off to the races. That type of thing just isn't going to happen. Russo, like most of you, have better things to do.

Here's the problem I did have the shoot, because it wasn't all handshakes and kisses, Russo didn't really provide us with something we didn't hear before. Is that entirely Russo's fault? Not really. He was asked the same questions he's been asked a million times before. Russo answered the questions he was asked. Another negative from the show is that Russo doesn't watch any of the current WWE products; he stated that several times, however, people continued to ask his thoughts on the current product. Maybe that's where doing something like this isn't a great idea. Yes people want to ask him questions about the past, chances are he's answered them before, and if it's not about the past, it's about the present. Yet, he doesn't watch it so how he's supposed to give an opinion?

The defense I have given for Russo, and will continue to give is simple, look at the ratings when he was writing RAW and compare them to today. Case closed. "No Ford, that wasn't Russo, that was VKM!" but when it comes to wCw, "Russo destroyed it. All that garbage." So, when Russo is a part of something good, he had nothing to do with that (or he had a governor in VKM), but when he was a part of something bad, it was all his fault. I'm not going to get into this big long diatribe about Russo. I will say this about the YouShoot show, Kevin Nash recorded a video question and he asked Vince, "Looking back would you have taken the wCw booking job, after seeing how out of control it was?" or something along those lines. You can take that for what it's worth, you people that think Russo killed wCw. That video from Nash was unexpected and a funny moment of the night.

When it came to talk about TNA, Russo didn't hesitate to mention that he thinks a lot of the problems stem from Spike TV. He thinks that Spike was really pushing for iMPACT to be live on Monday nights, when the company wasn't ready. Which we all know, didn't work out all too well. He also mentioned that they just keep looking for that one thing, that one person, to spike (no pun intended) the rating. "Oh this will bring us to a 1.5" or "this will really turn heads, let's do this" and Russo said this wasn't the right thing to be doing. He also thinks that their biggest problem is inconsistency with the writing. This is where the Internet cues the catcalls of "Russo's writing was inconsistent" because everyone on the Internet was in the creative meetings when the shows were written. Right? The other theme that seemed to be a constant for the evening was the "Fire Russo" chants that used to reign down on TNA shows. Russo said that they bothered him at first but then "they just became part of the gimmick."

To recap, I do wish there was something "new" from the YouShoot but can't completely blame Russo; he just answered the questions he was asked and didn't answer the ones he didn't have answers to. The host (I can't recall his name, Sean something, I think) did mention something along the lines of Russo re-booking the wCw Invasion of WWE tomorrow but didn't say how we could see it. I do look forward to seeing that on DVD or however I will be able to do that.

IMPACT GOES LIVE

This past Thursday, TNA took iMPACT to a place it needed to be at for a longtime, live TV. To keep this as brief as possible, I thought the show was good. I think TNA did a good job producing the show. As I tweeted (@FordPWInsider) during the show, I enjoy their camera angles, the presentation of the "secret camera" backstage, I think it gives the show more of a reality feel. I also enjoy the recap from the previous week at the top of the show, it's a good way to remind those who watched it and a good way for those who didn't to know what happened. Here are some random thoughts from the evening:

• Roode will not, should not, lose the title to Sting at the PPV.
• I'm not, unlike the rest of the Internet, going to crucify Brooke Hogan before she deserves to be crucified. I'm interested to see how this turns out.
• There must be something in the works for Samoa Joe.
• I like the idea of fans picking who fights who, however, the marks will always pick who the marks should pick.
• I REALLY enjoyed the ending angle. Look at the two love triangles currently going on with both companies, TNA's is better than the WWE's.
• Here's another thought: on RAW the tag champs were destroyed, on iMPACT, the tag champs took another step in outing the owner of the company as having an affair with a top star. Which is more compelling?
• One last thought: wrestling is written/booked with the mark in mind. Not the smark. The only thing they do for the smark is put together some Internet dream match or allow a wrestler to use a kayfabe term. Other than that, it's written for the mark. The smark is supposed to say, "Come on, why would the owner let them out her like that?" The same way the owner would fight an employee and not just fire him (VKM and SCSA). It's entertainment, it doesn't have to be logical.

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