Vince Russo On "Burying" Ric Flair And Where Angle Was Headed, If Vince McMahon Was His Filter
Recently on WOOOOO! Nation with Ric Flair, two-time WWE Hall of Famer Ric Flair welcomed Vince Russo to the show. Russo talked about burying Flair in the desert in WCW and whether Vince McMahon served as Russo's filter during the Attitude Era.
According to Russo, the long term plan behind the WCW storyline where Flair was buried in the desert was to take the professional wrestling legends off of television one by one, only for them to return as a united front, much like Marvel's Avengers. With Flair, Hulk Hogan, and Roddy Piper all written off of television at the time, Curt Hennig and 'Hacksaw' Jim Duggan, who were under contract with WCW, could have joined the group.
Russo believed that the legends should have worked a reduced schedule and be featured as attractions instead of being relied upon to work heavy minutes, night in and night out, and risk overexposure. Russo said that he saw Hogan and Flair wrestle a twenty minute match on an episode of WCW Monday Nitro the week before he was going to start writing for WCW.
"The truth of the matter is that neither of these guys, Ric [nor] Hulk, were in the prime of their careers, they were letting the match go on way too long, and I'm like, 'these guys are just two of the wrestlers on the card – they deserve better than this'," Russo said.
Flair's recollection of that time differed from Russo's version, as Flair remembered being called by Russo two weeks after the desert angle was shot to return to WCW television.
"Two weeks after the desert, you called me and told me to come to TV because [Terry] Funk quit," Flair recalled. "You and I had the damnedest argument. I said, 'you just buried me and said I was going to be gone for three months and then you wanted me to come back because Funk quit'."
Also, Russo took exception to the notion that the Attitude Era was successful because Vince McMahon managed to filter much of Russo's ideas.
"A lot of people said that Vince was that editor, well, the fact of the matter is that Vince McMahon is still there and Vince McMahon has been there for the last fifteen years as ratings have gone down every single year, so the fact is, if Vince was my editor, and that was the reason of the success behind Vince Russo and the Attitude Era, well then how do we explain the next fifteen years?," Russo asked.
In addition to these topics, Russo talked about Eric Bischoff, Dixie Carter, and many other topics. To check out the podcast in its entirety, click here.
Source: WOOOOO! Nation with Ric Flair