Post by Emperor Ihsahn on Dec 22, 2019 0:52:48 GMT -5
On how he hopes AEW is not serious about not having writers: “Some of the things I read that Cody is saying, I hope he’s working, Cody has said we don’t need writers. Cody, it’s a television show, bro. You’re on a television network, primetime, it’s a television show. I’m not a wrestler, I’m a writer. The wrestlers aren’t writers, they’re wrestlers. And then, bro, when he turns around and he made this statement and he said something like, ‘We don’t need the casual fans, we don’t need new fans, we’re going to concentrate on the fans,’ bro, tell TNT that. Tell TNT, ‘We don’t need new viewers, we got about a 100,000 people that dig our product and that’s enough.’ Chris, here’s what nobody does, they’re going head-to-head with NXT, bro, when I was in WWE and it was Nitro and when I was on Nitro and it was RAW, do you know how we wrote the TV? The guy is sitting in his chair with the remote in his hands, daring you, give me a reason to change the channel. Give me a reason to change the channel. And bro, if he changes the channel and goes to that other show and something good is going on, he may never come back.”
On how wrestling is all about spectacle, not just matches: “Wrestling is all about the spectacle, you’ve got to make, if television viewers are clicking through the channels, bro, you gotta give them something to make them stop. If they stop for a second and you engage them, now you have the opportunity to grab them. Bro, if both shows, NXT and AEW, are match after match after match after match, why am I choosing from one between the other? And bro, guess what, if I’m not a wrestling fan, I’m not watching either one of them. But if I’m a television viewer and I’m watching TV, and all of a sudden there is a spectacle, I’m stopping on that spectacle. That’s what all that shit was, Chris, it’s gimmicks, it’s getting people to stop and ask the question, what the hell is going on here?”
On how characters and storylines allow wrestlers to not have to take dangerous bumps and how they make it more organic to write a show: “Here’s the key. This is what wrestling is missing today. When you take storylines away and you take characters away, what do you gotta do, bro? You gotta have more wrestling. You gotta rely on more wrestling. Well, bro, in the wrestling ring, you can only do so much. We’ve seen it all. We’ve seen every move. So now what happens? They keep upping the ante. The moves keep getting more dangerous and more dangerous and more dangerous. When you have characters and you have storylines, now you can develop characters where they don’t have to go out there and they don’t have to kill themselves and a lot of times, here’s how I used to write, nobody does this anymore, whatever character I’m writing for, I put myself in their boots. When I’m writing for Chris Jericho, I become Jericho, and that character now is so well crafted and so well rounded that now all of a sudden, if Chris Jericho got attacked, if Chris Jericho got hit by a car, what would he do? Because if the Rock got hit by a car, he would do something completely different. Austin would do something completely different. All based on your personality, you would all react differently. That’s what makes you real people. Bro, wrestling is right back to, the heels gonna act this way and the babyface is gonna act this way. Bro, they all act the same, there is no personality. So when you have a television viewer, a casual fan, it’s going right back to what you said, Chris, there’s no connection. Why do I care about this person? There’s absolutely no connection, but that’s a lack of character development. You’ve gotta know every one of your characters inside and out, you gotta know what they eat for breakfast, what time they take a shit, you gotta know what’s going through their mind, what they’re thinking about, that’s what we did. And if you stay true to your characters, the show will write itself.”
On how he could see at the end of his TNA run that wrestlers were more worried about memorizing spots than character development: “My last five years at TNA, I saw this happening. I saw the business change before my eyes. All these young kids were coming in. Young Bucks. The Samoa Joes. The Motorcity Machineguns. And Chris, here’s what I was noticing, now you gotta remember, I was used to working with Rock, and Jericho, and Mick Foley, and all these guys, and it was a professional wrestler writer, it was really professional. These kids were walking in the door, and I would have conversations with them, immediately they knew more than I did. They knew more than Vince Russo who wrote for all these guys would ever know. And here’s the second thing I would always see, Chris. All day long, they’re in the back, walking around, memorizing their spots. Now Chris, think about this for a second. If you’re memorizing your spots, and you have that many spots in a match, and you’re memorizing every single one of them, what’s the first thing that goes out the window? Your character. Because you gotta remember the spots, so I can’t remember, as my character, how would I react to this move? You can’t remember both. So bro, what they’re doing is they’re memorizing spots, now all of a sudden, every match looks the same with all wrestlers. There are no longer characters. Bro, I saw this happening, I left TNA in 2012, bro, this started happening in about 2007. I could see the writing on the wall. My philosophy was, bro, if you think your way is going to work, then friggin’ go out there and do it because you’re going to fall flat on your face and you’re never going to get over, and now I sit back, bro, and I’m looking at a 20 year decline in the ratings of wrestling and nobody can understand why when it’s right in front of your face? It blows my mind.”
This is the first time I’ve agreed with Russo in a long long time. Everything he said was completely accurate. I enjoy AEW but they absolutely need more character development and storyline progression.
On how wrestling is all about spectacle, not just matches: “Wrestling is all about the spectacle, you’ve got to make, if television viewers are clicking through the channels, bro, you gotta give them something to make them stop. If they stop for a second and you engage them, now you have the opportunity to grab them. Bro, if both shows, NXT and AEW, are match after match after match after match, why am I choosing from one between the other? And bro, guess what, if I’m not a wrestling fan, I’m not watching either one of them. But if I’m a television viewer and I’m watching TV, and all of a sudden there is a spectacle, I’m stopping on that spectacle. That’s what all that shit was, Chris, it’s gimmicks, it’s getting people to stop and ask the question, what the hell is going on here?”
On how characters and storylines allow wrestlers to not have to take dangerous bumps and how they make it more organic to write a show: “Here’s the key. This is what wrestling is missing today. When you take storylines away and you take characters away, what do you gotta do, bro? You gotta have more wrestling. You gotta rely on more wrestling. Well, bro, in the wrestling ring, you can only do so much. We’ve seen it all. We’ve seen every move. So now what happens? They keep upping the ante. The moves keep getting more dangerous and more dangerous and more dangerous. When you have characters and you have storylines, now you can develop characters where they don’t have to go out there and they don’t have to kill themselves and a lot of times, here’s how I used to write, nobody does this anymore, whatever character I’m writing for, I put myself in their boots. When I’m writing for Chris Jericho, I become Jericho, and that character now is so well crafted and so well rounded that now all of a sudden, if Chris Jericho got attacked, if Chris Jericho got hit by a car, what would he do? Because if the Rock got hit by a car, he would do something completely different. Austin would do something completely different. All based on your personality, you would all react differently. That’s what makes you real people. Bro, wrestling is right back to, the heels gonna act this way and the babyface is gonna act this way. Bro, they all act the same, there is no personality. So when you have a television viewer, a casual fan, it’s going right back to what you said, Chris, there’s no connection. Why do I care about this person? There’s absolutely no connection, but that’s a lack of character development. You’ve gotta know every one of your characters inside and out, you gotta know what they eat for breakfast, what time they take a shit, you gotta know what’s going through their mind, what they’re thinking about, that’s what we did. And if you stay true to your characters, the show will write itself.”
On how he could see at the end of his TNA run that wrestlers were more worried about memorizing spots than character development: “My last five years at TNA, I saw this happening. I saw the business change before my eyes. All these young kids were coming in. Young Bucks. The Samoa Joes. The Motorcity Machineguns. And Chris, here’s what I was noticing, now you gotta remember, I was used to working with Rock, and Jericho, and Mick Foley, and all these guys, and it was a professional wrestler writer, it was really professional. These kids were walking in the door, and I would have conversations with them, immediately they knew more than I did. They knew more than Vince Russo who wrote for all these guys would ever know. And here’s the second thing I would always see, Chris. All day long, they’re in the back, walking around, memorizing their spots. Now Chris, think about this for a second. If you’re memorizing your spots, and you have that many spots in a match, and you’re memorizing every single one of them, what’s the first thing that goes out the window? Your character. Because you gotta remember the spots, so I can’t remember, as my character, how would I react to this move? You can’t remember both. So bro, what they’re doing is they’re memorizing spots, now all of a sudden, every match looks the same with all wrestlers. There are no longer characters. Bro, I saw this happening, I left TNA in 2012, bro, this started happening in about 2007. I could see the writing on the wall. My philosophy was, bro, if you think your way is going to work, then friggin’ go out there and do it because you’re going to fall flat on your face and you’re never going to get over, and now I sit back, bro, and I’m looking at a 20 year decline in the ratings of wrestling and nobody can understand why when it’s right in front of your face? It blows my mind.”
This is the first time I’ve agreed with Russo in a long long time. Everything he said was completely accurate. I enjoy AEW but they absolutely need more character development and storyline progression.
