Back to R&F: Good guys. I don’t dislike them. When R&F began their second tenure at WCW after taking over from Sullivan and Bill Busch, they gave me a chance to stay on TV, and I appreciated it.
But Russo thrives on backstage chaos. He initiates human cockfighting and divides people into camps so he can constantly slip through the cracks but, by doing so, he creates obstacles to his own booking. When politics hand Russo lemons, he doesn’t even try to make lemonade; he tosses the lemons around like live grenades (see Bash at the Beach 2000).
Ferrara brings the humor, but there’s one problem. He just isn’t funny. In entertainment, nothing is more dangerous than someone who isn’t amusing thinking he is and having power to act on it. If lack of funny translated to nuclear weaponry, Ferrara would be the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Look at Oklahoma. Shocking? Maybe. A jab at a professional rival? Yes. Funny? Not even remotely.
I do a radio talk show five days a week, three hours a day. My livelihood depends on being witty, and I draw MONSTER ratings. I know funny, and Ferrara isn’t.
By any standard you cite, R&F are terrible at booking pro wrestling. Now a desperate TNA has put them totally in charge.
Those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it – or doomed to see someone in a cowboy hat pour barbeque sauce down a woman’s cleavage. BOOMER SOONER!
If R&F are to get support anywhere, it figures to be from PWTorch.com. Wade Keller once did a DVD interview series with R&F that treated them like the Marconi and Edison of wrestling.
Anyway, I hereby issue the following challenge to disciples of R&F: TELL ME WHAT THEY DID. I want specific ideas and the execution thereof. I demand details. I know a few wrestlers who prospered in WWE while R&F were there. They credit R&F for being supportive of their characters. But they can’t TELL ME WHAT THEY DID.
