Rob Van Dam Says He Recently Spoke to WWE
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Tag: business
Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Kurt Angle Controversy, Billy Gunn Criticism, Was Shawn Michaels A Draw? More!
Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane.
Russo says he usually gives WrestleZone and WrestlingInc. a pass when he rips apart dirt sheet opinions, but this past week both of these sites published stories that they simply shouldn’t have. Nearly a decade ago Kurt Angle was involved in a very troublesome relationship, and he has spent the years since getting over that time in his life.
This past week Angle’s ex went on a Twitter rampage, bringing up things that have been buried for years, and for some reason these wrestling sites thought it was a good idea to publish stories on this. Russo thinks this was an embarrassing thing to do, and he’d love to get an explanation as to why either of these sites chose to publish those stories. By publishing these stories they’ve given this women attention, and have jeopardized Angle’s position in WWE.
Lane plays a clip of Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez from this past week, when they were discussing who Alvarez would be able to have a good match with in NJPW. Meltzer says that Tanahashi would be a good choice because he can have a good match with anyone, except for Billy Gunn evidently.
Russo says that Billy Gunn is a legend in this business, and at 53 years of age he looks better than ever. Russo says he’d love for Meltzer to run into Gunn in the street someday, because he’d run away like a scared little girl. Russo adds that Alvarez is an independent wrestler because he’s not good enough to have great matches with anybody.
The Ross Report Recap w/ Lita & Madusa – Great Balls of Fire Analysis, Strowman is WWE’s ‘Next Big Thing’, Mae Young Classic, More!
Ross thought that Samoa Joe and Brock Lesnar had a great match at last Sunday’s Great Balls of Fire event. He thought the match was believable at every turn, and Joe actually had the majority of the offence during the bout. He liked the story that both men told, and he didn’t have a problem with the finish of the match at all.
Some fans were aggravated by the fact that it only took one F5 to defeat Joe, and this is a tale of the times in Ross’ opinion. Fans have become accustomed to wrestlers kicking out of each other’s finishing moves, and he thinks that’s a problem for the wrestling business. A wrestler’s ‘finisher’ is supposed to ‘finish’ the match, and he believes that apart from big events like WrestleMania, finishing moves should be protected.
He admits that the outcome of the match was somewhat predictable with Lesnar winning but he thinks there will be a rematch at some point down the road, maybe as soon as SummerSlam if Joe is able to defeat Roman Reigns on RAW next week.
Ross thinks that Braun Strowman has a chance to be the ‘next big thing’ in WWE. After seeing Strowman walk away from that crash at Great Balls of Fire, Ross feels it’s hard to root against him, even if he’s supposed to be a heel. Strowman is a powerful, believable character who Ross thinks fans can get behind. He says that Strowman is the type of performer that you build a company around.