Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Paige & Del Rio Drama, Disco Inferno in WWE, Breaking Down Triple H’s Success, More!

Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane and Glenn Gilbertti (Disco Inferno).

Lane asks Russo and Gilbertti for their opinions on the rumours that Paige was sitting ringside at Slammiversary last weekend wearing a mask in order to protect her identity. Gilbertti says that he can’t lower his IQ enough to discuss this on an intellectual level. Russo says that if that was Paige, it’s easy to tell that this was a desperate move by her in order to get out of her contract.

Paige clearly wants to be with her boyfriend Del Rio in Global Force Wrestling, so Russo doesn’t understand why both parties can’t get on the same page here and make that release happen. WWE has actually referenced Paige’s leaked sex tape on WWE the last couple of weeks, but then they removed those references from the replays.

Gilbertti doesn’t understand this because the average age of their fans is 54, yet they’re still acting like they have to market to a young demographic. Russo says that if this was the attitude era, Del Rio would have been signed after Paige’s tape was released, and the storyline would have consisted of Del Rio and Paige accusing Xavier Woods of releasing that tape. This would have been a great storyline and everyone would have been talking about it.

Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Ranallo Returns, Snow vs. Meltzer, Ellsworth’s Heat Leads to Rise in Smackdown Viewership, More!

Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane, Glenn Gilbertti (Disco Inferno), and Konnan.

Russo opens today’s show by discussing the rise in viewership for Smackdown Live this past week. The blue brand’s viewership increased by 500,000 last week and he believes that was a direct result of the booking from Sunday’s Money in the Bank PPV, specifically the Women’s Money in the Bank ladder match.

Konnan agrees and although he thinks the finish could have been done better, it accomplished its goal of drawing attention to the brand. Russo points out that when you tell stories and leave viewers wondering, they will tune into the next show to see what happens.

Gilbertti says that the fan backlash over that finish was silly to begin with. He says the problem with the wrestling industry right now is that there are too few experts, and the actual experts are criticized and ridiculed by people who consider themselves experts simply because they’ve watched a lot of wrestling.

Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Al Snow’s Arrest, Critical Analysis of Japanese ‘Strong Style’, WWE Live Events Struggling, More!

Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane and Glenn Gilbertti (Disco Inferno)

Gilbertti discusses WWE’s steadily dropping ratings. He says that wrestling is a star-driven business, and until WWE finds another Austin or Rock, their business is going to suffer. It’s pretty incredible to think that the biggest star in Hollywood was actually a professional wrestler on WWE’s roster for a number of years. Since Rock left, they haven’t been able to fill that void.

Lane points out that WWE might be turning away the next Austin or Rock because they’re too busy looking for the best ‘workers’. Gilbertti says that today’s promos are all heavily scripted and none of the competitors are able to deliver the promos believably. He says it’s almost like all the talents are in a library because none of them even raise their voices while delivering a promo.

Lane informs that Al Snow was arrested late last week because of a typo in the police’s systems. Lane thinks it’s ridiculous that all the dirt sheets posted a picture of Snow’s mug shot, taking advantage of this unfortunate situation.

Gilbertti says that whenever anyone with any notoriety gets arrested their mug shot is going to be posted on the news and online. That’s simply the way it is. Russo says that he does agree with the heart of Lane’s point, in that the dirt sheets continuously post these stories as ‘news’ when they’re nothing more than errors and lies most of the time.

Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Triple H Working Vince McMahon, Safety Concerns in Wrestling, Booker T’s Commentary, More!

Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane and Glenn Gilbertti (Disco Inferno).

Russo comments on the dynamic at the top of WWE between Vince McMahon, Stephanie McMahon and Triple H. Russo says a fan wrote him a letter this past week suggesting that Triple H is ‘working’ his father-in-law, Vince McMahon, in an attempt to ascend to the top of the mountain that is WWE.

Russo truly believes that Triple H is working Vince McMahon, and although he had a lot of pleasurable experiences with Triple H in the past, he also remembers times when he wasn’t as easy to deal with. He recalls one time when Triple H refused to do the job for D-Lo Brown, who had put Triple H over for months upon months. This really aggravated Russo because the creative team wanted to keep D-Lo Brown strong and the one time they asked Triple H to return the favour, he refused to do so.

The fan who wrote Russo suggested that Triple H has convinced McMahon that social media is WWE’s most important statistic at this point, ahead of television ratings and things of the sort. Since social media is compiled mostly of hardcore fans, WWE’s product has skewed towards a niche fanbase in an attempt to get positive reinforcement from their social media target base.