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

Russo opens today’s show by asking Gilbertti for his opinion on the Chris Jericho/Kenny Omega match from Wrestle Kingdom 12. Gilbertti thought it was a really good match, and he points out that all Jericho fans need to see this match. Overall, he thought both men told a good story, and he gives the match a thumbs up.

Gilbertti points out that WWE has really hurt Braun Strowman’s character as of late. First they dressed him up as an elf for a social media video, and then he appeared in a backstage vignette with Alexa Bliss, announcing their partnership for the Mixed Match Challenge.

Russo was dissapointed by this as well, and he says that he just wishes WWE would protect some of their stars. He has no good explanation for why A.J. Styles, the WWE Champion, was booked to lose clean two weeks in a row on Smackdown Live, especially being pinned most recently by Sami Zayn.

Gilbertti mentions that it’s pointless to talk about WWE’s booking because they’re not good at building stars anymore – they’re good at burying people. Gilbertti thinks that a 12 year-old can watch this show for a couple of months and then write a show that’s just as effective or more effective at making stars.

The post Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Omega/Jericho Reaction, Daniel Bryan’s In-Ring Return, Rumble Match Will Expose Women, More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

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

Russo and Gilbertti open today’s show by discussing WWE’s decision to run RAW live on Christmas Day. Russo is still angry over the fact that WWE made their employees leave their families at Christmas in order to work a wrestling show, but Gilbertti doesn’t have a problem with it at all. Russo points out that if Gilbertti had a wife and kids he might think differently.

Lane points out that the live attendance for the show was great and ratings for the show were roughly the same as the week prior, with around 2.7 Million people tuning in. This doesn’t surprise Russo because he mentions that those 2.7 million people are the marks who watch every single week, whether it’s Christmas, Hanukkah, Thanksgiving, or Halloween.

Gilbertti speaks about Hideo Itami kneeing Brin Kendrick in the face this past week, resulting in severe injuries. He doesn’t think it’s necessary to utilize moves like this in the business anymore, and he thinks the wrestling world is turning a bling eye to how reckless the in-ring action has become. He adds that a move like Itami’s ‘GTS’ has to be executed perfectly every single time or it can have disastrous results.

The post Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – RAW Live on Christmas, Reckless In-Ring Work, Nakamura Losing Appeal, More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

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

Lane mentions that Triple H defeated Jinder Mahal in India last weekend and became the first opponent to kick out of Mahal’s finisher. Gilbertti points out that a bunch of wrestling fans were livid about this online, when a few weeks ago those same people were complaining about Mahal being the WWE Champion. He adds that Mahal was only elevated to the main event picture within the last year, so perhaps WWE thought he wasn’t ready to pin Triple H yet.

Russo argues that from a business perspective, WWE should have wanted Mahal to look strong which would have captivated his hometown audience and helped their business in India. Instead, they beat Mahal clean. Gilbertti mentions that Triple H is still a bigger star than Mahal, even when they’re in India, and Mahal can’t be having that big of a positive influence on WWE’s business in India because they actually had to cancel one of the live events there.

Lane mentions that a former soap opera writer who worked for WWE for 5 years recently parted ways with the company. The writer went on the record saying that Vince McMahon would get lost when he tried to pitch year-long story arcs to him. McMahon wanted 3-month arcs and nothing longer. Russo says that his experience writing for McMahon was very similar.

The post Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Triple H Beats Mahal, WWE Burying Elias, Rhodes Clears 7 Figures, More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

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

Lane mentions that news broke this past week saying that Matt and Jeff Hardy spent $2,500 of their own money building the set for The Final Deletion and Russo says he doesn’t doubt that for a second. When he initially saw these segments on TNA programming, he knew there was some money put into it. It actually surprises him that they were able to do it for only $2,500.

Russo also says that if Ed Nordholm continues to talk about other people’s business, he’s going to get himself into legal trouble. If he wants to be in the news so bad, why doesn’t he just get GFW writers to write him into the show as an authority figure? Gilbertti has no idea why Nordholm continues to talk publicly like this, but he’s certainly having troubles maintaining the public relations side of his business.

Russo informs that he has some backstage dirt from GFW. He says that GFW recently needed a bottle of alcohol for a specific scene, and Anthem sent a runner out to purchase a bottle. Apparently the runner spent $400 of Anthem’s money on alcohol that evening and only one of the bottles were ever seen. Two people confirmed this story to him this past week, and Russo thought it was hilarious.

The post Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Broken Dispute Continues, Strowman vs. Karen Jarrett, O.J. Simpson on WCW Programming, More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

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.

The post Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Paige & Del Rio Drama, Disco Inferno in WWE, Breaking Down Triple H’s Success, More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

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.

The post Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Ranallo Returns, Snow vs. Meltzer, Ellsworth’s Heat Leads to Rise in Smackdown Viewership, More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

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.

The post Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Al Snow’s Arrest, Critical Analysis of Japanese ‘Strong Style’, WWE Live Events Struggling, More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.

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.

The post Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Triple H Working Vince McMahon, Safety Concerns in Wrestling, Booker T’s Commentary, More! appeared first on Wrestling News & WWE News, Rumors & Spoilers.