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Vince Russo has posted on his Facebook page a message about why he shut down his first Facebook page. He said it had "nothing to do with criticism" and everything to do with "negativity." He wrote:
"What I don’t want to do is be bogged down in everybody else’s negativity. I don’t want to explain myself for things that happened 10 years ago. I don’t want to defend myself over things that mean absolutely NOTHING in the big scheme of things. I don’t want to talk about David Arquette, and I could care less how cage matches end–these things are not important to me. What is important is working at making myself a better person, every, single day. What interests me is making this a better world. These are the same things that should be important to you." (FULL BLOG POST
Quick message to Russo. We all want to be better people. Well, most of us. It's a daily task to be a better person - a better father or mother, a better son or daughter, a better friend. It's a daily task for many of us to live a healthier life. Yes to all of that.
But we all have jobs. And we all are held accountable. If your goal is to be a better person, but not learn why finishes of cage matches matter, and why history shows how some finishes help business and others destroy fans' faith that putting a cage around a ring means anything, maybe you should resign and concentrate on what matters most to you.
Dixie Carter seems like a boss who would want her employees to strive to become better people. But bosses also demand performance from their employees. You, Vince Russo, are a public person. You are writing TV for nearly 2 million people a week.
It's nice that you want to learn from Eric Bischoff and be a friend for Terry Taylor. Do you know what, though? Fans want a wrestling product that makes sense to them and reminds them of the best wrestling they've seen, not pro wrestling that makes them sad, frustrated, bored, or disenchanted. Fans of wrestling look to TNA as an escape from their lives, a form of entertainment. They want that entertainment to make sense. Just as fans of "LOST" have ripped the show more often than not for continuity errors or unanswered questions, and just as fans of "Heroes" revolted when the second season went a new direction that disappointed its most fervent followers, fans of TNA want Impact to be the best it can be.
I read all of the posts on the Facebook page that he deleted. I cut and paste them and saved them, in fact. The posts on that page asked tough questions, questions about decisions 12 years ago and questions about decisions 12 days ago. They're the types of questions you might not have answers to, and the types of questions you wouldn't want your boss to read, probably. I get that. But blaming the fans on your Facebook page for being negative is like blaming the customer at a restaurant for being negative because he asked the cook why his soup was served cold or why the bread was too dry or why the steak was overcooked.
You put yourself out there to answer questions from TNA fans. Fans who watch the product. Not all of whom love everything about it. Yes, you opened yourself up to questions from outside the bubble you live in within TNA where your charisma and likability as a person sometimes overrides the nonsense and non sequiturs you write into the two hours of Impact each week. Those fans have their own personal goals, too, but they deal with those things at the same time they deal with their boss or their customers critiquing their work.
So you didn't know who Shelton Benjamin was. So you said you didn't watch WWE, yet you somehow knew enough to say Vince McMahon was spinning his wheels and resting on his laurels. You invited people to ask questions, didn't like the "negativity" of some probing yet congenial questions, and deleted the Facebook page, perhaps before your bosses could read it and begin to wonder about the answers. That was only after you presented a defense that you didn't put much thought into the questions in the first place because you had all of this TV to write.
I don't blame you for deleting the Facebook questions. They did make you look bad. They weren't negative, though. They were the questions your bosses should be asking you. But unlike your bosses, the people who asked those questions actually watch WWE, they actually watch TNA, and in many cases they've watched most national wrestling shows over the last 10, 20, or 30 years, including ROH and Japan and the indys. Fans who know good wrestling and good booking when the see it. Fans who have paid attention to what works and doesn't work at drawing ratings and big PPV buys. Fans who aren't married to one single philosophy, but rather the concept of any booking philosophy done well. Your bosses might not know how to ask tough questions about your booking that stump you, but those fans did. That's not negativity.
What's negativity is continuing to insist on promoting a certain way without adjusting along the way, learning along the way, taking changing circumstances in the industry into account, taking changing roster strengths into account. What counts as negativity is sticking with the same failed, sloppy, illogic, clearly inexplainable booking approach year after year, and putting it on TV because your bosses don't know good booking from bad, and believe you when you say WWE and Vince McMahon are lazy and going through the motions even though you don't watch the shows every week - wrestling TV shows which these fans asking you questions do watch.
Despite acquisitions of Christian, Team 3D, Kurt Angle, Booker T, Kevin Nash, Mick Foley, Bobby Lashley, and others, fans have continued to reject the product as often as they accepted it, with flat ratings on Impact during that entire stretch of expensive, big name acquisitions. It's not just subjective criticism. Objectively, the booking hasn't done the talent justice. Ratings shouldn't be basically flat during a stretch of several years with those acquisitions, not to mention the national TV timeslot to develop new breakout stars (of which the list is zero, since whatever Samoa Joe once achieved has been snuffed out through some of the worst booking I've seen in 30 years of a single character).
Good luck with selling your book. But as someone who watches TNA every week, instead of writing about "life, relationships, love, struggles, and things we all face in our everyday life," as you wrote on Facebook today, I wish you had been watching old Mid-South tapes, watching old Mid-Atlantic tapes, watching ROH on DVD or TV, reading books from some of the great wrestling minds over the last few decades, attending UFC PPV events live, attending ROH events live, and yes attending WWE events and watching their shows with an open mind to learn from the good and the bad. That would have been time well spent that would have served your bosses and your fans better.
I think your priorities might be in the right place, actually. Becoming a better, healthier person should be top priority, But if that is used as an excuse to not deal with honest, informed critiques about the job you are paid well to do, then maybe it's time to step away from your job and work on being a better person without accepting pay from your bosses for a job you don't want to be held accountable for doing poorly. Send feedback on this article to pwtorch@gmail.com and we'll regularly publish reader feedback in the "Torch Feedback" category on the Main Listing.
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