| Interview Highlights: Russo apologizes to Ross, rips on management and wanna-be writer wrestlers Brian P. Cooper of www.BigVanVader.com sent the following recap of Get in the Ring radio's interview with Vince Russo. You can listen to the interview at www.GetInTheRing.tv...
- Vince Russo joins The Phantom & Sir Adam on the show. Phantom begins by asking Russo if NWA TNA is history in Russo's life. Vince confirms this and says it isn't an angle and he was never happy there. He was hired to write the TV show and at the time the offer was on the tavle to be a WWE consultant. He chose TNA due to his friendship with Jeff and not wanting to be just a consultant, yet in over two years with TNA he claims never to have written a show.
- Adam asked Vince the obstacles. Russo didn't want to go into it but said "you know what the obstacle is." Russo claims to have a great respect for the wrestlers due to the fact that he wasn't a wrestler, yet wrestlers want to write a show which Russo finds offensive and hurtful. Russo can't find one person who is one-tenth of the writer of himself of Ed Ferrarra.
- Russo goes onto say that he finds it difficult to believe a Hollywood writer would leave Hollywood for wrestling. He feels his perspective is far more valuable than a wrestler who writes the show. Russo says that he believes only the wrestlers believe that wrestling is real and that the wrestling business is killing the wrestling business.
- Phantom asks if Russo had little involvement, why the saturation of Vince Russo and Dusty Rhodes. Russo said it was agonising working with Dusty. It was just an angle, and he was only acting. There was no heat with Dusty. He knew the time had come to leave the business during the feud.
- Adam asks what TNA can do to make itself a more viable product. Russo says wrestling is 50 percent in-ring and 50 percent characters. The in-ring is incredible, but the rest needs a lot of work.
- Phantom asked about the Roddy Piper feud and what exactly was scripted. Russo said he wrote the SEX angle, he worked the wrestlers by only showing up for his segments and not in the locker room, and he feels this is the way to go forward. Piper brought up Owen Hart and only Russo could've shut him up so he got into the ring to do so. None of Piper's lines were scripted.
- Phantom asked if the relationship with Russo and Jeff is still strong. Russo claims so, but the situation affected him personally and he had to walk away from it. Phantom brings up Jerry Jarrett's book, "The Story Of The Development Of NWA–TNA." Russo states that the wrestlers in the late '90s made more money under Vince Russo writing than any other period.
- Adam asked if he'd be welcome in the WWE because of the late–'90s success. Russo says no because of the politics, but never to say never, but only if he ever had 100 percent of the book. Russo says the difference between Vince McMahon and everyone else is that Vince gave him the opportunity and left him alone. In WCW, the wrestlers tried to write the show; the same for TNA.
- Russo also put over the WWF wrestlers in the '90s such as Steve Austin, Mick Foley, and The Rock. He knew he was smarter than Vince's right hand men the moment he saw them and said the show was atrocious at the time he joined the company.
- Phantom asks about Russo finding religion. Russo confirms it, says it isn't a work, and admits people are always skepticle of him. He started running out of goals; he made $535,000 in his best year at WCW and was still miserable. He says he was only with TNA for the money, working one day a week for $2,000 a week.
- Russo calls The Ultimate Warrior the most intelligent man in the business. Adam asks about Russo's book. Russo says the book is done and he has a publisher, but he is holding out for a Christian book deal. Phantom said that when Shawn Michaels was born again, he called up the people he'd crossed and apologised to them. Russo says he's made up with Ed, feels that Goldberg needs to apologise to him, but apologises deeply to Jim Ross and wishes he could take his comments back.
- Russo says he never had a problem with Hogan and would work with him. He's sick and tired of everybody's book, except Foley's, for burying everybody else. His book won't bury anyone.
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