The following is an excerpt of an exclusive one-on-one "Torch Talk" with Ed Ferrara, longtime booking partner of Vince Russo dating back to their days in WWE. In this segment, Ferrara speaks about one particular aspect of Russo's booking philosophy.

Keller: From a psychoanalysis standpoint, for lack of better term, what was Vince Russo’s rationale for having the philosophy that what happens in the ring is almost inconsequential to what I have a passion for and what I like to do and what I think wrestling fans want to see? Did he think it was old school because, well, people know it’s not real so why would you want to watch a fake fight? What people want to see is Howard Stern interaction with larger–than–life wrestlers who happen to fight, but they want to see yelling and screaming and twists and turns and personality conflicts. What was Russo’s rationale for dismissing almost the art of the actual pro wrestling match, which I think still carries over today, which is ironic considering the product is still based largely on selling people on going to a house show or watching a pay–per–view where wrestling matches suddenly take center stage once again?

Ed Ferrara: It’s hard for me to speak for Vince now or then, but I will tell you that just from what I know from having had conversations with him about it and having had arguments with him about it, a lot of it was he was taking the hard–line stance—it was almost like a challenge, like: Look, we know it’s fake. The fans know it’s fake. So why are we continuing to not acknowledge it. To a certain extent I agree with that because that’s where we were starting to do something new and reinvent the business because we were taking what was there and kind of like the elephant in the room, which is that it’s a work, and the fans are in on it and the fans still watch it, so let’s take that knowledge and let’s acknowledge the fans are smart to this and let’s see what avenues that opens up to us. It wasn’t to do that to get rid of the ring, it was to do that to try to come at it from a different angle so we weren’t doing the same types of stories that they were doing five years before that and five years before that and five years before that and 20 years before that. So, I think it came from a challenge, which is, if we know that it’s a work and the fans know that it’s a work and the fans still watch, then if we acknowledge that it’s a work, we’re not telling the fans anything they don’t already know, so why don’t we do that and why don’t we let that set the stage for the new story we’re going to tell. I think that might be a fair assessment of where he was coming from.

I think he understood the importance that we still had the ring and we had to tell stories in the ring. I think, though, by the same token that the stories outside the ring were more interesting and more important. That was a thing that kind of got to me, but in a different way because I’m a little bit more old school. I would rather see two guys engaged in a heated program with one another over the championship or over who is better or over who is going to get the shot at the championship than you spilled coffee at my girlfriend backstage, let’s take it into the ring. You know what I mean? That is just an excuse for a match as opposed to a reason for a match. There’s a big difference between a reason and an excuse.

===

PWTorch VIP members can read this entire interview or listen to this entire interview. To become VIP right now, click here

[Ed Ferrara photo credit Wade Keller (c) PWTorch]

We suggest these recent related articles...

TV RATINGS: TNA Impact & ROH TV viewership - Week 19 on Dest. America - Impact surges post-BFG, ROH draws big audience

TV WRESTLING VIEWERSHIP - Week of Sept. 28: Full Break Down of last week's Pro Wrestling TV with DVR viewing

TNA NEWS: TNA announces TV tapings on January U.K. Tour