Book Review: Rope Opera – How WCW Killed Vince Russo

With that being said I’m sure some will take negatively to the book much like some take negatively to his wrestling television writing. I for one am not looking to be preached to and as I began reading this book I was worried that this would turn out to be more preach than wrestling. Nothing against that type of book, it’s just not my cup of tea, However I think that Russo finds a good balance as the chapters or paragraphs he peppers in to discuss a topic apart from wrestling are kept somewhat short and to the point avoiding the loss of my attention. If your one who really cant stand any discussion apart from the wrestling topics then your likely to be annoyed enough to skip a chapter here and there. However I feel obliged to point out that it’s the personal chapters which will help you understand How WCW Killed Vince Russo

When it comes to the wrestling topics, the story begins in late 1999 as Russo slips into Titan Towers for the last time to empty out his office before flying down to meet with WCW officials and take the reigns of what was a sinking ship. Similar to his first book, Russo is not afraid to speak openly about the topics at hand. At times he names names, but other times holds back but even when he holds back he still provides the meat and potatoes of the story without burying anyone six feet deep.

The chapter that I’m sure everyone wants to hear about is amongst the ones I enjoyed the most and that is the infamous Bash at the beach 2000 incident. Russo states that it’s the question he is asked most and for 10 years now he has refused to truthfully answer it. I debated about how much I would reveal in this review, since it is one of the bigger selling points of the book, but Russo lays out the entire incident as he saw it go down, explains what was real, what was fake, and how the defamantion of character lawsuit ended up coming about.

Almost equally as intriguing is the chapter on David Arquette. Talk about Vince Russo’s career to any one of his critics and chances are Arquette “reign “ as world champion will be amongst the first things to come up. Russo has been bashed for it for a decade now, but surprisingly he doesn’t regret it, his argument? If people are still talking about it all these years later it must have been a hell of a storyline irregardless of how dumb it may have been to have Arquette as champ. That isn’t suprising to hear, instead the more interesting thing is the admission that eventhough he gave it the stamp of approval, he has been taking heat for something he didn’t even come up with, so who’s to blame? Tony Shiavone!

Continued on page three …

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