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Vince Russo recently interviewed RD Reynolds, co-author of WrestleCrap and "The Death of WCW" on the November 11th edition of “The Swerve” podcast from his website www.pyroandballyhoo.com. The interview can be found here:
http://www.pyroandballyhoo.com/podcast/swerve-ep-17-featuring-rd-reynolds-death-wcw-debate/
Russo says this will be the last interview he does from his career that happened 15 years ago and strongly encourages the fans to watch the VIP video portion for the full interview. Russo emphasized that the first three months of WCW with Ed is his full responsibility. He takes partial responsibility for his run with Eric Bischoff in WCW and TNA as he wasn't the main person making all decisions in all storylines.
Russo asks RD Reynolds why he is on the cover and why many use their opinions as facts. RD argues that when you read a movie review and someone says "This movie is terrible", it's obvious it's the opinion of the critic. Russo replies saying but this isn't about a TV show. It's about Vince Russo the person.
RD Reynolds says that the actual person that killed WCW was Jamie Kellner, a man in a business meeting that decided that AOL/Time Warner should not have wrestling on their network. He said "The Death of WCW" is like a "Who dunnit?" mystery with Jamie Keller being the person who actually killed the promotion: not a single person such as Vince Russo, Eric Bischoff, Hulk Hogan.
Russo asked if the death of WCW warranted an entire book. RD said when Jamie Kellner got there, WCW lost $60 million in 2000. In 1998, it would have been a tough decision to cancel WCW. But in 2001, it was an easier decision because of how much money WCW lost in 2000. RD said WCW fell off a cliff, which led to Jamie Kellner looking at the numbers, look down on wrestling, and making the decision to can WCW. If WCW made money, Kellner would have had no choice but to keep WCW, RD insists. Otherwise, Kellner would be shown the door.
Russo asks if RD went through the WCW financials to determine WCW lost $60 million. RD said Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez worked together for years and years. RD got the numbers from them. Russo asks where Dave got the numbers from? From a WCW executive or Vince McMahon. RD says Dave would have got them from Ted Turner. Russo said RD wrote the book and depended on Meltzer's numbers that RD never saw.
Russo asks if RD can get authentic WCW documents to prove their WCW financials of losing $62 million in 2000. RD said he will try and get it. Russo asks if there are invoices/flow-charts in the book. RD says they don't have flow-charts in the book. RD says he can provide some examples of how money is lost, but at the time of the interview, cannot provide documentation that undeniably proves WCW's losses in the numbers. Russo is not asking the reasons, he says. He's asking for the documents. Russo says the only thing RD said was "Dave Meltzer told us". RD said he can get Russo that documentation. Russo said he can hold him to that. Russo said he wouldn't throw a number out there without the documentation to back it up. Russo said the ratings are numbers and they came from the network. RD asks if Russo will provide the numbers/documentation to him.
RD asks Russo what numbers Russo's salary is based on after Russo said he got paid for the numbers. Russo said he was paid by a flat salary: not responsible for house shows, PPV buyrates, merchandise when they didn't sell foam hands. At the end of the day, WCW hired Russo as a writer for Nitro/Thunder and instructions were to get the ratings of the shows up. No pay-per-view buys, house shows, merchandising. Part of his salary was based on a bonus pertaining to the ratings. If ratings hit a certain number, every tenth of a number it went over, it was bonus money to him as it pertained to his job as a writer of the show. Russo argues that if the television ratings are up, everything goes up - the more eyeballs watching the program, the more people you can sell to. Then, it's up to the marketing to help bring those people to the house shows, sell merchandise. How do you promote for selling the pay per view: posters, etc.
RD asks would you not think: whatever you put on your television would have some effect on whether people would go to house shows, buy pay-per-views, merchandise, etc. Would it not have something with what you're presenting on television. Russo says he can't answer that with a yes or no question. Russo says if he bought a book "The Death of Nicole Brown Simpson" and OJ is on the cover, yes or no, is the book implying that OJ killed Nicole Brown Simpson. RD asks if anyone else is on the cover. RD doesn't answer but asks Russo if he believes WCW lost $62 million. Russo says he doesn't know that unless he saw the documentation. He certainly won't believe Dave Meltzer's word. Russo says Meltzer is the same guy that said after "Rock and Sock Connection" drew a 8.1, Meltzer wrote a column saying he wasn't going to watch wrestling again.
Russo insists about Nicole Brown Simpson. RD says if OJ is on the cover, you're listing OJ Simpson as a "well-known suspect". Russo goes back to Jamie Kellner making the decision to kill WCW. RD says if Russo read the book, he'd have all the information. Russo says why he has to read the book when he has the source already. Russo asks why Kellner isn't on the cover. RD says Russo should appreciate this "Who dunnit?" mystery more than anyone. You have the usual suspects: Hogan, Russo, Hall & Nash, Bischoff - who really killed the company? RD says nobody would know who Jamie Kellner looked like. So you wouldn't put him on the cover.
Russo asks if any of the people on the "Death of WCW" book cover were interviewed by the authors of the book. RD says these people were interviewed by others beforehand. RD said a lot of the people on the cover were already working for WWE at the time the book was released. They wouldn't be recommended to talk to the "WrestleCrap guy" during that time. RD said one of the challenges using the term "WrestleCrap" was he would call someone up and the name of the website would deter people from wanting to do the interview. He liked the name WrestleCrap.com name as he felt it was clever and good for marketing, but it made it difficult to get interviews. Russo says RD never called him. RD attempted to talk to the "usual suspects" but didn't.
Russo asks why all those people were on the cover if they weren't used to sell the book. RD answers: wrestling fan's perspective would be Eric Bischoff. Hulk Hogan, Vince Russo, Nash/Hall. RD insists that people on the cover had an instrumental part in the destruction of WCW. Russo says "in your opinion". RD says of course it's his opinion - it's his book. Russo said RD stated it as a fact. RD says he could bring numbers to back that up. Russo says "The $62 million that Dave Meltzer told you about".
Russo asks why RD would try and use that certain picture of Eric Bischoff anyway. One of the original photos of "The Death of WCW" was Russo in the popemobile, but it was RD's chocie, he says. Russo insists Eric's unflattering photo was to make them possibly look bad. Russo said Eric looked like he was high on cocaine. RD said Eric looked "angry" and on the cover of Death of WCW, he should look angry.
Russo asks if RD wrote "We contacted these talent and they refused to be in the interview". RD said that was not in The Death of WCW and he apologized to everyone involved. Russo asks RD to explain how Vince Russo was partially responsible for killing WCW. RD says it's pretty simple: Vince put on television that had slightly higher ratings in his first run. However, during that same time, house show attendance went down - RD says the show is an ad that tries to entice viewers to see the show live and see pay-per-views. Russo argues 2.8 to 3.2 is not slightly. RD says the first run Russo wrote was a 13-week run. RD says the 13 weeks prior to Russo's run were 3.5. Russo asks why they aren't looking at the month or two months. Russo asks 13 weeks is irrelevant and that they should look at the situation they walked to. RD says that would help Russo's case. RD says the ratings gain was very minimal.
Russo says you can even look at the previous 6-9 months. The last two shows prior to Russo/Ferrara going there was 2.5 and 2.6. Russo feels it was irrelevant to go back 13 weeks prior to them joining because Russo/Ferrara had to start writing when WCW was very low. RD says Russo put on television that didn't get people to want to spend money on the product. Russo says his contract wasn't about pay-per-view buys alone. The pitch was to get the ratings back up.
Russo says in five years he worked with Vince McMahon, McMahon never mentioned house sales, merchandise sales, pay-per-view buys with Russo. It was only about ratings. RD says the marketing would make a microscopic difference if WCW had good marketing. Russo says buyrates were down because they were focusing on the young talent and the familiar faces were not headlining the pay-per-view immediately. They were concerned about the future of WCW.
RD asks if Russo/Ferrara were writing one year, would buyrates be up. Russo says in his opinion, yes. Russo said if buyrates were the only thing Russo was worried about, would he and Ed take Hogan and Flair off the roster? Russo asked for every Austin shirt sold and Brahma Bull shirt sold, does Russo get credit for that? RD says Russo would get partial credit, yes.
Russo said they would resume the rest of the interview in the VIP portion.
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