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| The last person I wanna hear talk about anything wrestling Photo via Slam Wrestling |
Tchotchkes have kitsch value. Tokens can remind us of fandom. Even bad t-shirts can be used as dustrags. The fascination with shoot interviews is one that I've questioned and chronicled in the past, but I can at least understand when, say, Chris Hero does an exit interview from the indies or when a veritable legend in the business has stories from the road. But when Vince Russo is now doing his second shoot video for Kayfabe Commentaries, I wonder why people flock to hear bookers talk about the past so much.
Granted, Russo's talking about a time period rife with things to dish about; WCW in 2000 was a shitshow of the highest order. Abject failures of promotions tend to provide more interesting talk about the backstage dealings more than the front of the house. However, while I have no doubts that the sterile, hands-off corporate nature of WCW at that time led to its share of problems, is there anyone left who doesn't believe Russo himself was the perpetrator of most of the coffin-nailing at that point? The notion that Russo was the deathblow on WCW's tenure is something I believe to be fallacious; Starrcade '97 through the Fingerpoke of Doom are the main culprits in causation of WCW's demise. However, Russo's booking was more hospice care for WCW rather than rehabilitation.
Personally, I don't want to hear excuses from the guy who was one of the dunderheads behind euthanizing WWE's only national-era competitor, not excuses, not insights, not anything. I doubt I'll find anything he has to say particularly worthy since I have such a low opinion of his work. I will fully admit my own bias, however. A chance exists that maybe what he has to say could be objectively useful in understanding the past. I think that fact alone makes this shoot a little bit less objectionable than Kayfabe Commentaries' other popular line of videos, Guest Booker.
Basically, Guest Booker takes old men who used to be in charge of wrestling promotions and has them do the equivalent of fantasy booking at historical periods in time. Basically, folks who may or may not have run successful territories or companies in the past talk about how they could have fixed mistakes made in the big companies. Yes, because I want to hear what Gabe fucking Sapolsky has to say about redoing the WWE reboot of ECW. Here's a hint, I actually liked WWECW in 2008 and 2009 a hell of a lot more than I liked any of his bullshit directionless view on Dragon Gate USA or EVOLVE.
Again, my biases may be shining through here, but I ask myself what good Jerry Jarrett or Jim Cornette talking about the past does for wrestling now? Are these ideas laid out to help a current promotion, be it corporate or independent? No. In fact, I'd say by doing these kinds of fantasy booking treatments, they're cheating by taking a roster of fully-formed characters that they didn't create and in a pressure free environment are crafting stories and saying QED without the scrutiny of the fans at large.
If these exercises in "creativity" were free, I might be more inclined not to point out how ass-stupid they are, but real people pay real money to watch these clowns play god-booker with The Rock, Steve Austin, Ric Flair, and other proven successes and try to act like they have their finger on the pulse of how wrestling works today. Furthermore, when tasked with real companies, guys like Sapolsky and Cornette especially have been creative and monetary flops, at least in their most recent ventures. I refuse to comment on Gabe's era of Ring of Honor, because I didn't watch it. But good lord, does he need his wrestlers to bail him out to make DGUSA or EVOLVE worth watching or what? Great matches, awful direction.
If this kind of revisionist history makes you happy, then by all means, purchase these videos. Personally, any time an old booker steps on camera to drop what he thinks is insight though feels like a waste of video tape. Fantasy booking and excuse-making about the past are not constructive activities to the advancement of pro wrestling. At least god-awful tchotchkes go towards wrestlers directly or to companies who provide opportunities for wrestlers to make relevant art.