• Home
  • Movies
  • Music
  • TV
  • Video Games
  • Wrestling
  • Topics
  • Latest Comments
Search
Cult of Whatever logo
  • Movies
    Featured
    • The Living Daylights: Timothy Dalton as James Bond

      The Living Daylights is still awesome, thirty-five years later

      By Matthew Martin
      | March 28, 2022
      Movie Blogs
    Recent
    • Star Wars New Hope Mark Hamill Carrie Fisher Harrison Ford Luke Skywalker Princess Leia Han Solo

      Star Wars: 45 Years Later and the four people who made it happen

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 23, 2022
    • Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers Poster

      REVIEW: Chip n Dale: Rescue Rangers is a fever dream of family fun

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 22, 2022
    • Doctor Strange Multiverse of Madness: Benedict Cumberbatch, Xochitl Gomez and Rachel McAdams as Steven, America Chavez and Dr. Christine Palmer

      REVIEW: Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is Sam Raimi’s Sam Ramiest movie in ages!

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 7, 2022
    • Full Metal Jacket: Vincent D'Onofrio

      Full Metal Jacket is still awesome thirty-five years later

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 5, 2022
    • Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore: Jude Law as Albus

      REVIEW: Fantastic Beasts 3 (The Secrets of Dumbledore) is a gloomy sequel with little pizzaz

      By Matthew Martin
      | April 18, 2022
    • Sonic the Hedgehog 2: Sonic voiced by Ben Schwartz

      REVIEW: Sonic the Hedgehog 2 – Best video game film yet?

      By Matthew Martin
      | April 9, 2022
  • Music
    Random
    • Queen 2 Album Cover

      QUEEN's catalogue, from bottom to top

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 1, 2018
      Music
    Recent
    • The Beatles: Get Back

      What GET BACK reveals about the Beatles

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 15, 2021
    • Simon And Garfunkel at Feyenoord Stadium in Rotterdam1982

      The Boxer is a song about being conned

      By Matthew Martin
      | July 4, 2021
    • Lady Gaga: Chromatica Album Cover

      Lady Gaga’s discography is totally out of order

      By Matthew Martin
      | June 3, 2021
    • Michael Jackson Thriller Album Cover

      Thirty years ago music fans said “Nevermind” to Michael Jackson

      By Matthew Martin
      | March 21, 2021
    • Queen II Album Cover

      On Queen’s The Miracle, and the importance of track ordering

      By Matthew Martin
      | February 16, 2021
    • Linda Paul Mccartney 1976

      50 years ago, McCartney dropped “Lennon” and went solo…

      By Matthew Martin
      | June 5, 2020
  • TV
    Featured
    • Nancy Drew S03e01: Kennedy McMann as Nancy

      Nancy Drew S03E01 Review: The Warning of the Frozen Heart - Uh-oh!

      By Salome G
      | October 10, 2021
      TV Blogs
    Recent
    • Riverdale 6 15 3

      Riverdale S06E15 Review: Things That Go Bump in the Night – Unexpected allies

      By Salome G
      | May 23, 2022
    • Doctor Who S10e8 Peter Capaldi

      Why is it that The Doctor can never seem to become ginger?

      By Jason Collins
      | May 23, 2022
    • Big Sky S02e18: Katheryn Winnick and Jensen Ackles as Jenny Hoyt and Beau Arlen

      Big Sky S02E18 Review: Catch a Few Fish – Solid finale

      By Salome G
      | May 22, 2022
    • The Flight Attendant S02e07: Griffin Matthews and Kaley Cuoco as Shane and Cassie

      The Flight Attendant S02E07 Review: No Exit – Huh?

      By Salome G
      | May 22, 2022
    • Star Trek Strange New Worlds S01e02 Celia Rose Gooding and Ethan Peck as Uhura and Spock

      Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – Episodes 2-3 review (Good stuff!)

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 21, 2022
    • Riverdale S06e14: Camila Mendes as Veronica Lodge

      Riverdale S06E14 Review: Venomous – Spider-Woman?

      By Salome G
      | May 16, 2022
  • Video Games
    Featured
    • Arkham Knight

      Batman: Arkham Knight - A fitting end to a trilogy

      By Tom Farr
      | July 18, 2015
      Video Game Reviews
    Recent
    • Legend Of Zelda

      Can a Legend of Zelda movie work?

      By Matthew Martin
      | April 6, 2022
    • Super Mario 64

      Which system had the better launch: A battle of four Nintendo consoles

      By Matthew Martin
      | December 1, 2021
    • Luigi's Mansion

      Happy twentieth to Nintendo’s underrated gem, the Gamecube

      By Matthew Martin
      | November 18, 2021
    • Metroid Dread

      Metroid Dread – Post Game analysis and sequel needs

      By Matthew Martin
      | October 29, 2021
    • Mario Headphones

      The SNES Turns 30: A look at some of the system’s best soundtracks

      By Matthew Martin
      | October 22, 2021
    • Metroid Dread Poster

      REVIEW: Metroid Dread reawakens the old gamer in me

      By Matthew Martin
      | October 11, 2021
  • Wrestling
    Featured
    • Wwe Payback 2017 Poster 2

      Your SO OF COURSE preview of WWE Payback 2017

      By Matthew Martin
      | April 30, 2017
      WWE Blogs
    Recent
    • Raw 210501: Triple H and Stephanie McMahon

      May 21, 2001 – A (forgotten) date that will live in WWE infamy

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 20, 2022
    • WWE WrestleMania 39 Logo

      Your WAY TOO EARLY predictions for WWE WrestleMania 39!

      By Matthew Martin
      | April 20, 2022
    • WWE WrestleMania 38 Poster

      Your SO OF COURSE preview of WWE WRESTLEMANIA 38!

      By Matthew Martin
      | March 30, 2022
    • Wrestlemania 31 Paige Aj Lee 2

      BOOK REVIEW: The Women of WrestleMania is a balanced take on an under-valued slice of history

      By Matthew Martin
      | March 16, 2022
    • ROH Proving Ground 2009: El Generico aka Sami Zayn

      In buying ROH, AEW has a chance to redo history (the right way)

      By Matthew Martin
      | March 14, 2022
    • Cody Rhodes Tnt Title Belt 220720

      Cody Rhodes is gone from AEW. What does that mean for wrestling?

      By Matthew Martin
      | February 16, 2022
  • Topics
    • site logo
    Latest
    • Star Wars: 45 Years Later and the four people who made it happen
    • Riverdale S06E15 Review: Things That Go Bump in the Night - Unexpected allies
    • Why is it that The Doctor can never seem to become ginger?
    • Big Sky S02E18 Review: Catch a Few Fish - Solid finale
    • REVIEW: Chip n Dale: Rescue Rangers is a fever dream of family fun
    • The Flight Attendant S02E07 Review: No Exit - Huh?
    • Latest Comments

    Rope Opera: How WCW Killed Vince Russo Book Review

    By Dante Spears
    | May 2, 2010
    Wrestling Book Reviews
    This page contains affiliate links. At no additional cost to you, we may earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. Learn more

    When you hear the name Vince Russo, what do you think? There’s probably a good chance that you think of a writer who killed WCW with his booking. The man is notorious among the wrestling community as the man who brutalized WCW with his booking and is now doing the same to TNA. To be fair, the notion that he killed WCW is more accurate than the beginning of the book where “Vince Russo; The first man to actually make men in tights appealing” is written. I’m pretty sure that you can gather from the monolithic title of ‘Rope Opera: How WCW Killed Vince Russo’ that this book is spent trying to argue against the commonly held belief that Russo was to blame for WCW destruction rather, it was WCW that killed Vince Russo.

    Rope Opera How Wcw Killed Vince Russo Book Cover

    Rope Opera starts with a reference to a movie called Avalon which becomes something of a recurring theme in the book. Russo uses the comparison to explain someone finding or remembering a moment when their life was the happiest (Avalon is about a family of Eastern European immigrants living the United States and how their lives change, examining the break-up of the traditional family). The references don’t end there with Russo making references to pop culture or television shows every chance he gets, so he started as he meant to go on.  At one point he compares Brad Pitt to the Golden Calf of Exodus. That’s right he compares Brad Pitt, loveable Hollywood actor and producer to a pagan idol that resulted in the deaths of thousands of idolaters in the Bible. At least he slows down on references like this around the half way point and seeing as how nobody ever said making references to pop culture was a bad way to write a book I can’t exactly fault him for doing so. The book itself is well written – Russo really does make the effort to connect with the reader when he’s not chastising them.

    Russo throws chronology out the window because he wants us to read the entire book, criticising us because he believes that all we want to read is the “rasslin’”. As far as I can tell Russo is talking about 1997-2009 but with how he jumps around and omits years altogether it’s hard to be sure. It’s just poor writing to admonish the person you sold the book to, what’s stopping them from getting up and returning the book to the store?  He constantly takes the stance that writers have to “know their audience” only for him to rebuke the audience for not being able to understand what he was trying to do in WCW. I was hoping that he would spend time talking about TNA behind the scenes but whenever he does mention TNA it’s either about his relationship with Jeff Jarrett or how great it is. You’d think a book with a picture of Vince Russo standing in a TNA ring, in between two TNA wrestlers with a TNA logo would include something of note from said promotion.

    His previous monolithically titled book, ‘Forgiven: One Man’s Journey from Self-Glorification to Sanctification’ was a book that I was never really able to get into, which hampered me somewhat because Rope Opera makes the assumption you’ve read ‘Forgiven’. The content was moderately interesting but Russo made the bewildering decision to write the book and then go back and every few paragraphs inject a paragraph that was written by the religious man inside of him. More often than not took back everything he had just written about either saying he was sorry, he’d do it differently now or something not even remotely related to what he had just written. Okay Vince,
    you got your message about faith across but surely you could have picked a better format then something that’s reads like you have multiple personality disorder? He’s getting better though, now those random religious bouts have their own chapters. But even then they get so random that there are chapters that don’t seem to have any connection to the story he is telling or anything at all really.

    The message of faith that Russo gets across does deserve some close examination. He really does pack this stuff in, like he has made it his mission to save wrestling fans and direct them to God. His original idea for his first novel was intended to be called “Welcome to Bizzaroland” and was meant to air all the dirty laundry of the wrestlers Vince Russo has dealt with over the years. While I took that with a grain of salt considering this is Vince Russo we’re talking about, his original idea seemed to be a book I’d be much happier reading.  But because he found peace with himself he refuses to publish it, assuming it ever existed. I obviously can’t blame a man for finding personal salvation, but it does get tedious at times hearing him talking about how he found enlightenment. If I want a book about spirituality I’d get one, I read wrestling books because I want to read about wrestling, something which Russo seems to resent me or any other reader for.

    Russo does make a case for how he’s not to blame for WCW’s demise and well, yes he is right. If you boil it down it was ultimately the Time Warner executives that passed on letting WCW continue. But if it was some guy in the corporate office that killed WCW then Vince Russo was the man who was rubbing handfuls of salt in to the wounds of the beaten and mistreated product. A prime example of this is Russo defending his original idea to put the WCW World Title on Tank Abbott of all people at the infamous Souled Out PPV. He claims that considering people want “realism” in wrestling that the most logical thing to do would have been to give the title to Tank Abbott, a MMA fighter who couldn’t do anything in the ring but knock his opponents out. Russo just does still not get that titles in wrestling are important. One needs a goal in wrestling, something to strive for. It’s a simple concept that has existed for almost a hundred years that Russo resents. He laughs at the idea of a World Champion constantly carrying around their world title, citing that you wouldn’t see a boxer carrying his world title. The very glaring truth that wrestling isn’t like other sports seems lost on Russo when it comes to this matter.

    At the end of the day, Rope Opera is everything you would expect from a book written by Vince Russo that is titled “How WCW Killed Vince Russo”. If you know nothing about Russo or the demise of WCW then you will very easily fall for believing everything Russo says as he does paint a very sympathetic picture of himself. But for anyone who was around during that era, then nothing in here will be news to you and you’ll see it for what it is. If you want to wade through the ignorance and verbose messages about faith then there is a story about wrestling in here but as a whole the book really isn’t that good.

    Points: 4 / 10

    Buy It:

    UK: £11.19

    USA: $14.36

    Share this article:

    Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit

    Tags

    vince russoWCW

    COMMENTS

    Please read our Commenting Policy before you join in with the discussion.

    Note: If you have email notifications enabled, please check your email spam folders to ensure emails are not missed.

    Subscribe
    Connect withD
    I allow to create an account
    When you login first time using a Social Login button, we collect your account public profile information shared by Social Login provider, based on your privacy settings. We also get your email address to automatically create an account for you in our website. Once your account is created, you'll be logged-in to this account.
    DisagreeAgree
    Notify of
    guest
    Connect withD
    I allow to create an account
    When you login first time using a Social Login button, we collect your account public profile information shared by Social Login provider, based on your privacy settings. We also get your email address to automatically create an account for you in our website. Once your account is created, you'll be logged-in to this account.
    DisagreeAgree
    guest
    1 Comment
    Inline Feedbacks
    View all comments
    Death4you24
    Death4you24
    9 years ago

    Page Opera – How Vince russo killed reading.

    1
    Reply

    You might also like

    • The Rise and Fall of WCW DVD Review

      By Henry Higgins
      | January 11, 2010
    • WWE Extreme Rules: Wrestling’s wackiest matches

      By John Hancock
      | May 18, 2013
    • Eric Bischoff Interview

      By Josh Modaberi
      | June 4, 2012

    FIND THE TOPICS YOU WANT...

    Wrestling Topics

    Recommended for you

    • May 21, 2001 – A (forgotten) date that will live in WWE infamy

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 20, 2022
    • Your WAY TOO EARLY predictions for WWE WrestleMania 39!

      By Matthew Martin
      | April 20, 2022
    • What we want from an AEW video game

      By Matthew Martin
      | May 31, 2021
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Affiliate Disclosure
    • Cookie Policy and Settings
    • Terms of Use
    • Photo Credits
    • RSS
    All Cult of Whatever articles, logos, illustrations and graphics are copyright CultOfWhatever.com. All other trademarks, logos and copyrights are the property of their respective owners. © 2021 CultOfWhatever. All Rights Reserved.
    • facebook
    • twitter
    wpDiscuz