What’s the story?
Vince Russo recently made an appearance on The Wrestling Inc. Podcast and spoke about WWE’s booking of the WWE Champion Jinder Mahal and former NXT Champion Shinsuke Nakamura.
As per Russo, the WWE has mishandled the pushes of both Nakamura and Mahal, which he then went on to explain in detail.
In case you didn’t know...
Vince Russo is a professional wrestling writer who has served as the head writer for WWE, WCW as well as TNA in the past. Russo is often credited as being the creative source behind several Attitude-era storylines in the WWE and also hosts a podcast of his own.
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The 56-year-old Russo often voices his opinion about the WWE and their handling of storylines and Superstars on his podcast as well as his appearances on various platforms. Despite his criticism of the company, Russo recently tried to reach out to the WWE in an effort to get re-hired, by his own admission.
The heart of the matter
Russo, who had praised the WWE for making Jinder Mahal the WWE Champion, spoke during his appearance on the podcast about how the company had “mishandled” Mahal’s push.
Also read: Vince Russo’s 5 dumbest ideas
Russo stated that the WWE had “dropped the ball” on Mahal and that the company were treating him as “just another wrestler”, instead of treating him as the WWE World Champion. Russo was also critical of the way the announcers were talking about Mahal on SmackDown LIVE and was quoted as saying:
“Bro, the announcers couldn’t have no-sold it any-more. When Shane announced he [Jinder Mahal] had a match with Mojo, the freaking announcers no-sold it. This is your freaking champion!”
On the subject of Shinsuke Nakamura’s push, Russo was no less critical and stated that the WWE were failing at the character development of their Superstars. Russo also took a dig at the new “artist” moniker that Nakamura was going by. He was quoted as saying:
“Nakamura, as unique as the guy is, bro, what have they done? I saw a vignette of a guy yesterday painting. That’s the character build of Nakamura. I mean, that’s supposed to get me excited about this freaking guy?”
Russo also spoke about several other wrestling-related topics during his appearance.
What’s next?
WWE Champion Jinder Mahal is scheduled to defend his title in a rematch against Randy Orton at the Money In The Bank Pay Per View on June 18th, 2017. Shinsuke Nakamura will also be in action on the same night as he will be facing off against Kevin Owens, AJ Styles, Baron Corbin, Sami Zayn and Dolph Ziggler in a Money In The Bank ladder match for a WWE Championship match contract.
As far as Vince Russo is concerned, he was recently called out for a fight by Jim Cornette. Although Russo sarcastically apologised to Cornette and turned down the challenge, the saga between the two seems to be far from over.
Author’s take
While it is easy to disregard Russo’s ramblings as being just that, he is not completely wrong when he says that the WWE have seemingly dropped the ball on both Mahal and Nakamura.
Both Superstars haven’t really been given the treatment that they deserve for who they are and for the hard work that they’ve put in and it wouldn’t be surprising if their momentum is completely lost before long if the WWE continue with their lacklustre booking for the two Superstars.
Here’s hoping that both Mahal and Nakamura are booked in a better way going forward and that we can see both of these talented Superstars in the top-tier of the company for many years to come!
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