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Vince Russo has cast doubt over a story that WWE executive Bruce Prichard allegedly told about D-Generation X’s famous WCW invasion.
The legendary faction appeared outside a WCW arena in a tank on the April 27, 1998, episode of RAW. Russo, a WWE writer at the time, came up with the idea and asked Prichard to produce the segment.
On Sportskeeda Wrestling’s “Writing With Russo” show, Russo said Prichard made an incorrect claim on his podcast:
“It was funny because on Bruce’s show with Conrad [Thompson] I don’t remember exactly what he said but he kinda took credit for it. The whole thing! And I’m just sitting there and I’m like, ‘Wait a minute, bro… so a rocket launcher just happened to be there that day?’ ‘Oh, wait a minute, there’s a [rocket launcher]?!’ No, bro, somebody had to write that to make sure it was there that day.” [4:00-4:32]
D-Generation X was recently the subject of an A&E “Biography” episode. The WCW invasion segment was referenced on the show, but nobody gave Russo and fellow writer Ed Ferrara credit for coming up with the idea.
“I love giving people credit because, first of all, I know it makes them feel good,” Russo said. “Second of all, it’s free. It doesn’t cost anything. I have no problem. Bruce produced all those. I didn’t go out with them and do that. I was not there. We wrote it. I asked Bruce to produce it because I had other things to do, and those guys did a great job. I got no problem saying that.” [3:09-3:35]
In the video above, Russo also gives his thoughts on how Gunther vs. Sheamus should be booked at Clash at the Castle.
How the former WWE writer created the D-Generation X idea
WWE was arguably more popular than ever in the late 1990s when Ed Ferrara and Vince Russo were the company’s lead writers.
Russo did not think WWE’s production team would go ahead with the outlandish rocket launcher idea, but he decided to pitch it anyway.
“That was me and Ed. I remember we’re sitting there, we’re coming up with this,” Russo stated. “I’m just sitting in front of my computer and now I’m writing it out. I actually would write the show out – that’s what I did myself – and I purposely wrote down on the paper, ‘DX drives a rocket launcher to the WCW building.’ And I did it for the you-know-what and giggles.” [0:58-1:29]
Russo added that WWE’s head of television production, Kevin Dunn, was responsible for finding any props he needed during the Attitude Era:
“I’m saying to myself, ‘There’s no way in the world [WWE will get a rocket launcher].’ I used to love that because whatever you used to write down… Kevin Dunn, they’d be able to get it, no matter what it was. So, I wrote down a rocket launcher like, ‘Okay, let me see you get this one.’ Sure enough, show up that day, there is a rocket launcher there.” [1:29-1:53]
In 2018, D-Generation X’s WCW invasion was selected in 12th place on a WWE Network countdown list of the top 100 moments in RAW history.
What did you think of the memorable segment? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.
Please credit Sportskeeda Wrestling’s “Writing With Russo” and embed the video if you use quotes from this article.
