Was Chris Kreski's run really that great?

[The Dames 0]

Is there any proof that Kreski came up with most (all?) of the Love Triangle?

 

Now that you mention it, this was posted in the blog of one of WWE's creative members a while back.

 

As I understand it, Brian [Gewirtz] is the guy behind virtually all of The Rock's insanely awesome promos from 2000 or so on, which rocked the house. As pretty much the only person in the company with a background in Hollywood (now that David Lagana is no longer on the team), Brian's also an invaluable source for quality storytelling. He was the guy behind the HHH-Angle-Stephanie soap opera in 2000 that was absolutely awesome before it ended abruptly ...

 

http://weblogs.newsday.com/sports/speciale...brian.html#more

 

Dunno how true all that is, since, IIRC, he was on the team about 2 years or so after Kreski's run ended.

 

When I met Gerwirtz in 2000, it was at WWF NY in Times Square the night that the "kiss" angle between Kurt Angle & Steph was supposed to air on Smackdown and I remember that he was very specific in stating that he wanted to gauge the reaction in the room that night because he wrote that segment. I don't know if he wrote the entire thing, but at least that scene was his.

 

[HarleyQuinn 0]

Kreski provided great continuity and product of good-to-great quality that holds up today. Vince had to sign off on it all, but he did the same with every head writer yet the results are quite different. Russo got high ratings, but product quality wasn't all that great and a lot of his stuff doesn't age well at all. Stephanie hasn't shown either high ratings or consistent product quality. Of those three head writers, I'd take Kreski over Russo or Stephanie any day.

 

Fair enough but I'd still argue that some of the content in his run was awful. Same as the high end stuff largely holding up in 96/97/98 for Russo.

 

Yes, Kreski had a boatload of talented names to work with. So did Russo and Stephanie, with Russo having Austin at his peak and Stephanie having him for his big return. Kreski had Austin to work with for about a month before Austin was sidelined and Kreski was gone when Austin returned. Whose work holds up better? Whose work is of an overall higher standard?

 

Russo had to build Austin from "The Ringmaster" first. He had to build Foley from a gimmick. When Russo started, he basically had the following as legit stars: Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, and Undertaker. IIRC, he came on after Diesel & Razor left. In terms of Stephanie, it seems she too gets a lot of blame when it sounds like some of the stuff comes from Brian Gerwitz in particular. Just a random note.

 

You can question who Kreski built up, but WWE has, for some time, shown that they'll rarely build anyone up unless they have to. Even if you take the position that Kreski didn't build anyone up, WWE hasn't exactly been forward thinking in that department since he left, either. Cena's only around because Stephanie happened to catch his rap act on a tour bus. If not for that, Cena was set to be let go.

 

It's largely ironic that Russo almost built every star and Stephanie is very underrated in this area (Cena, Edge?, Orton, Batista). Austin originally came in as "The Ringmaster" but still became a mega star... the end result is all that matters.

 

Vince has never seen tag teams as main event players, so you can't blame that one on Kreski.

 

Fair enough, but I will lay blame at his feet for the proliferation and IMO, overuse of gimmick matches in the tag ranks. Constantly used table matches, ladders, and had one TLC match under his run.

 

Aren't you downplaying Kreski's contribution for doing exactly the same thing?

 

In fairness, probably. But in Russo's defense, Mankind came in with a bizarre gimmick and feuded with Undertaker (and got the best of him). He helped slide Austin into a round table feud involving Hart, Undertaker, Michaels, and Vader all at once.

 

Now Kreski helped feud Triple H with Foley but Triple H had been an established IC Champion talent for roughly a year and a half by that point. Angle is the true genius and it's looking from other posts like that may've been Brian Gerwitz instead.

 

What killed it is that Russo is strictly an ideas man; when having to actually book, he's consistently shown to be totally clueless.

 

Fair enough. Although some of his WCW run was underrated despite the overall crap. And at times, it was getting ratings regardless of what the hardcores wanted.

[Hunter's Torn Quad 0]

Russo had to build Austin from "The Ringmaster" first. He had to build Foley from a gimmick. When Russo started, he basically had the following as legit stars: Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, and Undertaker. IIRC, he came on after Diesel & Razor left. In terms of Stephanie, it seems she too gets a lot of blame when it sounds like some of the stuff comes from Brian Gerwitz in particular. Just a random note.

 

Russo didn't get on the writing team until February of 1997, by which time Austin had been 'Stone Cold' for almost a year, and Russo was made head writer around the time Austin won the WWF title. It's more than a stretch to claim Russo 'built' Austin; Austin was already there. Foley's career making feud with The Undertaker was in 1996, before Russo was put on the writing team.

 

It's largely ironic that Russo almost built every star and Stephanie is very underrated in this area (Cena, Edge?, Orton, Batista). Austin originally came in as "The Ringmaster" but still became a mega star... the end result is all that matters.

 

If Russo created stars in the WWF, the fact he failed miserably trying to do the same in WCW shows who deserves the real credit.

 

But in Russo's defense, Mankind came in with a bizarre gimmick and feuded with Undertaker (and got the best of him). He helped slide Austin into a round table feud involving Hart, Undertaker, Michaels, and Vader all at once.

 

Most of this happened either before Russo was even on the writing team or before he was head writer.

 

Angle is the true genius and it's looking from other posts like that may've been Brian Gerwitz instead

 

Which is why Gewirtz has had such great success in recent years?

 

And at times, it was getting ratings regardless of what the hardcores wanted.

 

But was killing PPV buys, which is where the money is made.

[Papacita 0]

Just to clear something up: when Russo got his big run with the book, didn't the writing crew basically consist of him and Ferrera? I was under the impression that the whole writing team concept was a direct reaction to their jump to WCW (essentially, trying not to put all their eggs in one basket).

 

Russo didn't get on the writing team until February of 1997, by which time Austin had been 'Stone Cold' for almost a year, and Russo was made head writer around the time Austin won the WWF title. It's more than a stretch to claim Russo 'built' Austin; Austin was already there.

I don't think you're giving Russo enough credit. It's a tremendous help to have talent of Austin's caliber on your roster, but at the same time he needed an environment to thrive in. Frankly, it's a bit ridiculous to limit Russo's influence to March 98 on (or whenever he got the book on his own) when the WWF product underwent such a major overhaul as soon as he came on board (and that's ignoring whatever impact he had in late 96 when the Austin push really started to kick into gear).

 

If Russo created stars in the WWF, the fact he failed miserably trying to do the same in WCW shows who deserves the real credit.

Just curious as to which Vince you feel was to blame for the shitty stuff that WWF produced in 99: Russo or McMahon?

 

Which is why Gewirtz has had such great success in recent years?

How are we measuring success? Writers don't always have the benefit of being able to produce TV at the absolute peak of a company's mainstream visibility.

 

[Atticus Chaos 0]

I agree with the sentiments about Russo. He is that he is talented...in his own way. But he always needs someone to edit his ideas and make them workable. McMahon did that, WCW and TNA didn't. He's right when he says he always gave undercard talent something to do, as opposed to WWE, who are genereally quite apathetic about everyone except main event talent and he was right when he said Vince was way behind the times before he came along. And I'd still say he was better than Stephanie because at least he has a track record of success somewhere, and didn't blow a potentially huge money making invasion angle. A Russo booked invasion, with Vince editing, probably would have been a lot better than what we got.

 

As far as Gerwitz goes he probably has more creative skill than he's given credit for, but I think he became a pretty staunch yes man, and the only stuff he feels comfortable contributing now is bad comedy because Vince loves it. The only people that survive long on the creative team are the ones who don't rock the boat, and I guess he figured that out after a while.

[cabbageboy 0]

This will sound like an odd way to judge an era, but take a look at the various retrospectives that pop up on Raw or on DVDs. There's always a ton of 1997-98 era stuff on those. Memorable bits, promos, matches. Then they get to 2000 during the Kreski era and....there's really nothing to show. None of it is all that classic or memorable.

 

Kreski was solid at maintaining momentum for a while. Let The Rock cut a funny promo, let the guys wrestle solid matches, and stay out of the way. If you take a look at the WWF roster Russo worked with, it wasn't all that good. But Russo at least got guys like the New Age Outlaws over, D'Lo Brown, Test, Val Venis, and so on.

[Enigma 0]

According to Russo, there was some special Friday Night Raw or something in September 1996 that only drew like a 1.8 rating. At the time, he says he went to McMahon and said, "A 1.8? Things need to change. Your direction is stale and sucks." Russo thought he was going to get fired for what he said, but he ended up getting put on the booking team. They also pulled in Ed Ferrera, who had previously been writing for "Duckman" on USA. By the time WM13 rolled around, Russo was fully in charge with Ferrera as his right-hand man.

[Vincent Vega 0]

According to Russo, there was some special Friday Night Raw or something in September 1996 that only drew like a 1.8 rating. At the time, he says he went to McMahon and said, "A 1.8? Things need to change. Your direction is stale and sucks." Russo thought he was going to get fired for what he said, but he ended up getting put on the booking team. They also pulled in Ed Ferrera, who had previously been writing for "Duckman" on USA. By the time WM13 rolled around, Russo was fully in charge with Ferrera as his right-hand man.

 

Ferrera didnt join the creative team intill King Of The Ring 1998

[chaosrage 0]

According to Russo, there was some special Friday Night Raw or something in September 1996 that only drew like a 1.8 rating. At the time, he says he went to McMahon and said, "A 1.8? Things need to change. Your direction is stale and sucks." Russo thought he was going to get fired for what he said, but he ended up getting put on the booking team.

 

Kind of close, but it was actually McMahon that called him into his office and told him things needed to change.

 

"The meeting where he asked to take on more responsibility- He felt the WWF product sucked and was hard to watch because of crap like TL Hopper and Who. He was watching the nWo angle around that time, so he started trying to bring them up to the times, as he felt that the company was stuck in 1986 while the rest of the world was in 1996. He went up to Linda and Vince McMahon and told them that he was thinking of going to WCW and that, if they thought he was only capable of writing the magazine, they should tell him that. They didn’t think that, so he stayed and the door was open for further opportunities. The next Monday, there was a memorably bad RAW where the matches were shot on one continent and the announcers were on another one. When the rating came in abysmally low, Vince McMahon had him brought to a big meeting and he was thinking “I’m in deep shit” until Vince threw a copy of the WWF magazine down on the table and said that the magazine was everything the show should be. It shocked him and probably wasn’t the best thing for him since Vince did it in that way, as it made people hate him. However, that did mean that he and McMahon were now writing the TV shows together."

 

http://thesmartmarks.com/article_1294.shtml

 

The memorably bad Raw he's talking about seems to be April 14, 1997. http://rspw.org/petrie/970414.txt

 

Comments: The production values were slick. Vince McMahon's hair looked

good. It was nice to see Sable's ass again.

 

That's about all the good things I can say about this week's show. It was

bad enough that they had to cobble together pretaped footage, but did they

have to pick from the worst that was available? Actually they probably

showed the best they had, which is even scarier.

 

After that, Russo started writing the shows with McMahon. What was Russo's first show? Why, it was this show. http://rspw.org/petrie/970421.txt

 

Comments: An absolutely incredible show. Every few minutes something would

happen that would have been the highlight by itself on any other RAW. The

street fight ... Bret Hart hospitalized ... the ambulance attack ... Ahmed

getting medieval on the Sultan's ass ... Monsoon getting in Austin's face

.. Austin and Shawn squaring off ... the numerous Shawn run-ins ... Dustin

Rhodes shedding the Goldust persona ... the Mankind blowtorch attack ...

the three way brawl at the end ... the Pillman attack. Tiger Ali's debut

was overshadowed, but far from bad. The only low point was the Rockabilly

match, which I'll get back to.

 

....

 

This was a great RAW. I don't expect them to be able to pull off another one

this good for quite some time (but we can hope, can't we?).

 

This could very well be the official start of the Attitude Era.

[Damaramu 0]

The Austin/Bret street fight RAW has to be one of my favorite RAWs ever. I wish I could have a copy of it to watch over and over again.

[Vincent Vega 0]

The Austin/Bret street fight RAW has to be one of my favorite RAWs ever. I wish I could have a copy of it to watch over and over again.

 

get on your knees...

 

http://hardcoretv.info/movie/257-Raw_is_Wa...il_21_1997.html

 

[Atticus Chaos 0]

Is it true the reason Russo's return to the creative team in 2002 only lasted a day was because he wanted The Rock to develop homosexual tendencies?

[Chazz 0]

Is it true the reason Russo's return to the creative team in 2002 only lasted a day was because he wanted The Rock to develop homosexual tendencies?

 

Didn't hear about that one. Multiple stories I've heard,(including from Russo himself in a shoot interview which another poster provided a link to a couple of posts up), is that Undertaker and HHH opposed him from joining the creative team for their own personal reasons, so he was labled as a creative consultant.(In the case of HHH, especially at that point in time, probably didn't want Russo mainly because of Russo's knack for giving everyone on the card something to do, which would take away from having his face all over Raw.)

[Atticus Chaos 0]

I'll give Taker and HHH some credit and say they were probably apprehensive about bringing Russo in, because at that point, he was generally regarded as the man who had destroyed WCW with his inept booking. There may have been other reasons, but I imagine a lot of people at the time where wondering what they were thinking.

 

As far as the Rock/homosexuality thing goes, I'm not sure if that one is specifically true, but I did hear that Russo's new ideas to rejuvenate WWE were so wacky and out there, even by Stephanie McMahon standards, that they felt they had to remove him after one meeting. I think Russo's 'they didn't want me because I was too good' is purely ego gratification. He went from second in charge, under Stephanie, to a mere consultant in a ridiculously short period of time, which makes me think that once they heard his ideas, they realized how clueless he had become.

[Chazz 0]

I think Stephanie McMahon saying Russo's,(or anybody else's, for that matter), idea's wouldn't work is laughable given some of the horrible shit she's been responsible for the past several years. She may have very well been right about Russo, but I don't think she's in a position to judge whether he was still a competent writer or not.