Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – RAW Looks Weak, Wasting TV Time on Corbin, Burying the WWE Title, More!

Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane, Big Vito and Kenny Bolin.

Russo says WWE proved how dumb they are right at the beginning of RAW this week when the commentators made it known that all the doors to the arena were locked and security was surrounding the building. Russo says this made the RAW Superstars look like ‘pussies’ when in reality, the RAW Superstars should have been furious and should have been begging the Smackdown Live roster to come back so they could get their revenge from last week.

Vito says he liked that Stephanie McMahon opened the show because that was a ratings draw. Russo completely disagrees saying that Stephanie obviously didn’t pop the ratings because this week’s ratings were lower than last week’s. He also says that he hate’s Stephanie’s character because she’s one dimensional and she constantly buries talents without allowing the talents to have a comeback.

Bolin says it was great to see Samoa Joe return on this show, and he’s a big fan of Joe. Before Joe got to WWE Bolin was unaware how great he was at cutting promos, so that has been a pleasant surprise since he started in NXT. He also says that WWE has something great in Joe if they allow him to be the Joe from ROH. Russo says that’s all fine and dandy but Joe needs to stop wearing ‘clown shorts’.

Russo says that Mickie James versus Alexa Bliss simply isn’t a main event match, but WWE constantly promoted this match as the show’s main event all throughout the episode. He has no issue with those women working in the last match of the evening but if it’s not a main event caliber match, there’s no need to call it the ‘main event’. They can just promote the match as a regular bout and that will prevent viewers from turning the channel to Monday Night Football.

Russo mentions that WWE continues to give talent nicknames, but they don’t explain where those nicknames came from. Alexa Bliss is ‘The Goddess’ and Asuka is ‘The Empress of Tomorrow’, but fans have no idea what any of that even means. If Bliss is ‘The Goddess’ she should be acting like one by making crazy demands backstage and having her own locker room.

Russo says he has no idea how Kurt Angle continues to act like a scared child on WWE programming week after week. He adds that if he was in the ring with Stephanie McMahon to open the show he would have cut a shoot promo on Stephanie and buried her on live television. He swears that he’s not joking; he would have shot on her on live television and buried her once and for all.

Russo rips Corey Graves, saying he’s horrible and he ‘sucks’. He points out that WWE counts on Graves to explain their storylines and to make their scripts believable but he’s a terrible actor, and nothing that comes out of his mouth is believable. Bolin agrees and says that he didn’t even know what Graves’ name was, and he has no idea how Graves got that spot when guys like Jerry Lawler and Jim Ross are sitting home.

Russo liked that WWE actually tried to build a running thread throughout the last half hour of the show with Miz and Strowman. Unfortunately, they should have started this right from the beginning of the show, and the garbage bags were a terrible way to signal Strowman’s arrival. He jokes that it would have been much better television if they threw Finn Balor in the garbage truck and had a camera inside so we could see him getting ground into a thousand pieces.

Big Vito says the ‘Trick or Street fight’ was absolutely terrible. He can’t believe that WWE has taken two former World Champions like Anderson and Gallows and made them into two clowns. Bolin can’t believe that one of those four guys couldn’t stand up for themselves and refuse to do it.

Russo points out that it made no sense for Elias to be worried about Jason Jordan breaking his guitar, since he has voluntarily broken multiple guitars over his opponent’s backs over the last few weeks. This is the type of thing that drives Russo crazy because it’s lazy writing.

He also says that he would have ended the show just as Strowman rose up out of the dumpster because he thought WWE gave away too much at the end of RAW. By ending the show when Strowman rose up, WWE could have created a great cliffhanger which would have brought viewers back to RAW next week.

Getting into a discussion of Smackdown Live, Russo says he couldn’t comprehend Rusev stomping on Halloween candy. He says that this is something that would happen on a children’s show but the problem with it in this case is Smackdown airs at 9 PM at night, so young kids are already in bed. Bolin says there’s always room for comedy in wrestling but your badass characters should never be involved in it.

Bolin thinks there’s too much good talent out there to be wasting time and money on Baron Corbin. He believes there are multiple other Superstars who are more deserving of the television time that Corbin has been given, and he thinks that finally needs to stop.

Lane points out that of all the bad things WWE has been doing lately, the fact that they’ve killed the WWE Title is downright unacceptable. Jinder Mahal and the Title have continuously been relegated to secondary storylines and Smackdown Live Superstars don’t even care about fighting for it anymore.

That sums up today’s episode of Vince Russo’s The Brand. You can listen to the show yourself anytime here, and I’ll catch ya tomorrow for another recap!