Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Jericho IS the Elite, Styles Vs. Nakamura at ‘Mania, Earthquake Can’t Stop Dave Meltzer, More!

Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host, Jeff Lane.

On one of their audio shows this past week, Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez picked Nakamura to win the Royal Rumble match this year. They think this will lead to Nakamura challenging A.J. Styles for the WWE Title at WrestleMania, and they think WWE teased that with a spot on Smackdown Live a few months back. Russo can’t even remember what “tease spot” Meltzer’s talking about.

Russo has heard clips of wrestling analysts saying that Chris Jericho proved that he could hang with the elite during his recent WrestleKingdom match against Kenny Omega. One analyst said Jericho could return to the West beaten, but not bested. Russo points out that this was a fake fight – of course Jericho can hang with Omega. Jericho is the elite of the wrestling business. In fact, he WAS the business in this match.

A fan calls into the show and points out that WWE’s programming is so bad right now. The fan asks Russo why WWE doesn’t simply change their approach in an effort to improve their programming. Russo points out that WWE produces a lot of programming each week, not to mention the increase in PPVs over the last couple of years.

When he and Ed Ferrera wrote for WWE during the attitude era, they worked their asses off every week to ensure the product was good. They took pride in their work and it didn’t matter how many hours they had to put into it, the product had to be good every Monday night. He simply doesn’t think the people who work there today are putting 100% of their effort into the product.

Also this past week, Pro Wrestling Torch’s website posted a poll. The poll asked fans to vote on which record is a bigger deal in sports history: Michael Jordan’s 6 NBA Titles or The Young Bucks 7 Tag Titles in NJPW.

Russo points out that winning 6 NBA Championships is barely realistic, and Jordan accomplished that feat in a legitimate sport. The Young Bucks are competing in fake fights, where someone with a pen decides who wins the Titles on any given night. These two records are not even comparable in Russo’s opinion.

Ryan Satin of Pro Wrestling Sheet sent out a tweet this past week, saying he was nervous when Balor alluded to Jason Jordan being a term that starts with “N”. Of course, Anderson and Gallows quickly jumped in and called Jordan a “Nerd”. Russo points out that Satin is just a troublemaker, and he must sit at his keyboard all day long waiting for something to pop up that he can make a big deal about.

Satin also tweeted out his approval of this week’s episode of Monday Night RAW. Satin said that it was a great show, and he wishes that all the episodes could be that good. Russo thought this week’s show sucked, and he has no idea what Satin could have enjoyed about it.

Lastly, Satin decided to ridicule one of the greatest performers of all time last week. Chris Jericho posted on Instagram, dedicating his WrestleKingdom 12 match to Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit. Satin made a point to remind everyone on Twitter that Benoit was a murderer, shaming Jericho for this post. Russo thinks that Satin needs to mind his own business. Satin has no idea what Jericho is thinking, and he should have kept his thoughts to himself.

Dave Meltzer was obviously very excited to watch WrestleKingdom 12 this past week. He sent out a tweet saying that he stayed up all night to watch the show and never got tired. Unlike the other people he watched with, he didn’t even have to drink any coffee to stay awake.

Russo laughs hysterically, saying that you don’t need coffee when you’re on an adrenaline rush from watching Okada/Naito beat the crap out of each other. He also thought it was hilarious that Melzter (a 50 year old man) admitted to having a sleepover with his friends to watch wrestling.

Meltzer also informed on Twitter this week, that several wrestlers have wanted him to represent them in their contract negotiations over the years but he’s turned them down due to a conflict of interest. Russo doesn’t understand what Meltzer is doing with his life if he has some sort of a law degree and chose to write about wrestling for a living instead.

While watching WrestleKingdom 12, Meltzer tweeted out that an earthquake had struck them, but it wasn’t that bad and it didn’t stop him from focusing on the matches. Russo can’t contain his laughter, and points out that Meltzer would have thrown a complete hissy fit if his power would have been knocked out by the earthquake.

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!