Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – Meltzer Timing Fake Fights, Rusev’s Squeezable Cheeks, Bash at the Beach 2000, More!

Russo opens today’s show by reacting to Wrestling Observer’s Bryan Alvarez and Dave Meltzer talking about the length of the Gauntlet match on RAW this past week. Alvarez pointed out that the Cena/Rollins portion of that match was 29 minutes, but Meltzer quickly insisted on checking his notes, adding that it was definitely 30 minutes or longer.

Russo laughs and points out that these guys are both grown men who spend their time recording the length of fake fights. Russo says he doesn’t have time to look at the clock when he’s watching RAW because he’s too busy throwing acid in his eyes so he doesn’t have to watch the show.

Meltzer went on to talk about why he believes people would enjoy longer matches on WWE programming. He mentioned that tension constantly builds during 5-round MMA fights. Russo wonders if anyone has told Meltzer that wrestling is scripted yet because you can’t compare professional wrestling to MMA in this manner.

He adds that 5-round MMA fights build tension because it’s not a scripted fight. Wrestling, on the other hand is scripted, and therefore the match lengths are determined in advance by some writer employed by WWE. It’s not comparable at all and he thinks Meltzer’s a clown for saying these things.

This past week a Twitter follower asked Meltzer why Pete Dunne versus Tyler Bate at NXT Takeover wasn’t a 5-star match. Meltzer replied by saying that they’re “only supposed to have one or two of those a year”. Russo says Meltzer is like a Chef who rates restaurants and can only give out one 10-star rating per year.

Lane plays a clip of Wade Keller, who gives his opinion as to why people love Rusev all of a sudden. Amongst other reasons, Keller says that as a fan you just want to squeeze Rusev’s cheeks. Russo is fairly certain that not one other fan of Rusev will justify their love for the performer by saying that they just want to squeeze his cheeks.

Next, Alvarez is heard talking about Asuka’s recent half English/half Japanese promo. He said Asuka’s Japanese promo was better than half the females on the roster, and Meltzer jumps in saying that it was better than most of the males on the roster as well because WWE creative couldn’t script it and her delivery was great. Russo laughs and says that people must be completely out of their mind to pay to listen to Meltzer’s opinion on a weekly basis, especially if he puts over Asuka’s promo from RAW this past week.

Pro Wrestling Sheet’s Ryan Satin talked about Braun Strowman on one of his audio shows this past week. He said that when Strowman walked out on RAW recently the situation and crowd reaction reminded him of Steve Austin during the attitude era. Russo is blown away by this statement, and doesn’t understand how those words could ever come out of Satin’s mouth. He points out that a famous attitude era moment like Austin driving the beer truck to the ring on RAW will be quite difficult to replicate.

Russo speaks about the infamous WCW Bash at the Beach event, when he cut a scathing promo on Hulk Hogan. His version of this story has varied from the versions of Eric Bischoff and Hulk Hogan over the years, and he tries to set the record straight here again. He informs that Hogan knew that he was going to cut a promo on him after Hogan pinned Jeff Jarrett, but Hogan had no idea about the content of that promo.

Russo says that neither Bischoff or Hogan knew the verbiage that he was going to use in that promo because he didn’t even know what he was going to say before he went out there. Before the segment he told Hogan, “I’m gonna cut a scathing promo on you” and that was it. Russo says that he never wrote down his own promos, he’d always cut his promos on the fly.

Lane plays a clip of Wade Keller from this past week, who basically says that WWE shouldn’t be too focused on attracting new viewers because they’re not devoted fans anyways. He points out that some fans tuned in for RAW25 but then immediately left the product again. Russo says that those people tuned out again because the product sucks. He thinks it’s ridiculous to say that any business shouldn’t try to attract new viewers.

Meltzer spoke out about Russo’s time in WCW during one of his audio shows this past week. Meltzer informed that a few weeks after Russo went to WCW, someone from WCW called him and asked him what he thought about the new product. Meltzer said he was kind of dissapointed in the product, to which the caller replied, “It’s not going to work is it?” Meltzer confirmed to the caller from WCW that he didn’t think Russo was going to work out in the company, and added that a few weeks after that call “the big fight” occurred and Russo was replaced.

Russo begins by saying that there was never a “big fight”. He was simply told by Bill Bush that the company was going to go in a different direction. Nonetheless, it wouldn’t surprise him if someone like Bill Bush or J.J. Dillion called Meltzer at that time.

Lastly, A russo fan tweeted Meltzer this week mentioning that Russo’s credentials in the business surpass Meltzer’s credentials. Meltzer tried to defend himself by saying that people have told him he’s one of the best sports reporters of all time. Russo simply mentions that nearly 3 decades after beginning his career in the business he’s still making a living from it. That’s certainly something to be proud of.

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!