Vince Russo Talks About WWE Having Long Matches At The Expense Of Character Development

Vince Russo was recently a guest on The Steve Austin Show Unleashed. During his conversation with Stone Cold Russo discussed what he doesn't like about today's pro-wrestling product, namely lengthening matches at the expense of developing characters.

"Back in the Attitude Era when we had our matches, it was 'Crash TV.' We were in and out of everything because we knew back then people had short attention spans, so we had to bring them along to the next thing, don't lose it, move it," Russo said. "When I hear 'short attention span' the matches now are going longer than they ever had before so that's where I'm like, well, the short attention span gets shorter daily but the matches keep going on longer and longer. I am not a fan of the long matches."

As he is a former writer for WWE, Russo was known for creating some of the most memorable moments and storylines during the Attitude Era. He is a firm believer that the stories and characters are what drive pro-wrestling, as opposed to the in-ring product.

"How I look at it is that I love Rocky. Let's compare Rocky to Professional Wrestling," he said. "If you take all the Rocky movies or concentrate just one, and all of a sudden we take away the characters of Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed. We take away the storyline, this bum from Philadelphia getting a shot, we take that away and all of a sudden all we are seeing is the end of the movie and the Boxing match. Are we going to give a rats about the Boxing match? Of course we're not! The only reason why we care about the match is because of the character in the story. If you take away the character and you take away the story you have a choreographed fight and that is what it is on a weekly basis."

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