Chris Jericho Discusses Vince Russo’s Reaction To His WWE Debut Promo, Russo on His Philosophy to Character Building

On the latest edition of Talk is Jericho, Chris Jericho discussed showing Vince Russo the now famous promo he wrote for his WWE debut and how Russo reacted to it, and Russo talked about his philosophy to character building and the importance of the relationship between writer and wrestler. Highlights are below.

Russo on the importance of the relationship between writer and wrestler: “I think what we had back then was, bro, it was the relationship with the writer and the wrestlers. Because my mentality was, bro, nobody knows your character better than you. I’m sitting here, I’m thinking about 50 characters, you’re concentrating on one. So now when I can have a conversation with you and you bring all these things to light, I’m like bro, that’s it, let’s do it. It was a communication, it was a team effort. I think that’s gone today.”

Jericho on how Russo reacted when he showed him his WWE debut promo that he had written: “I wrote it down and I showed it to you, and you’re like, ‘This is great.’ ‘Do we have to show it to anybody else?’ ‘No.’ No rehearsal. No camera angle blocking. You and me and The Rock sat at the old catering there in Allstate Arena, and I wrote through it, and then Rock had a couple of ideas, you know, KY Jelly, and Juventud Guerrera, whatever. You and I and Rock rehearsed it, and that’s it. Nobody saw it until we debuted it in front of millions of people, one of the quote unquote classic promos of all time. Nobody saw it but the three of us.”

Russo on how he suspects Vince McMahon doesn’t trust his talent today: “I look today and every word is scripted, every promo sounds the same, it’s a wrestling promo, nobody has a personality, and I’m like, bro, what happened? So the impression I get is, Vince doesn’t trust these guys. But here’s the funny thing, bro, if you don’t trust them, why are they working for you? Why are they there? You’ve got to trust the talent, bro. If you don’t, why are they there?”

“The Rock came up with every one of those, I wish I could sit here and say, ‘Oh yeah, I came up with,’ bro, every time I would show up to TV, he’d hit me with the next catchphrase, because he’s been thinking about it all week, why would I want to shut that down? And that’s the thing, Chris, that blows me away, that worked! Obviously it worked! What you’re doing now is not working, why would you not go back to what worked? Is it stubbornness? Is it ego? It just blows my mind, man.”

Russo on his philosophy on character building in wrestling: “What I’m trying to do, bro, is I’m trying to learn who they really are, and I’m trying to pull something out of them that’s unique, that’s different from everybody else, and here’s why I’m trying to do that, Chris. Because you know, these guys are not actors, they don’t go to acting school, so if you give them a role and they’re not trained actors, they’re gonna suck at it, and if they don’t believe what they’re doing, the audience ain’t gonna believe it. So I had to find something that was real in them. So what we did was we would find something that was real, we’d make them unique, and again, we would blow it up 1000x over. So now when they went out there, they weren’t acting, their character was a part of them, so the fans and the viewers believed in them.”

If using any of the above quotes, please credit Talk is Jericho with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.