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Vince Russo Says Making The Elite AEW EVPs Was A Mistake, Defends Statement About WCW Success

In an interview with Keepin’ It 100 (via Wrestling Inc), Vince Russo spoke about why he thinks making The Elite the EVPs of AEW was a mistake. Kenny Omega and the Young Bucks were given the roles at the company’s start and remain EVPs today. Russo said:
“Bro, three Executive Vice Presidents barged into a locker room and attacked an employee. CM Punk is a very smart man. When that happened, he had Tony Khan bent over the sink, and he said, ‘I’m gonna sue you, your old man, AEW, TBS, and everyone.’ I guarantee you Punk gave them a list, ‘These are the guys I want on Dynamite, these are the guys I don’t want anywhere near [Collision].’ And I guarantee you, Tony didn’t smarten those guys up because he didn’t have the balls to. To me, that was a massive error, a massive mistake that came to bite them in the ass. And he has been paying for that ever since.“
He also spoke about a statement he made during Dark Side of the Ring, in which he said WCW’s viewership went up in the first three months he was in charge of creative. He went after Dave Meltzer, who claimed otherwise. He added:
“The controversy with me was I made a statement… what I said was when you crunch the numbers, the first three months I was at WCW, the numbers actually went up. Now, of course, Glenn, you know, we’re all about numbers. I’ve looked at those numbers a million times. I would not make a statement like that if it wasn’t true because anybody can look at those numbers. The first three months I was there, the ratings were going up. So after I made that statement, Meltzer comes on and Meltzer says, ‘Well, he will tell you that the ratings went up his first three months when he was there, but they didn’t.’ They did, bro. I put the numbers out online to show you with the numbers, they went up. I just believe, Konnan, if I’m going to say one thing and Dave Meltzer’s going to say something totally different, one of us is lying. Make no bones about it, one of us is lying. I just think that on the ‘Dark Side of the Ring,’ the numbers are out there, so they can say and verify who’s telling the truth.“