Vince Russo On Why WWE Doesn’t Want Another John Cena, If He’d Accept Hall of Fame Induction

The one and only Vince Russo recently exposited on he believes why WWE doesn’t another star on John Cena’s level and more in an interview. Russo was a guest on the It’s My House Podcast and weighed in on multiple topics as only he can, and you can check out some highlights below:

On why ratings are down for WWE: “You know, the WWE now they have a really high executive in Nick Khan. Nick Khan was a was a big shooter in CAA, which is the biggest talent agency in the world. So Nick Khan is responsible now for all these crossovers. We’ve seen it with AEW, we’ve seen it with Shaq, we’ve seen it with Mike Tyson, it’s exactly what you’re saying Chris, if you bring in these big names you’ve got to hook [viewers]. That’s why when when Tyson was brought in during the Attitude Era we hooked the people. There’s a lot of people, bro, would have never ever ever watched the WWE. But the fact is they tuned in because of Tyson, once they were there, bro. We hooked them to the product.”

On when he would have turned Roman Reigns heel: “I said it when it happened bro, and I don’t even know what year we’re talking about. We’re talking about a couple of years back, but I remember when Roman Reigns – I think it was in Philly, and he won the Royal Rumble and the people booed him out of the building. Bro, I said that night, if I was writing the show, and they were booing Roman out of the building, if I was Roman, I would have stepped up to the second rope and I would have flipped off that entire capacity crowd for a couple of reasons, bro. Number one, you know that’s what he wanted to do. And number two, that was the perfect, perfect, perfect situation. It always seems with these things that the WWE whether it be Vince McMahon or whoever, they’re always a couple of years behind.”

On the amount of wrestlers with their own podcasts: “They get to 100% be themselves, bro. When you’re working for a WWE, you can’t be yourself, bro. Because you got people wanting to take you down, you’ve got people waiting for you to make a mistake or say the wrong thing, bro. It’s a constant walk on eggshells, then all of a sudden bro when you don’t have that hanging over your head. All of a sudden you’re in a world of complete freedom. And now you can do your own podcast with your name on it and you can be you, and I think a lot of people, you know a lot of the wrestlers are starting to figure that out.”

On why WWE doesn’t want another John Cena or Rock-level star: “A couple of years ago Ryback – and this comes from Ryback and I think Ryback is as straight as shooter as you can get – Triple H told Ryback there isn’t going to be another John Cena. In other words, what he’s saying is no talent is going to be bigger than the WWE ever again. Because what happens is when you have a talent that becomes bigger than the WWE – going back to control, [Vince McMahon] loses that control. He lost control with Cena, Austin, Rock, Hogan, he loses that control. So now, Triple H is flat out saying, ‘There’s never ever going to be another superstar bigger than the company again.’

“So what do they do, bro? They have a factory, where they’re making wrestlers. And these guys, they go in from the independent circuit and they’re going through this factory. And what they’re becoming are replaceable talents. So okay, this guy does something we don’t like, does something on social media, doesn’t get a gimmick over, you’ve got 1000 reasons to get him out and bring the next guy in. They’re purposely not doing it. That’s why you’re seeing the 50/50 booking, win one week lose one week win one week, they’re purposely holding guys back so nobody’s value becomes bigger than the companies.”

On if he would he ever go into the WWE Hall of Fame: “Number one, I don’t think they ever in a million years would reach out to me. That’s number one, ’cause I have been, way, way, way too outspoken concerning how I feel about the company and the product and certain people there. So that’s number one, they would never come calling. Number two, I would have absolutely no interest, I would say, ‘Thank you but no thank you.’ I don’t need to be validated by Vince McMahon to consider my life worthy. I need to be validated by my wife, by my dad, by my kids, by my friends. That’s who I need validation from, not not Vince McMahon. I’m happy for guys like Bischoff, Cornette, guys like Pritchard. They live the wrestling business, they eat, drink, s**t, you name it. But wrestling, it was a job to me. I was not this freaking wrestling mark that got my dream job. Today I hate wrestling. I hate talking about wrestling. The only show I watch is Raw, because I get paid to watch Raw.”