During a recent edition of “The Brand” podcast, Vince Russo & former WWE wrestler Vito LoGrasso (along with the co-hosts of the podcast) discussed last week’s episode of Raw, Kane, need for Braun Strowman to be repackaged & much more. Below is their discussion:
Russo: This is why this show sucks. Can you tell me off the bat why four guys are running away from three guys? Vito, if it’s you and three of your buddies and now all of a sudden around the corner three guys come, you got four guys three guys come, are you gonna freakin’ tuck your tail between your legs and run?
Vito: I am gonna bust somebody’s a$$ open. That’s what I’m gonna do. I didn’t understand that. You know the old saying – protect your home turf. It’s your home court. Nobody beats you on your court. Nobody disrespects you under your court. Well that’s what happened on their home court. And you know what, it was disgusting. It wasn’t good booking.
Russo: This set me off on the wrong tone. Because the heels are running from the babyfaces. In reality there’s four guys against three. That’s why Vince McMahon’s archaic booking sucks. He’s running every fan out of town because it’s ridiculous. The four guys are not going to run from three guys.
Jeff: We opened up with Kurt Angle laying out Survivor Series, it’s gonna be champions versus champions. What are you guys’ thoughts on that booking style? Like is that pretty weird building up to an entire pay-per-view where you have to run the angles separately from each other except for whatever crap they did at the end of the show?
Kenny: I’ve got an opinion. I’d like to talk about the pay-per-views. I think there’s too damn many of them. I think we’ve lost the flavor of what a pay-per-view is and I’d like to see it go back and I know they’ll never do it because of dollars and cents. But to me it was a lot better when there were four pay-per-views. If you got two separate companies maybe you can run eight. There’s way too damn many now. I’ve got lost with the titles. I got lost with what means what.
Russo: Here’s where the illogic kicks in. Ten minutes into the show, three guys just ran off four guys. We just saw that ten minutes ago. Ten minutes later one guy lays out three guys. So already you’re into the show fifteen minutes and all the logic is taking out of the show from the get-go.
Vito: I think that you’re absolutely right. I agree with Kenny. There’s too many pay-per-views. There’s too many things going on. And in the pay-per-view itself they tried to jam so much stuff in the last match that it got lost. Nobody else had a Tables, Ladders and Chairs match. Everything was crammed into one match.
Then you already knew who was going over in the match when AJ Styles teamed with Ambrose and Rollins. AJ had to get a win back because he put over Finn Balor the night before. So you already knew before that AJ was going over in the match. He was gonna pin somebody. So I think that took a little bit of the flavor out of it.
Where was Braun Strowman? Where was Kane? Where were all the other guys? They should have been in there from the beginning. And Kane should have come out in the beginning. You had to give AJ his props. He did a great job the night before. Too many pay-per-views like Kenny said. Vince, I think you’re right on the booking angle. I just think that they’re trying to cram so many different ideas into one segment into one program that everything gets lost in the shuffle.
Russo: Kane cuts a promo on Strowman and basically says he’s Raw’s only monster and I guess he’s right. Because Strowman never came out. So I guess Strowman is a sissy. I guess Kane is right. He is the only monster on Raw. Why we’ve been building Strowman for the last God knows how long as a monster?
And then here comes 62 year old Kane and who says I’m the real monster and Strowman doesn’t come out. Then they wonder why they don’t get anybody over. It’s so freakin illogical. It’s not even funny, bro.
Kenny: God was it wasted. Nothing was making any sense. And I’m just waiting for something of meaning to happen during that segment. It was like someone was calling it in his earpiece in the back as they were going and someone forgot to tell him anything. I mean that’s what it looked like.
Vito: If you ask me I think they should have started with Strowman. Strowman running rampant throughout the whole show because he got thrown in the dumpster, because he got turned on, because Kane showed up. I would have had him interrupting and doing something every segment just to build him up, to be that monster.
With Kane possibly cowering off and to show that he was the real deal. Where’s his presence? He was a monster. He came two inches from beating Brock Lesnar. He got the best build-up from Paul Heyman. Where was this guy? You mean to tell me he got thrown in the dumpster, that was it? No retribution for this? No retribution for the beatdown of the Shield? So you just took all this guy’s flavor away.
Now are you gonna be a Braun Strowman fan because he is gonna be a babyface or you gonna want the monster back who nobody liked to have that Steve Austin aura to him? I think they lost it on him. I think he’s done. He needs to go to SmackDown and repackage.
Russo: A couple of weeks ago the three members of the Shield, they beat up Braun Strowman. Braun Strowman has no retaliation. Yesterday Kane puts Braun Strowman in a dumpster. So we’ve literally one week the Shield cut off his shaft and the following weekend cut off his balls.
So now you got Braun Strowman walking around he’s got nothing downtown. Now we’re gonna build Kane and we’re gonna build him by beating Finn Balor. Now he’s big tough Kane. So guess what? Braun Strowman can come back and beat somebody. It’s a cycle like it keeps going round and round and round. We’re gonna build the guy, we’re gonna bury him. We’re gonna build a guy, we’re gonna bury him.
Did we ever do that with Austin? Did we ever do that with Rock? Did we ever do that with DX? Build these guys only to castrate them and have to build them all over again? I don’t understand it.
