TNA Impact Wrestling: How Much Will TNA Change with Vince Russo Gone?

In case you haven't heard by now: It was announced officially last week Vince Russo is gone from Impact Wrestling. He had been working for the organization since late 2006.

Russo's erratic car-crash style booking has been the source of major controversy within the business for well over a decade now, with many critics, like Jim Cornette and Bryan Alvarez, even labelling Russo and his counter-productive booking the main reason TNA has struggled make money and become a true competitor to WWE in North America.

Additionally, Alvarez frequently criticized Russo as a booker in his 2004 book Death of WCW, which pointed out, in-depth, how ratings and buyrates suffered and plummeted during his stint as head booker from 1999 to 2000.

Undoubtedly there is a great deal of validity to the criticism of Russo. After in, in the past two years the company has added huge (and expensive) names like Hulk Hogan, Eric Bischoff, Bobby Lashley, Ric Flair, Ken Anderson, Jeff Hardy and Rob Van Dam to the roster and the result was the same 1.1 average they've been doing since 2008 and abysmally low pay-per-view buys.

Additionally, his storylines on iMPACT were muddled, incoherent and downright ridiculous at points, only serving to turn people off the product.

Anyone remember the time Samoa Joe murdered Scott Steiner on pay-per-view? No? Eh, that's probably for the best.  

But does Russo leaving mean things in TNA are suddenly going to drastically turn around and TNA will become a successful, profitable company? Regrettably, the answer is probably no.

One thing to consider is that Russo was not actually fired due to management finally wising up to his poor booking record. No: He quit. That's right, he gave up on them. 

As Dave Meltzer reported in last week's edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Russo had grown unhappy at losing booking power and gotten fed up and left (this was similar to how he left WCW in 2000):

"The story was something that was in place dating back months, as when David Lagana left ROH for TNA, we were told specifically it was for a writing job and that he was going to likely end up as the replacement for Vince Russo. The issue was that Dixie Carter was never going to fire Russo. Exactly what was the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, is unclear other than Russo was not happy because he had lost power of the creative direction, which was being determined by Bruce Prichard, as head of creative, and Eric Bischoff."

Hilariously, Meltzer also recently noted in a (subscribers only) episode of Wrestling Observer Radio shorty after the news of his release that TNA President Dixie Carter was still desperately trying to talk her favourite booker into staying. Mind-boggling.

We also have to bear in mind, as Meltzer noted, that Russo has technically been out of power for months now and while the overall quality iMPACT has improved in recent months, business has not turned around and the ratings are as stagnant as ever.

In fact, in a huge disappointment for the company, the heavily hyped iMPACT shows taped from London, England did depressingly average numbers, likely insuring the company will struggle to get money out of Panda Energy and/or Spike TV to take iMPACT on the road in the future. 

So we also can't blame Russo for Hogan's flop return or the ridiculous push of Garrett Bischoff, that's all on Eric. No doubt he feels can get away with pushing his green-as-grass son due to his increasing influence in the company. Bischoff is extremely close with the all-powerful Spike TV, you see, More so than even Dixie Carter these days (and one has to wonder how she feels about Bischoff demoting her friends and pushing his family members to the moon). 

Bischoff seems to also feel that the wrestling business should continue to revolve around Hogan, which is the type of mentality no young, up-and-coming promotion needs.  

Summarily, Russo being gone cannot possibly be a bad thing for the floundering promotion. His exit was long overdue and one shudders to think of all the damage he has done to TNA over the years with his ridiculous booking (just ask poor Samoa Joe, whose once promising career has been completely wrecked by years of bad booking).

However, for fans who thinks things are going to change and the company will suddenly undergo drastic changes and start raking in the cash, we have two words for you:

Eric Bischoff.