According to Vince Russo and many fans, the WWE product is far from its best state in 2025. The ex-creative head of the company gave a key insight into why that is the case.
On the latest episode of Writing with Russo, host Dr. Chris Featherstone spoke to Vince Russo about AJ Lee and the general creative landscape. When specifically talking about the women’s division, Russo believes that the company’s booking of them has given almost no meaning to any female star.
Vince Russo said that WWE has too much on its plate when it comes to programming, and explained the exact reason why the show isn’t as good as it used to be:
“It’s funny, bro, because the landscape we’re talking about. It [WWE shows] being all over the place; that all goes back to how many shows they’re writing a week. That’s what it all goes back to. That’s why everything seems like a big mess, last-minute, things don’t make sense. It’s the way they’re writing the shows.”
You can watch the full video below:
WWE could get into trouble because of the names they’re dealing with, according to Vince Russo
According to Vince Russo, the way WWE has been handling the product lately isn’t sustainable in the long run, as it’s clear as day that the sports entertainment juggernaut keeps adding more to its plate, and it leads to a watering down of the TV product. Russo says that there’s simply no time for anyone to write a good show.
Russo referred to FOX pulling out of their relationship following the end of the 5-year deal with SmackDown, and believes that TKO is now dealing with much bigger players, and therefore, bigger consequences:
“Here’s the thing: they’re going to get away with it for a while, but they’re in bed with big hitters now. Like I said, a lot of people swept this under the rug, and nobody wants to talk about it. We saw what happened with FOX. These companies are bigger than FOX.”
“Big hitters,” in this case, of course, refers to ESPN and Netflix. It’s true that FOX seemingly wanted to wash their hands after the five-year SmackDown deal ended. There was a negotiation, with the sports entertainment giant naturally looking to get a big increase on the $200-million a year deal. That didn’t happen, and it should be noted that back in 2019, $200-million a year was a record-breaking number that hadn’t been seen for wrestling broadcasts.
In 2025, Netflix is paying a 150% premium to that figure for RAW, and the deal is longer as well. Time will tell how things play out in the ESPN deal as well as the Netflix one.
If you use the quotes from the first half of this article, please credit Sportskeeda Wrestling and embed the episode of Writing with Russo.
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