God, Vince Russo. He was the right-hand man to Vince McMahon during the Attitude era, which means McMahon filtered out (some of) his utterly stupid ideas and fashioned others into great storylines. When left to his own devices, though, he puts two wrestling companies in the toilet and creates some of the worst television in the history of the world.
So when he takes to writing about wrestling now, it’s no surprise that some of his ridiculous ideas got left on the cutting room floor. One, in particular, featured a DX vs. Nation of Domination angle that sounds like sautéed turds. *adjusts monocle*
But first, some background: DX had just gone out on RAW in BLACKFACE and pretended to be the Nation. The skit is on the Mount Rushmore of racist sh*t that the WWE has done, complete with X-Pac doing Fat Albert voice to mimic Mark Henry. It’s a testament to DX’s charisma (and, you know, the amount of crap we let wrestling get away with) that the skit was entertaining despite how messed up it is.
Russo, though, had an idea for a follow-up and a way to get the Nation its heat back. A shoot flag football game.
The plan was to go out on a football field and have the two factions square off. . . as a shoot. Now, keep in mind, while we are all familiar with DX, let’s take a look at who was on the other side: “The Strongest Man in the World” in Mark Henry, “The Toughest Man in the World” in the Godfather, a legitimate linebacker from the University of Florida in The Rock, and D-Lo Brown. (No offense, D-Lo, but the others were monsters.)
Just imagine. “I hate your roody poo candy ass so much! *delicately tugs at flag near HHH’s genitalia* This had the makings for the worst segment of all time. David Arquette*. But thank goodness there were sensible people around.
The idea was pooh-poohed by DX. I think they were legitimately concerned about how The Nation may have made them look in the process. Now think about the irony of this for a second – Hunter, Sean, Billy, Brian and Chyna were willing to drive up to WCW’s back door driving a freakin’ rocket launcher where they legitimately could have been arrested and taken to jail, but play a FLAG FOOTBALL game against the Nation of Domination? “No thank you.”
Or. And I’m just spitballing here. Or everyone not named Vince Russo realized that watching a flag football game on television is a crap way to spend television time. Let alone a flag football game between two factions who were supposed to be wanting to kill each other. Also, Vince Russo doesn’t understand how flag football works. Mark Henry is built like a lineman. Rock was a linebacker. D’Lo and Godfather were huge guys. Winning at football isn’t as easy as “be big and tough.” It’s flag football. What the hell, man?
Spoiler Alert: TNA is definitely doing a flag football game angle soon, aren’t they?
*David Arquette has nothing to do with this article, but Internet Fake Fighting Writing Style Handbook indicates that I have to mention him every time I mention Vince Russo. These is the rules, kids.
