Vince Russo’s The Brand Recap – RAW & Smackdown Live Analysis, Ziggler’s ‘Terrible’ New Gimmick, McMahon Gets Busted Open, More!

Russo is joined on today’s show by his co-host Jeff Lane.

Russo says that while RAW and Smackdown Live weren’t great shows this week, there were a number of positives that gave him hope for the future. Of course there were a number of negative things as well, but Russo points out that it’s refreshing that there were things on the shows this week that he actually wants to talk about.

Russo didn’t like that RAW booked Roman Reigns versus Jason Jordan one week after they booked John Cena versus Jordan. These two matches were carbon copies of each other, and just because Jordan is having good matches that doesn’t mean that he’s going to get over. Now, if these competitive losses lead to frustration from Jordan or disappointment from Kurt Angle to further the storyline, Russo is okay with it.

He thinks that WWE has gone to the well too many times with the Cena/Reigns ‘shoot’ promos. The first one was very well done and it felt real, but the last two times felt like contrived wrestling promos. Russo also says that he didn’t mind Cena brining up Reigns’ failed drug test, but he thought Reigns really needed to have a comeback in that spot.