Vince Russo believes professional wrestling has drifted way too far from one of the most basic rules of the business — protecting the person standing across the ring from you. Russo made the statement while discussing Ganon Jones Jr.’s decision to step away from wrestling following the death of Andy “The Butcher” Williams, and he didn’t hold back when explaining what he thinks the business has forgotten.
The conversation came after Ringside News covered how Ganon Jones Jr. stepped away from wrestling after his daughter begged him to stop following Williams’ death. Jones was involved in Williams’ final match at Enjoy Wrestling’s September 5 event, and the experience clearly hit him hard enough to reconsider whether he wanted to keep wrestling.
Before Russo got into his larger point, he made sure not to blame anyone for what happened to Williams. Russo stressed that he had not seen the match and noted that Williams’ official cause of death had not been established at the time of the conversation.
“The autopsy has not come through and we still don’t know how Andy Williams—we still don’t know the cause of death. We have heard he hit his head. That’s what we—we don’t know anything official, guys. I do not know, but that is what we heard, that he hit his head.”
That lines up with previous Ringside News coverage of emergency dispatch audio stating that Williams had “hit his head” on a ring post before the medical emergency. However, that information has never established that the impact caused his collapse or death, something Russo himself was careful not to claim. Russo then turned his attention directly to Jones. He said he had never personally met the indie wrestler, but immediately praised his look and told him he appeared to belong in the wrestling business.
“Ganon Jones, I don’t know you. I never heard of you. I will tell you this. You look like a million bucks. You look like a wrestler and you’re in the right business. Okay? And bro, a lot of us, you know, we have children and we have wives and we’re in the wrestling business.”
That is when Russo got to the part he clearly felt people were missing. He said wrestling is supposed to be built around cooperation, controlled physicality and protecting the person you’re working with — not seeing how far somebody can push their body before something goes wrong.
“Obviously, I’m not a worker. I don’t think Coach would consider himself a worker, but Coach has worked a lot more than I have. But Coach, here’s what we’re losing sight of. And I’m not saying it was something crazy cuz I did not see it. We got to remember this, guys. Wrestling is supposed to be safe. Wrestling is supposed to be a work, which means the moves, the impact, the hitting each other.”
Russo continued by arguing that the danger inside a wrestling ring is supposed to be minimized because both wrestlers are working together. He also compared that philosophy to what he remembers from his own years around WWE.
“They’re supposed to be working with each other and protecting each other. The risk in wrestling is really supposed to be, you know, at a minimal. It’s supposed to be a safe sport. Coach, I know when I was there, okay, rarely did people get injured. And what would an injury be, bro? You would come off the top with an axe handle and your knee would—you’d twist your knee. You would just land wrong.”
Russo said the injuries he remembers were often freak accidents rather than the result of wrestlers constantly trying to pull off increasingly dangerous maneuvers. In his view, wrestlers from that era were focused on working safely and taking care of each other.
“It was always something like that. Very rarely was it some high, high-risk maneuver where somebody get hurt. It was just a lot of them were freaky injuries cuz the guys back then worked safe and kept each other safe. So I don’t want him to lose sight of that. It’s—wrestling is not supposed to be a dangerous business.”
“We are supposed to be working with each other. We are supposed to be protecting each other. Man, I just kind of think we’ve lost sight of that a little bit, Coach.”
Coach followed up by making it clear that neither man was talking specifically about something that happened during Williams’ match because they had not seen it. Instead, he raised a broader issue with the independent wrestling scene, suggesting that some wrestlers may feel pressure to take bigger risks just to create a viral moment and get people talking.
That makes Russo’s comments less about pointing a finger at one wrestler or promotion and more about where he believes wrestling has gone as a whole. His message was pretty simple: the business may look violent, but the people inside the ring are supposed to be protecting each other — and Russo believes that part of wrestling has started getting lost.
Do you agree with Vince Russo that wrestling has lost sight of protecting wrestlers in the ring, or do you think today’s style is simply an evolution of the business? Let us know what you think in the comments.
This transcript was produced exclusively for Ringside News from the original recording. Republishing the transcription in full is prohibited. When using excerpts, provide prominent credit and a link to this article.
