Mike Johnson · @MikePWInsider
11th Sep 2014 from TwitLonger
Vince Russo, again, decided to lie about me in a podcast interview this week. saying that he held me and my "irresponsibility" as a journalist for his firing from TNA. Of course, he plays loose with FACTS, even as he claims that "journalism is important to him."
So once again, hopefully for the last time, here are the facts, which of course, he will eventually spin, because that's what he's been doing in an attempt to get attention for his website. So, here's his attention and it will hopefully be the last time I have to address this.
*Russo opened up that we "hate him" and "have never met him" and "know nothing of him." Except, he met Dave Scherer backstage at WCW PPVs numerous times when he was booking the company. Except that I knew of Russo dating back to when he was John Arezzi's partner on the old Pro Wrestling Spotlight Newsletter and radio show in NYC...and his own radio show "Vicious Vincent's World of Wrestling" after he and Arezzi had a very acrimonious split of their partnership. I'm sure he will say he doesn't remember this, but Russo and I had spoken on the phone at least a dozen times during that era.
*Russo's version of events is that we hate him because of the wrestling he produces. I don't hate the guy. I hate terrorists. Do I like everything he's ever booked? Nope. But...I could say the same thing about Paul Heyman. No one is going to like everything that someone does in pro wrestling, which is a subjective business. That's how an artform works. But for Russo to say I hate him because he turned Brad Armstrong into Buzzkill or put the WCW title on David Arquette any of the other stupid things that happened over the years, is a dopey statement to make. I might hate those decisions, but I certainly don't hate the man, even after he just claimed I was responsible for him losing his TNA job.
*Russo also said he wishes people were professional and could have difference of opinion. Except years ago, he became the first and only person to pull out of an interview with for PWInsider.com when I made that same statement to him. I said "Even if we don't agree on everything, it will be a good discourse." He pulled out and later claimed he did so because "I had all the answers before asking the questions" - which was a lie. At the time, he also told me he was "out of the wrestling business" so I had no reason to ever write him again.
*Now, as far as the email that was sent to me. Russo emailed me the morning of 7/15. I didn't go live with my story that Russo for several hours, waiting to see if anyone contacted me. No one did. There was "immediate running to the site" as Russo claimed in the podcast interview.
*Russo claimed that I should have contacted him and TNA beforehand. First of all, there was nothing to confirm. Russo had emailed me. There was no argument that he had. It may have been in error, but it was written out to my email. Therefore, I had all the proof I needed. The story was right there, in Russo's own writing.
*Now, following up on what Russo said I should have done, let us not forget that Russo had ignored all of my emails, dating back to January 2014, attempting to confirm my sources that he was still with the company, so why would I expect this to be any different? Put yourself in my shoes as a writer: How can you get someone to respond to you when he consistently has ignored your emails? Russo will say I should have gotten his phone number, but why would I, who's been ignored, actually think Russo is now going to speak to me on the phone about the very subject he's already been ignoring? Common sense says - not going to happen. Russo had already shown that.
*There was no arguing out of this for Russo. What would have happened if I had written him back likely would have been Russo asking me to forget I saw the email. Personally, I wouldn't have blamed him for asking that if he did - but given that he had knocked PWInsider.com's reports that he was working for TNA, I would have still gone forward with the story. Russo's previous snarkiness about us and his decision to ignore previous emails- all meant I knew what any attempts to contact him were going to result in. The bottom line was, my story was true and my first responsibility, as a writer, is to the truth. My second is to my readers. I lived up to my responsibility that day and anyone who says otherwise is just pissed they got caught in a lie.
*That brings me to my next point. When I went live with my story, Russo could have done anything. He could have ignored it, like he did when Dave Scherer wrote that Russo was working as a consultant weeks before. He could have posted snarky comments and a photo of a monkey (as has in the past about the site). He had lots of choices, but Russo blatantly chose to then lie about me. Russo took to Twitter and claim that he had emailed me in an attempt to work me. It was hit attempt to spin the story into an attack on my credibility and the credibility of PWInsider.com. TNA didn't force him to do that. Russo chose to do it. It was an absolute lie - and one he eventually was force to apologize for. He chose to address my story that way. That was not my fault. That was not TNA's fault.
*The interviewer claimed I "blackmailed" Russo into coming clean. That is absolute, utter bullshit. I never did anything of the sort. When RUSSO LIED ABOUT ME, I responded with THE TRUTH. I knew my story was true (someone within TNA had also confirmed it, as if the email itself wasn't proof enough) and that now that he was lying, I warned Russo he could either come clean on his own or I would print the email. That was to prove that he was lying about me, nothing else. Russo chose to attack me. I simply defended myself by giving him the chance to come public aka the very thing he complained I didn't do...except I did...publicly, when he opted to attack me.
*Let us not forget, In the end, Russo was the one who apologized to me. He did so because TNA told him to do so. In his emails, Russo apologized for not "being able to be honest" about his job. To this day, he has never apologizing for lying about me or lying to his Twitter followers - yet he is the one saying I had "no integrity" today.
*Russo also claimed that the day he was let go from TNA, PWInsider immediately went on the site and wrote "VINCE RUSSO GETS FIRED FROM TNA' as a Headline immediately after he had spoken to John Gaburick. That itself would be another lie. Here are the headlines regarding Russo that day:
VINCE RUSSO-TNA UPDATE
by Dave Scherer
7/30/2014 1:24 PM
In this story, Dave Scherer, citing what VINCE RUSSO WROTE ON TWITTER, reported that Russo has left the company. It is completely Russo's side.
MORE ON VINCE RUSSO BEING FIRED BY TNA, THE STATUS OF THE TV DEAL FOR IMPACT AND MORE
by Dave Scherer
7/30/2014 4:24 PM
In this story, Dave Scherer cites what TNA sources told him about Russo's departure. PWInsider has now published both sides of the story, which is what you would hope any legitimate journalistic entity would do.
VINCE RUSSO CONFIRMS HE WAS FIRED BY TNA
by Dave Scherer
7/31/2014 5:40 PM
In this story, Dave Scherer noted that Russo admitted he was fired in a Twitter posting where chose to refer to us as "Sneaky Bastards" by writing that "apparently" we had tapped his phone. Russo claimed in the podcast interview that it was actually a joke, but unless a joke's actually funny to the people who read it, it's not...funny.
There was no "immediate." Russo claimed in the podcast interview that Scherer posted before Russo or John Gaburick had "said anything." LIE. There was no PWInsider story posted until RUSSO HIMSELF publicly announced he was gone from TNA. Dave, as a reporter, then dug into the story, presenting what trusted sources were telling him that differed from Russo's account.
*Russo also later tried to claim on twitter no one had ever reached out to him about working as a consultant for TNA...only I had the original email I sent him in January 2014 and could easily take a picture of that screenshot and post it. Then, he changed it to someone should have called him because journalists don't do work via email. In 2014. Really. He wrote that.
*Of course, throughout all of this, Russo has never, ever offered his phone number to me, by the way. I have had lots of guys and girls offer me their phone number and say, "Call me if you ever hear anything" because they know I will go out of my way to get the story right. The difference is, they don't get mad at me when I do - Vince Russo does.
*In closing, Russo can say whatever he want. He can claim we were "so eager" to run with the story that he got fired and that we wanted to tell people that "he sucked" (none of that is actually in the three articles about his TNA departure, by the way) but the truth remains the truth.
"Journalism is very important to me. Respect is very important to me." - Vince Russo
Journalism is important to me. Respect is important to me. So is honesty. I can go to bed every night knowing I've never lied about Vince Russo. He can never say the same about Mike Johnson.