Yesterday, f4wonline.com reported that Vince Russo was out as head writer of TNA. In a breaking news audio show, Dave Meltzer confirmed that Russo was not at the Against All Odds PPV and that though nothing has been announced officially everyone was speculating that Russo was gone from the company.
Russo's power has been significantly reduced over the past six months. First, Bruce Prichard overtook his role as TNA's creative head and he was demoted to a senior writing position. Soon after, former WWE writer Dave Lagana was hired by TNA to work on their Ring Ka King Indian wrestling project with an eye towards him being a possible long term replacement for Russo, given his experience of filling out format sheets as the head writer of Smackdown and ECW in the past. Meltzer believes that Russo left the promotion of his own accord, fed up of losing his creative influence, as Dixie Carter was known to be ultra protective of his spot within the company and swore that she would never fire him.
However, Wade Keller of PWTorch.com and Mike Johnson of that spyware wrestling site have yet to fully confirm the story, so Meltzer's report may have been premature. For some reason Eric Bischoff is unhappy at Johnson's recent reporting leading to this Facebook status update:
As much as I try not to call out specific dirt-site marks/bloggers as not to inadvertently promote them, Mike Johnson is a complete tool (obviously being fed false, mis-leading info from another tool "close to the source". Johnson couldn't be more wrong when he posts his "insight" as to the behind the scenes.
Which may be a sign that Russo is indeed out.