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Three months ago, there were rumblings in the wrestling media (most strongly coming from Mike Johnson of PWInsider.com, but other sites discussed the rumor too) that Vince Russo had been quietly rehired by TNA's creative head John Gaburick as a consultant.
Although the story was never officially confirmed, with TNA Impact's booking featuring many of Russo's hallmarks (like a heavily hyped evening gown match to pop a rating, a more frenetic pacing and far too many swerve turns), I personally believed the gossip to be true, but felt that TNA wanted to keep it a secret given how divisive a figure Russo is to hardcore fans.
When he was directly asked about the rumors in early May, Russo claimed that he was not under contract to any wrestling company, but strangely refused to comment on whether he was working as a consultant for TNA or not. It may have been as truthful a statement as Russo could make at that time regarding the matter.
In a really strange turn of events, Russo today unwittingly outed himself as a creative consultant for TNA by absentmindedly CC'ing Mike Johnson into a private email between him and TNA announcers Mike Tenay and Taz with confidential information about how he wanted them to do the voice overs for a recently taped episode of Impact. Johnson immediately published the following "gotcha" post on his website gloating about how it proved he was right all along that Russo was working for TNA again:
"As previously noted here on the site, Vince Russo has publicly declined to comment on PWInsider.com's story that he is still working for TNA as a creative consultant.
Therefore, it was very interesting today that I received an email from Russo, who accidentally cc'd me in, featuring instructions and advice from him to Mike Tenay and Taz on how certain segments of a TNA TV episode about to be voiced over should be handled.
That should put to rest, once and for all, any question that Russo is still involved and working for TNA."
Initially, Russo dug his heels in and instead of admitting to a stupid mistake that most people have done at some time in their lives, he pretended on Twitter that it was all just a prank and he had intentionally fed Johnson with misinformation to see if he would naively fall for it:
"WOW---just amazing to see that anybody will print anything as TRUTH without checking into it. Nice to see the SWERVE still works!!!"
However, Mike Johnson stuck to his guns and threatened to publish the email he had received in error if Vince Russo didn't come clean on his own:
"Three things. 1 - I confirmed the email was legit. 2 - Russo didn't try to swerve anyone. 3 -
@pyroballyhoo can come clean or I can go forward and do what I first chose not to do, publish the email that was sent to me. He's the one lying about the story. Swerve? He's not that creative. More like trying to spin things. The countdown begins Vince. It's all on you now."
A few hours later, Russo contritely issued a statement on his website concerning his current involvement with TNA that confirmed Mike Johnson's earlier reports that yes, he was indeed working as a consultant for TNA:
"Recently, I accidentally sent an e-mail to a third-party that was not meant for their eyes. The e-mail concerned my current involvement with TNA Wrestling.
TNA rendered my services as a consultant to work with their announce team of Mike Tenay and Taz. The condition from their side was that I kept it confidential between the two parties. As their employee, it was up to me to honor their wishes, so that’s what I intended to do.
My integrity means everything to me, so I just hope you can understand and forgive.
Peace."
Russo also both publicly and privately apologized to the dirt sheet writer. He hasn't as yet apologized for any bad ideas that he himself conceived that were broadcast by TNA in recent months.