Vince Russo (via Ariel helwani) stated that the last time he communicated with Vince McMahon, McMahon proposed that he audition to re-join WWE:
“The last time we had an email exchange, God, it was probably, I don’t know, maybe eight years ago. And it didn’t go too well. He was entertaining the fact of bringing me back because the numbers were going down again—and he kind of wanted me to audition for the job. And I’m like, ‘Vince, I think you kind of know what I can do. I think you’ve seen what I could do. I’m not jumping through hoops. You can continue going on down the road you’re going down.’
I actually reached out, but he did get back to me immediately. He wanted me to, like, watch the shows a month and give him my feedback. I came back with, ‘Okay, no problem. And what are you paying me for that month?’ And he hit me with, ‘Pay you? You should be thrilled to have this kind of opportunity.’ And I’m like, ‘Vince, I’m not a kid just out of college. I’m not working for free. I’m not watching the shows. If you want to compensate me, no problem. But the days of me doing anything for free are long gone.’
I’ll be honest, he got pretty nasty to me, and the last email was really nasty. He was hitting me below the belt. And I didn’t even answer it.”