WrestleMania 9's Most Controversial Title Win Explained

Mark Jindrak credits Vince Russo with giving him the WCW television time that helped him land in WWE.

Speaking with Bryan Asbury on Developmentally Speaking, Jindrak explained why he doesn’t have bad words for Russo when he looks back at that opportunity.

“I will never have any bad words for him because he gave us an opportunity,” Jindrak said.

“And that opportunity of like nine months of TV time gave us a chance to get picked up right away by WWE.”

“They saw enough on us to say, ‘Hey, let’s take a chance on these young guys.’ So that was cool.”

Before those opportunities grew into a regular in-ring role, Jindrak was getting on television as security.

He recalled being one of the guards Hulk Hogan laid out in a backstage segment and what that appearance meant after leaving school to pursue wrestling.

“This was like a satisfaction for me because I got to be in vignettes, cool vignettes and backstage things,” Jindrak said.

“One of the first things that happened to me, Hulk Hogan was backstage and he beat up some security guys. I was one of those guys.”

“And it sounds minuscule, like, ‘Oh, that was just TV security. You weren’t doing nothing,’ but on the real, for my family to see me on TV laid out, they knew something was coming.”

“Like, ‘Oh, he must be training and he must be part of the show.’ So that kind of made it worth it.”

“And what was cool was we got paid like a few hundred dollars a day too. So that was awesome as well.”

“So yeah, I was able to train, I was able to make a little money on the side, and then meeting all these guys.”

“Every Monday I’d see guys at the hotel in the bar.”

Jindrak’s WWE development also included OVW, where he worked under Jim Cornette before his scrapped plans with Evolution.

In Jindrak’s view, an impending call-up created a problem for Cornette’s storylines, while the wrestlers were eager to move on.

“When he knew someone was getting called up for TV, it would kill him because he couldn’t use you really on his TV show very heavily because he’s huge on the storylines,” Jindrak said.

“But as soon as we get moved up, we want to get the hell out of Louisville.”

“Nothing against Louisville, but your ultimate goal is to go.”

“I had a house in Atlanta, so I wanted to get away from Louisville and go back home to Atlanta and fly out of Atlanta and start my career per se and get out of the minor leagues.”

The interview offers a rare inside look at how the wrestling business worked in the early 2000s, from the backstage segments that launched careers to the tension between developmental territory storytelling and the main roster call-up system.

Jindrak’s path through WCW, WWE, and OVW mirrors the experience of many wrestlers who came up during that era, where a few months of TV exposure could make or break a shot at the big leagues.

His gratitude toward Vince Russo stands out because Russo is often criticized by wrestlers and fans for his creative decisions in WCW and later in TNA.

But Jindrak sees it differently, crediting Russo for the airtime that got him noticed by WWE scouts.

The Hulk Hogan backstage spot, while brief, became a tangible milestone for Jindrak’s family who could finally see him on national television as part of the show.

That segment, though minor in the grand scheme of a WrestleMania 9 card, carried personal weight for a wrestler who had left school to chase the dream.