From what I've heard so far, Russo is ***FAR*** better as a solo act than Mike.
I was reading through some of my comments in this thread, including the one above, and boy was I wrong. After listening to both of them as solo acts for the past couple of years, it's
clear that Mike was the main talent in the duo. Russo's show borders on unlistenable. He rants and raves, uses the same verbal crutches constantly (gimme the
scenario with that... what's the
scenario with this...) and he freely admits that he doesn't watch sports as much as he used to. Last fall, he claimed that "nobody has ever heard of the Suh kid from Nebraska."
Right, Chris. He's only the most dominant player in college football. But because HE isn't familiar with Suh due to being out shopping with his wife on Saturdays,
nobody else could possibly know who he is, either. And the guy openly says he missed part of one of the NFL playoff games because he was watching......
TENNIS! Sorry, anyone who watches tennis over an NFL game (playoffs or otherwise) doesn't deserve my respect or my business as a listener.
As for Mike, he's like an old comfortable shoe. He, too, has his bad/annoying verbal crutches:
But there is far more substance to his show as opposed to Dog's show. Mike still needs to stop talking over his callers, and he can be incredibly arrogant, but he gets the A-list guests (Jim Nantz today... Coach K tomorrow, for example) and he takes plenty of calls from his audience. Mike is fairly knowledgeable on most subjects. Perhaps not as knowledgeable as he
thinks he is, but knowledgeable enough to speak with some authority on most-things sports. I find it hard to turn off Mike's show. I listen to almost all of it whether I'm at home or on the road.
Anyway, at least for me, Mike beats Dog. And it's not close. But they were certainly at their best as a team.