reliving BATB 2000

[NormanSmiley]

When it happened live 14 years ago I loved it simply because of the cutting edge stuff with russo and Hogan, and to see a fresh face get the title.


watched it again last night and I'm wondering what you guys think looking back

Russo pretty much gets in the ring and tells everyone hey its all fake and I wanted to give you a better show but Hogan wouldn't let me (meanwhile every match sucked) and exposes the business that played up to the smarks.

so that got me to wondering on here these days there are those championing that the WWE doesn't listen to the 5% of the guys in their moms basement streaming PPVs without paying for them who all clam they can write a better show that doesn't involve "cena wins". Did Russo actually do that, didn't he actually let the smarks have their show and how did that work out ratings wise in hindsight?

side note: I forgot how much the booker/Jarrett match went and if you could have booked that to prove your point as Russo would you have used chair shots and ref bumps to give booker the title or have him gone over 100% clean?

[Innovator]

I hated the "This stuff is real, don't pay attention to that fake stuff" Russo style.

[Corndad]

Well here's Russo's take for what it's worth...

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/d_DHYPKdUdM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[Logan]

To answer N.S' question, I would have had a run-in on Jarretts behalf, somehow got a chair involved from the run-in, but have Booker come back and win, probably with a submission. (I can't remember Booker ever using or winning with a submission hold up to that PPV, so I'd have had him use one if only to do something different).

I enjoyed watching that video of Russos explanation, "assuming" that he told the truth in the interview, of course. (I can buy into most of it, due to Hogan's well known history of doing that kind of thing... About the only part I couldn't buy into was Jarrett supposedly not knowing).

To memory, I'd give the entire PPV a high "C" grade. Overall I thought this ppv was one of Russos better ones. (to me, most of the ones during his era were D to F quality, mainly from a storyline perspective, which was made obvious by the match quality).

To me the best parts of the PPV were the Hogan/Russo stuff, which led to, IMO, the best match of the night, which was Jarret/Booker, and I say that even though I was hating Russo like many others did.

To me, Russo was very UN-Russo that night in the sense that he gave the fans what they wanted in a believable way, and I liked Russos (i think) one and only nod/homage to the way wrestling was before he got into the business:

1: He got heat on himself and Jarrett in a similar fashion to the way Heyman And Coulter do in the Federation nowadays.

2: Even though I doubt any of the fans in the building bought that Russo and Jarret weren't conspiring against Hogan, and his nonsensical match making of Jarrett/Booker, I think people were happy with it if only to cheer for someone who could possibly beat Jarrett and represent the fans in giving a universal double birded FU to Russo because fans hated him so much.

3: The entire thing felt real... and I think you could hear it in the crowd. It didn't feel like the usual garbage Russo has been known to dish out

Unfortunately, as good as the actual WHC match was, and as promising as I thought the storyline with Booker T as WHC could have been, it was killed off way too soon.

[NormanSmiley]

i take issue with a couple points in russo's explaination vid

1. it's russo so take that for what you will and he always gives some elaborate essay to answer a yes or no question (sign of lying)

2. this "creative meeting" where people were all screaming for booker to be champ seems like bullshit. russo didnt have 8-10 people in creative and if so he would do the opposite of what they thought because of his ego at the time

3. "this is on a friday, the ppv is on sunday" if this is true what the fuck are they doing booking PPVs two days before the event?? i've never been a booker but first thing im doing as a writer is having a vision of where you want to be in a 6 months span and then adjust, not decide on the fly

[Logan]

I wonder if Russo started the trend of "last minute" rewrites. Seems like thats happening a lot in the Federation lately.

If not, I'd guess hes one of the ones who helped to make it somewhat commonplace

[Bad News Gertner]

i take issue with a couple points in russo's explaination vid

1. it's russo so take that for what you will and he always gives some elaborate essay to answer a yes or no question (sign of lying)

2. this "creative meeting" where people were all screaming for booker to be champ seems like bullshit. russo didnt have 8-10 people in creative and if so he would do the opposite of what they thought because of his ego at the time

3. "this is on a friday, the ppv is on sunday" if this is true what the fuck are they doing booking PPVs two days before the event?? i've never been a booker but first thing im doing as a writer is having a vision of where you want to be in a 6 months span and then adjust, not decide on the fly

Lol I don't think anyone had the book for 6 months at a time post 98.

That whole situation is just odd.

[Curd]

The only thing I didn't like was FUNB Hulkster not getting to <del>squash</del> feud with the Natural Born Thrillers. He could have been in the Fall Brawl 2000 10-person elimination match instead of the soon-injured Paul Orndorff.