10 Classic Jeff Jarrett Matches You Need To See
7. Vs Booker T (WCW Bash At The Beach 2000)
Only Vince Russo could mangle his genuinely discerning attempt to push under-appreciated talent by making all the headlines about one of his worked shoot disasterpieces.
Such was the case in July 2000, when the former WWE creative doyen celebrated four years since Hulk Hogan turned heel and transformed the industry by inadvertently making him the lamest villain in wrestling in the very same arena.
As extensively covered elsewhere ad nauseam (and in a way Russo probably still thinks means he was bang right to do it), Hogan and the WCW chief's reality-tinged verbals earlier in the show resulted in Jeff Jarrett and Booker T fighting for the bedraggled World Heavyweight Championship in a battle of a heel supposedly with creative 'Stroke' and a babyface the head of creative gifted an opportunity to. Jeff and Booker weren't just tasked with having a good match - they were required to calm the spinning heads of a frazzled crowd.
Largely, they were successful too. Jarrett's persona had been beaten half to death by the wretched Russo regime, but away from storyline disturbances he was briefly a believable headliner again. His relentless suppression of Booker's fighting spirit was infuriating - the perfect old fashioned strategy to make sense of the abysmal new era WCW were trying to usher in. T's eventual victory represented a beacon of hope rapidly smashed, but stood away from the chaos around it, the contest remains the company's finest pay-per-view main event of the year.