10 Things We Learned From Dark Side Of The Ring: WCW Bash At The Beach 2000

8. This Wasn’t WCW’s Killing Blow

Dark Side Of The Ring Hulk Hogan Vince Russo WCW
VICE

VICE's latest episode kinda presents Bash At The Beach 2000 as the final nail in WCW’s coffin, but that’s not really true at all. Even Eric Bischoff popped by to say the place was already chaos long before that. If anything, Bash 2000 was just another incident in a long, long line of bullsh*t.

It's hard to disagree in retrospect, and kudos to Bisch for refusing to pretend that big, bad Vince Russo crashed the party in late-1999 and wrecked WCW fun for everybody. He's been very candid over the years on his podcast about how much of an absolute state the company was throughout most of the 90s during his tenure.

Many presumably thought it couldn't be killed full stop. They were wrong, because all of the bad decisions mounted up, but Ted Turner's backing gave everyone a sense of confidence that WCW could continue p*ssing money up against a wall post-2000 without any consequences.

Uh uh.

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Lifelong wrestling, video game, music and sports obsessive who has been writing about his passions since childhood. Jamie started writing for WhatCulture in 2013, and has contributed thousands of articles and YouTube videos since then. He cut his teeth penning published pieces for top UK and European wrestling read Fighting Spirit Magazine (FSM), and also has extensive experience working within the wrestling biz as a manager and commentator for promotions like ICW on WWE Network and WCPW/Defiant since 2010. Further, Jamie also hosted the old Ministry Of Slam podcast, and has interviewed everyone from Steve Austin and Shawn Michaels to Bret Hart and Trish Stratus.