10 Times WCW Went Too Far
8. IT'S STILL REAL TO ME, DAMMIT
Professional wrestling is not complicated, or at least it shouldn't be. Two trained athletes (or four) have a beef, they have a fight, good guy eventually beats bad guy. All fans ask is for it to make sense, for it to be logical, for it to be good. Confusing promos aren't needed, there's no need to blur the lines between reality and fiction.
Vince Russo missed this section of pro wrestling school, and he spent much of his time at WCW trying to confuse fans as much as possible, insulting the history of professional wrestling in the process. Fans could easily dip into the history books and identity a whole heap of Russo booking mishaps, but the nonsense and madness of Bash at the Beach 2000 takes the cake. When you consider Russo made himself champion, that tells you how ridiculous this all was.
Jeff Jarrett was scheduled to defend the WCW World Heavyweight Championship against Hulk Hogan. Jarrett was scheduled to win, but Hogan invoked his creative control clause and refused to take the L. Incensed, Russo booked a bullsh*t finish, where Jarrett would lie down for Hogan. This happened, and Hulk subsequently cut a promo deriding Russo and blaming him (or his booking, at least) for the state that the company was in.
Russo later came out and rendered the match null and void, booking Jarrett vs. Booker T for the title in the main event of the show, all the whilst running Hogan down. Following his defamatory comments, Hulk Hogan was never seen in WCW again - and in fact, he took the booker to court.
To that point, the whole thing had been a work, with Hogan eventually scheduled to come back and face Jarrett or Booker in a Champion vs. Champion showdown later in the year. The only part that was a 'shoot' was Russo firing Hogan.
The words 'work' and 'shoot' need to be banned from professional wrestling, yesterday.