A look back at one of the most in-famous story-lines in WCW. Unlike many of the company's greatest stories, this one in-fact had a real life element. With Jeff Jarrett as champion and with Vince Russo (who was the latest of a long list controlling WCW), Hogan strongly disliked the idea of Russo's new-blood scheme he was implementing since he took sole control. The three would square up at the Bash At The Beach in July 2000 and would result in real-life events taking place much to the shock of the fans and wrestling critics worldwide.It proved to be the most controversial PPV event in WCW history. Despite the card proving to be less than average it was the main-event incident that is still remembered, and not for the right reasons either. Vince Russo was the head of WCW creative department meaning he would write and direct story-lines before they un-folded infront of the capacity crowd. Russo had done just so prior to Bash At The Beach however it's approval wasn't welcomed by everyone.
Many superstars had joined the WCW for numerous reasons - one being the creative control aspect they had in their contracts enabling them to have a say in the direction their character was going. Hogan has stated he never used his creative control clause in his contract once during his six years in WCW and stated it would be this very night when he would.
The controversy commenced when Russo took control. His greatest focus was on how the old-timers were controlling the company and preventing any fresh talent being promoted from mid or lower card status to main event status. Vince's biggest priority was pushing all these guys on guaranteed contracts and creative clauses to one side and allowing 'New Blood' such as Jarrett, Booker T, Buff Bagwell, Scott Steiner etc to reach the top after numerous hard years of labour within the company.
It is widely believed that Hulk feared for his future once he lost to Jarrett as Russo was keen to show Hulk the door. With his creative control card in place, once he was told about Russo's plans to have him lose to Jarrett, he downright refused to lose and even stated he wouldn't show unless Russo agreed, according to Russo.
With his hands tied behind his back, Russo and Jarrett agreed to show Hogan up in-front of the crowd. To do so they opted for Jarrett to lay down in the middle of the ring as soon as the bell rung enabling Hulk to pin Jarrett freely giving him his much wanted win. Words were then exchanged much to Hogan's anger he even shouted at Russo asking him to correct the decision.
Hogan stands still and calls for Jarrett to get up and face him for the fans sake but under orders he refused. Russo threw the belt into the ring and walked back stage before Hogan placed his foot on Jarrett's chest to give him the victory. But it wasn't finished there.....
The crowd were furious about what had just occurred and became pretty heated before Hogan got on the mic.Still stunned at what had just happened, he broke all rules of wrestling and played real life events out in-front of the fans, "This is why this company is in the damn shape it's in: because of bullshit like this". This led to Russo coming out to address the fans and put them straight. He informed them they would never see Hulk again in the WCW and that he was the reason, along with others, the company was going down the pan.
It came as no surprise that the company was closing down just nine months later when backstage politics like this and rubbish story-lines continued weekly. Despite the claims about Russo destroying WCW he was in control of a company with no control. The superstars didn't like new guys coming to the front, the people who ran WCW didn't like WCW and everyone was out for themselves. Russo's matches were horrendous as everything ended up "on a pole" match but the downfall of WCW was not Russo's fault but in-fact a number of factors.
Click on the link below to re-capture the events.
Bash At The Beach 2000 Incident
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