On the latest “Hall of Fame” podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Booker T gave his thoughts on the Dark Side of the Ring episode that covered Bash at the Beach 2000:
“It was definitely eye opening. I learned a lot about the situation that I didn’t know myself if it’s true. But my thing is, these guys that put themselves on this Dark Side of the Ring shows, they really open themselves up for criticism. They really do. That’s the only thing I think.”
“Jeff Jarrett did a hell of a job on there. I give Jeff Jarrett more credit than anybody that was on that whole episode, more than anybody, seriously, without a doubt. I didn’t know Eric Bischoff was against me winning the championship. I didn’t know that. I didn’t know he was with Hogan on that. I didn’t know that. Those are the things that I didn’t know about. Like I say, if it was up to Eric Bischoff, I may have never won the championship. That’s the way I feel about Eric Bischoff right now at this time because the company was going under, you know, at that time. The company was going down. If I didn’t get it at that time, I wasn’t gonna get it in WCW, probably. That’s just my opinion on that.”
“For a guy like Vince Russo to go out on a limb for me, maybe he despised Hogan that much, but he’s the one who pulled the trigger for me to actually start my ascent to where I became.”
“The thing is, I just, like I say, for me, guys that do those shows, they just open themselves up for criticism. I’ve always felt a certain way about Eric Bischoff just because I always felt like he protected me in WCW and he didn’t let me do a whole lot of jobs. But there again, I realized if it was up to him pulling the trigger on me winning the world championship, I probably wouldn’t have ever won it, so that’s a thought that I wouldn’t have ever had in my mind if he wouldn’t have never done the Dark Side of the Ring.”
He continued a few minutes later, “As far as, like I say, the embellishment of the story, what happened at Bash at the Beach 2000, I don’t think the real story is ever going to come out because I think what we heard on Dark Side of the Ring, just like the plane ride from hell, a lot of stuff was just put in there that wasn’t actually true because I was on the plane ride from hell and it definitely wasn’t that plane ride that they had on that episode, but, there again, that episode right there ruined a lot of people and got a lot of people a lot of heat. When they called me and wanted me to be a part of some stuff like that, I declined. I declined for a reason. Don’t think there’s not a lot of stuff that I could be saying about, you know, people like Eric Bischoff. Don’t think there’s not a lot of stuff I could be saying about Vince Russo and then that whole, you know, time period, but is it worth it? Is it worth it for me to put my reputation and my character on the line for a show that’s paying me $0 or very, very little dollars, dollars that’s definitely not going to be life changing. Why do it? That’s my question. Why? A lot of people still want to be relevant. A lot of people still want to let people know they’re still around, they’re still a part of a game. You know what I mean? For me, there again, just opens you up for a whole lot of criticism.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit The Hall of Fame with Booker T & Brad Gilmore with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
