“It’s Just Terrible TV”: 23 Years Later, WWE Legend Reveals Bitterness With Hulk Hogan Over a Career-Damaging Decision

Very few wrestling fans are able to forget the infamous encounter between Jeff Jarrett and Hulk Hogan for the WCW World Heavyweight at Bash at the Beach 2000. In a surprising turn of events, WCW head writer Vince Russo ordered Jarrett to lie down in the ring to allow Hogan to pin him. It made Hogan furious. He got into a heated verbal war with Russo and shortly left the WCW for good.

Later Russo accused Hogan of inserting his creative influence to his own advantage. He loathed Hogan publicly for placing himself as the contender for the world title instead of Booker T, who was originally set to fight Jarrett.

The heat between the former WCW legend and the former writer turned out so volcanic that it led to legal proceedings. 23 years have passed since the event happened. In the meantime, both parties had their say on this several times from several perspectives. But Jarrett, who was merely a tool of this controversy, didn’t say much about this until an interview drove his attention toward the highly disputed topic last year.

Jeff Jarrett regrets one of his notorious storylines involving Hulk Hogan and Vince Russo

Despite being on good terms with Russo, the former WCW wrestler thought it was a bad decision to lay down during that match. It became the very reason for his real-life heat with Hogan. The star immensely regretted the decision, which was Russo’s idea.

Read more: Despite Being Five Years Younger, Hulk Hogan Wanted Ric Flair for His Australia Tour Due to His “Really Bad Physical Shape”

Jarrett explained, ‘There is so many bad things about the storyline you know Eric was never seen on camera and there’s some need on the bone between Vince and Eric. I thought it was the assistant role, but there was no storyline between me and Hogan. There was no storyline between Hogan and another wrestler. It was all the heat on Vince Russo.

He continued, “But then he’s going to go out and make this babyface promo of hey I’m doing this for the youngblood. No, you’re not. Not one person in the arena said, damn right Vince, we’re with you, brother. It’s just terrible TV terrible storyline with zero chance of playoff..’

WCW fell apart shortly after this infamous event. While a failure to create new stars and incidents such as these undoubtedly pushed the company toward an inevitable death, Jarrett believes there were many underlying reasons.

Jeff Jarrett explained why WCW had a premature demise

The former 4-time WCW champion believes the untimely demise of WCW was because of the lack of apt, consistent leaders and creative brains. Once, in an interview on his My World podcast, the WWE Hall of Famer noted that there was no advanced planning or booking regarding the matches in WCW.

The absence of proper leadership broke the base of the company from the core. It created a non amendable mess between staff, administrators, and others.

After leaving WCW, Jarrett channeled his potential by founding NWA: TNA Wrestling in 2002 and returned to WWE to get inducted into the prestigious Hall of Fame in 2018. Last year, the star made his much-anticipated debut in Tony Khan’s company and has been in the spotlight ever since.

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What is your take on the infamous angle between Hulk Hogan and Jeff Jarrett in Bash at the Beach? Let us know in the comments.