WCW Bash at the Beach 2000 Throwback Review (July 17, 2000 Wrestling Observer Newsletter)
WCW Bash at the Beach 2000 is arguably one of the most infamous events in the history of World Championship Wrestling, with Hollywood Hulk Hogan ‘winning’ the WCW Title, then that result getting nullified by Vince Russo live on PPV, then Booker T beating Jeff Jarrett to win the World Championship.
Here’s what our own Dave Meltzer said about the now-historic moment in the company’s history, with the WWF dominating in the ratings while WCW struggled creatively both on-screen and behind the scenes.
WCW Bash at the Beach 2000 Review – Dave Meltzer
It’s too soon to say if Bash at the Beach will change the course of WCW’s history, like its Survivor Series counterpart did with the WWF nearly three years ago, but it was a lot better than what they’ve been putting out.
Clearly, if it was a work, the only ones in on it appear to have been Hogan, Bischoff and Russo, and maybe Siegel. Jarrett and T both knew about the later match and T knew he was getting the belt. They even went to the extent of having Johnny Ace book a complicated finish, this time with Hogan winning the title, in front of Jarrett, at least according to Hogan’s version of the story he said the next morning with Bubba, as he insisted it was all a shoot, which has been his vehicle for pushing all his recent works.
As for the show itself on 7/9 at the Ocean Center in Daytona Beach, FL, it drew 4,447 paid and 6,572 total for a gate of $127,010 as well as another $25,020 in merchandise. It was announced on the air as a sellout 16,000 in one of the better whoppers told by an announcing team with zero credibility, but in their defense, who did a tremendous job under the circumstances since they clearly weren’t clued in, and they made the Booker T vs. Jarrett match seem a whole lot better than it really was.
Hulk Hogan vs Jeff Jarrett
Hulk Hogan (Terry Bollea) pinned Jeff Jarrett to theoretically win the WCW title. Vince Russo came out, looking forlorn. Jarrett came down. Russo told him to lay down. Russo threw the belt in the ring like he was mad. Hogan put his foot on Jarrett for the pin. Jarrett got right up and walked out and didn’t look very happy in the process. Hogan said it was bullshit like this that Russo was doing that was ruining wrestling. The announcers went on and on about what they just saw saying it was real life, not a part of the format, etc. Mark Madden, who hates Hogan, took great delight, clearly thinking it was a shoot, that Hogan was exposed for what he is.
The Vince Russo worked shoot
Russo then came out and tried to do a face interview. Nobody reacted to what he said. It was kind of embarrassing having him do his pep talk (“Beyond the Mat,” Paul Heyman before the first ECW PPV show) and the paid and papered crowd, apparently not computer savvy enough to be in on all the things that happened during the week, had no clue what he was talking about. Russo talked about his wife and three kids and how he didn’t know if he would come back. But he did, out of loyalty to all the great wrestlers in WCW.
As everyone in the WWF will attest, if nothing else, Russo is loyal. He came to save the career of Booker T (hey, didn’t he make him G.I. Bro before the discrimination lawsuit got more heated?) MIA, FA’s and Jarrett and started ripping on the egomaniac Hulk Hogan. Hogan played his “creative control” card (“Wrestling with Shadows,” because Russo is to this day obsessed with getting over that the other Vince was right). He said that Hogan insisted that he win the title from Jarrett. So he gave Hogan a belt and said that you will never see Hogan again.
The basic theory seems to be eventually breaking up WCW into a Bischoff led group on one show, which would actually be the old Millionaires Club, against a Russo-led group on another show, the New Blood, which was probably the original idea for April but they felt swerving everyone with them being put together and giving 12 weeks of programming that made no sense was more important I guess. He then said Jarrett would wrestle Booker T for the new title because the old one was dead and buried (“The birth of the ECW title”) because Hulk Hogan (like Ric Flair, the fat man Dusty Rhodes, Kerry Von Erich and Ricky Steamboat and whoever else Douglas said in that speech) can all kiss my ass! And he did all that right off the top of his head. It made for great TV for me, but the crowd reacted about like they did when Andy Kaufman faked a shoot and faked breaking character on Saturday Night Live all those years ago.
You can check out the archives of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter here including Dave’s full review of WCW Bash at the Beach 2000.
Jake is the Head of Audience at F4WOnline, having previously worked as a Combat Sports, Gaming and Pro Wrestling writer, successful Editor in Chief and Sports Coordinator for NationalWorld. He has more than ten years of experience covering mixed martial arts, pro wrestling, football and gaming across a number of publications, starting at SEScoops in 2012. His work has also been featured on Wrestling Headlines, Wrestlingnewsco, HotNewHipHop and The Hard Times.
Previously, he worked as the Editor in Chief of 24Wrestling, building the site profile with a view to selling the domain, which was accomplished in 2019. Jake was previously the Editor in Chief for FightFans, a combat sports and pro wrestling site that was launched in January 2021 and broke into millions of pageviews within the first two years. He previously worked for Snack Media and their GiveMeSport site, creating Evergreen and Trending content that would deliver pageviews via Google as the UFC and MMA SEO Lead. Jake managed to take an area of GiveMeSport that had zero traction on Organic and push it to audiences across the globe. Jake also has a record of long-term video and written interview content with the likes of the Professional Fighters League, ONE and Cage Warriors, working directly with the brands to promote bouts, fighters and special events.
He previously also worked for PROGRESS Wrestling, as PR Head and Head of Media across the social channels of the company.