WWE Hall Of Famer Says Company Set Them Up To Fail
WWE didn’t want everyone to succeed.
Back in 2001, Booker T and Buff Bagwell were involved in one of the most infamous matches in WWE Raw history. On July 2nd, in Tacoma, Washington the pair headlined Raw in what was meant to be something of a showcase for WCW.
WWE had purchased the company that March and had plans to form a brand split to keep the two sides in ‘competition.’ However, the match was so badly received that plans for a WCW relaunch were scrapped and Bagwell never wrestled for the company again.
Bagwell was recently the subject of an episode of Dark Side of The Ring, something that didn’t sit well with Shane Helms. In one social media post, the WWE producer said Buff Bagwell was a “piece of sh*t.”
Speaking on his Hall of Fame podcast, Booker T revealed he was asked to appear on the episode but turned the interview down.
“Dark Side of the Ring, they reached out to me to be part of some of these series and episodes, but I turned it down just because, anything that happened with Buff Bagwell and I, anything I have to say about Buff Bagwell, it’s private,
It’s something that’s internal, it’s something that him and I know and I’m not going to expose it or put it out there or anything like that just because I don’t think the world really needs to know what happened with Bagwell and I, and that night, or anything like that. The way it’s written is the way it’s going to be told from here on out. I won’t have anything to say about it.”
WWE Management Gave Out Bizarre Instructions
Despite saying he wasn’t going to comment, Booker T went on to do just that. The WWE Hall of Famer said he and Bagwell were told to ignore the crowd during their match, something he found “suspicious.”
“Let me speak on one thing, just to clarify. That night Bagwell and I had to go out and work, it was the first time it was two WCW guys in the main event,” said Booker. I do remember agents talking to me and telling me exactly what they didn’t want me to do.
They told me to look straight at the camera, go out, and work. Don’t shake nobody’s hands. That was my thing, going out happy, shaking hands, high-fiving. They told Bagwell the exact same thing. Go straight out and go to work. Don’t even think about the fans. That was something that I found very odd, kind of suspicious.”
Booker added that he and other WCW stars were “put out there to fail” as WWE wanted to show they had “won the war.”
“We weren’t put in a position to succeed back then in WWE. None of the WCW guys were. We were put out there to fail. We were put out there to get our asses beat and for WWE to plant that flag and say, ‘We won this war,
We got the best wrestlers in the world and we just proved it with these two guys in the ring.’ That part of Marcus Bagwell’s story is 100% true. Was is the greatest match I had? No. Was it the worst match? I don’t think it was the worst match I ever had. I do know, whatever we did that night, those fans in Tacoma, Washington, didn’t give a damn about Booker T or Marcus Bagwell. It was a rough night.”
On the same episode of his podcast, Booker T denied he had any issues with CM Punk, despite previously claiming they “almost got into it” at an NXT taping.
H/t to Fightful