Booker T Turned Down Dark Side of the Ring Appearance, Citing Reputation Concerns

Booker T explained why he declined to appear on a recent episode of Dark Side of the Ring.

The August 1st episode of Dark Side of the Ring chronicled the events of the infamous WCW Bash at the Beach 2000 pay-per-view. While Booker T emerged victorious as WCW World Champion, the event is best known for the controversy surrounding the title match between Hulk Hogan and Jeff Jarrett.

Speaking on a recent episode of his Hall of Fame podcast, Booker T gave his thoughts on Dark Side of the Ring’s coverage of the event, saying he learned a lot from the episode and praising Jeff Jarrett for his appearance on the show.

“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.”
“I Declined For A Reason” – Booker T
 
Continuing, Booker T explained why he turned down the opportunity to tell his side of the story on on the episode, saying he didn’t want to open himself up to criticism, particularly after the fallout from the episode chronicling the Plane Ride from Hell.

“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.”

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