Did HHH really bury Booker T?

[angryfan]

I can buy most of the defense for Trips going over, even if I don't agree with it. If they weren't sure if Booker would stick around, or they weren't completely happy with the reactions he got, or anything else, it's fine. I may not agree with it, but I can see a "business concern" being a reason why they'd call off the title change.

What makes it a burial to me is the fact that, at Wrestlemania, especially that night, everybody got to kick out of their opponent's finisher. Kayfabe-wise, it signifed that the night was special, that the guys in the ring would go further into their reserves to keep fighting because the night was just that important to them.

Booker took one Pedigree, just one, laid there fora good twenty to thirty seconds, then got pinned. He didn't kick out, he didn't "keep fighting", he just got "outclassed" and that is not the way to make a babyface seem important at all.

["Dashing" Dr.VonPhoenix]

Yes, he did. But really... it was Snitsky's fault.

[waluigi]

I had to bring this up again:

Apr 15, 2010 16:19:32 GMT -5 wrestlecrapcrap said:

In any case, why can't they do it? If it made more money for them as a result, it's fair game.

think about what you're saying: you're trying to cite HHH vs. Booker T as a draw on a card with THREE MAIN EVENTS, one of which is Steve Austin's last match and the other involves Brocc Lesnar.

Come on dude, we can do better than THAT...

If they were going to use him on the same level they may as well try and make as much money out of a much featuring him as possible. It didn't render him unpushable afterwards. Ratings didn't plummet because of that one angle, and it made people want the belt off of HHH more after he won it.

you keep talking about them making money, but Pay Per View buyrates that year are the lowest for the whole decade, so that isn't even up for discussion.

Him not winning the title then didn't ruin him but dude couldn't even get a win at Backlash. Can you please tell me what's the point of having a wrestlemania angle with no payoff?

[thesunbeast]

Apr 16, 2010 4:51:10 GMT -5 MichaelMartini said:

Apr 16, 2010 2:52:01 GMT -5 thesunbeast said:

Read my longer post. "Months" don't seperate anything. There are spots on a roster. It's not all about "da title", it's about the spots. You may have a main event monster heel, a main event underdog babyface, a midcard chicken heel, a midcard badass babyface, ect...those are all spots. If you have two of the same, say you have two midard chicken heels, then they are automatically competition for each other in real life. Right now, The Miz is a midcard arrogant heel, and so is Dolph Ziggler. If the two were on the same show, they would both be in competition to fill the role of the midcard chicken heel role, and so one would be used often in the role and the other would be pushed down a few levels. Same thing for monster heels, same thing for underdog babyfaces, and same thing for who is going to be the flagship of the company.

They build up a heel before trying to make a flagship of a company. That's a big role you know. If they spend 5 months building to make Booker T the flagship, and they then change their minds and decide on Goldberg, they aren't just going to give the belt to Goldberg (that's not a flagship-like thing to do), they'd build for that moment for about 5 months. Like I said, the flagship has to have big moments or they aren't really the flagship.

It may be true that HHH could have won the belt at backlash, sure, just like the hate HHH got for doing exactly that with Orton, and I'm not disputing that, and mabe I would have liked to see that, but that's an argument for why WWE should never make a serious storyline like that without knowing the victor, not an argument for why WWE should change their system of doing things. But at the same time, if you find yourself in a situation where you don't know who you're going to have win, should you really settle for a mediocre storyline for WRESTLEMANIA just because you don't know who's winning?

It still doesn't make sense since Booker T, the underdog babyface would have been filling a different spot then Goldberg the monster face. It wouldn't have even hurt the storyline process. Booker is able to beat HHH for the title, but HHH uses his pull to get it back like he's done in the past (screwing Jericho for instance). The underdog has won a battle but not the war. Then comes Goldberg who's the strong enough contender to beat HHH and keep beating him to be the flagship.

Faces can be transitional champs too and this would've been a perfect time for one. As for credibilty it's not like Booker wasn't a five time, five time, five time, five time, five time WCW champion.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}Sucka!

Yeah the thing is, is that I was speaking from the perspecyive that the Flagship IS a spot all in itself, like the top of the hierarchy pyramid, where only one guy at a time is there, and everything else is meant to be a type of food chain meant to strengthen that one spot. So every champion other than the flagship is a transitional champ, so I wasn't using the Mick Foley definition of the term that he used on TV to describe a short title reign in storyline, I was more talking about spots.

So Goldberg being a monster babyface and Booker T being an underdog babyface ARE different, yes, I agree with that, and I guess they would be among the top 4 or so towards the top of the pyramid, but when it's time to move up to the very top as the flagship, then it's time to compete.

I'm making a distiction between "title" and spot. So when you say that HHH uses his pull to get "it" back, what are you talking about? If you are talking about the title, then I agree except the politicking part (not that I don't believe HHH tries his best to convince the Mcmahons that's the man, but disbelieve that Vince succumbs to the magic powers of HHH's convincing ability). But if you are talking about the flagship spot, I disagree that HHH politicks to get the flagship spot because he has only had it once. Unless ofcourse you think that winning a title and being the company's flagship are really just the same thing.

So, Your scenerio that you painted out invloving how WWE "could" have done things better, that scenario assumes that Booker T was never meant to be flagship, just a triumphant title holder (like Chris Benoit) and if that was the case I'm sure that's what they would have done (like Benoit). But, I'm making the argument that WWE decided to switch the flagship from Booker T to Goldberg (and yes, they do map out plans for the flagship guy for a long period of time, what midcarders are babyface and what midcarders are heel is all based off of that) and decided that before Wrestlemania. Now, this also means that I'm making the argument that if you decide to go the "just have Booker be the triumphant champ and pass the title back and forth between Booker T and HHH" route that you are now de-casting Goldberg as the future flagship, because you just don't build a flagship that way.

If (and that's a big if) WWE decided that Goldberg was going to be the flagship in say, Februrary 2003, then rest assured that HHH wasn't going to lose untill he faced Goldberg. If Booker beat HHH, then when Goldberg did it, he wouldn't have been the true flagship in the fan's eyes (oh well, Booker did the same thing). If Booker won the match, then the only way around it would have been to have Booker win a hard fought match, then lose the belt back to HHH later, and then have Goldberg squash HHH worse than Booker T. But HHH is a great hand for making stars, and that would be really bad.

[wrestlecrapcrap]

Apr 16, 2010 12:43:23 GMT -5 @waluigi said:

I had to bring this up again:

Apr 15, 2010 16:19:32 GMT -5 wrestlecrapcrap said:

In any case, why can't they do it? If it made more money for them as a result, it's fair game.

think about what you're saying: you're trying to cite HHH vs. Booker T as a draw on a card with THREE MAIN EVENTS, one of which is Steve Austin's last match and the other involves Brocc Lesnar.

Come on dude, we can do better than THAT...

If they were going to use him on the same level they may as well try and make as much money out of a much featuring him as possible. It didn't render him unpushable afterwards. Ratings didn't plummet because of that one angle, and it made people want the belt off of HHH more after he won it.

you keep talking about them making money, but Pay Per View buyrates that year are the lowest for the whole decade, so that isn't even up for discussion.

Him not winning the title then didn't ruin him but dude couldn't even get a win at Backlash. Can you please tell me what's the point of having a wrestlemania angle with no payoff?

thesunbeast is explaining why they didn't do the Booker pay off better than I ever could, but on the point of why they did the storyline, even if it's the lowest grossing Mania of all the decade, they still have to make the effort. Your point suggests that the buy rates couldn't have got any lower, which if they didn't put the effort in, there's the risk that they could have. People here have all said they got behind Booker more, and it's about giving the viewers value for money for their biggest show of the year.

[SEAN CARLESS]

Apr 16, 2010 16:12:25 GMT -5 wrestlecrapcrap said:

People here have all said they got behind Booker more, and it's about giving the viewers value for money for their biggest show of the year.

Except they didn't get their value for their money. It was a flat, uninspired and totally deflating ending, made worse by the fact that this was the finale to the feud and evil prevailed. And as for Goldberg--he was as much of a failure and transitional champ as the next. And he didn't even get a program until six months later. If anything, Booker was shafted so HHH could move on to a vanity feud with his buddy Kevin Nash which killed ratings for the next 2 months.

Bottom line was it was poor booking. They booked themselves into a corner by creating a scenario in which the challenger had to win the title to shut up the racist...then didn't. This was not even close to being the main event of that Wrestlemania. There was no need for a desperation hook they had no intention of following through on for arguably the 5th most important match on the card. People can argue that Booker should have got the title (I think it was too early) but there's really no defending the booking of this lead-up any which way you slice it. It was poorly thought out and even more poorly executed.

[wrestlecrapcrap]

Apr 16, 2010 16:30:18 GMT -5 SEAN CARLESS said:

Apr 16, 2010 16:12:25 GMT -5 wrestlecrapcrap said:

People here have all said they got behind Booker more, and it's about giving the viewers value for money for their biggest show of the year.

Except they didn't get their value for their money. It was a flat, uninspired and totally deflating ending, made worse by the fact that this was the finale to the feud and evil prevailed. And as for Goldberg--he was as much of a failure and transitional champ as the next. And he didn't even get a program until six months later. If anything, Booker was shafted so HHH could move on to a vanity feud with his buddy Kevin Nash which killed ratings for the next 2 months.

Bottom line was it was poor booking. They booked themselves into a corner by creating a scenario in which the challenger had to win the title to shut up the racist...then didn't. This was not even close to being the main event of that Wrestlemania. There was no need for a desperation hook they had no intention of following through on for arguably the 5th most important match on the card. People can argue that Booker should have got the title (I think it was too early) but there's really no defending the booking of this lead-up any which way you slice it. It was poorly thought out and even more poorly executed.

Giving them value for money in that they think it's can't miss event and therefore buy it, the company is in the business of making money and they wanted to make Mania look stacked.

The result was unfortunate but as has been explained, it looked like they weren't sure on Booker being the one to beat HHH or whether they were going to give that honour to Goldberg, so there's a lot of factors into play. They could have not added the storyline and not put as much heat on HHH and the match itself, and risked even lower buy-rates. They could have let Booker win which would then cheapen the effect of Goldberg's win. Or they could let HHH win, which is unfortunate for Booker but for the company as a whole it made the most sense. If they wanted to get the title onto Goldberg would it really have been better for Booker to have beat HHH, then Nash, then lose to Goldberg? HHH can make a star better than Booker can.

[Rorschach]

Apr 16, 2010 16:51:28 GMT -5 wrestlecrapcrap said:

Apr 16, 2010 16:30:18 GMT -5 SEAN CARLESS said:

Except they didn't get their value for their money. It was a flat, uninspired and totally deflating ending, made worse by the fact that this was the finale to the feud and evil prevailed. And as for Goldberg--he was as much of a failure and transitional champ as the next. And he didn't even get a program until six months later. If anything, Booker was shafted so HHH could move on to a vanity feud with his buddy Kevin Nash which killed ratings for the next 2 months.

Bottom line was it was poor booking. They booked themselves into a corner by creating a scenario in which the challenger had to win the title to shut up the racist...then didn't. This was not even close to being the main event of that Wrestlemania. There was no need for a desperation hook they had no intention of following through on for arguably the 5th most important match on the card. People can argue that Booker should have got the title (I think it was too early) but there's really no defending the booking of this lead-up any which way you slice it. It was poorly thought out and even more poorly executed.

Giving them value for money in that they think it's can't miss event and therefore buy it, the company is in the business of making money and they wanted to make Mania look stacked.

The result was unfortunate but as has been explained, it looked like they weren't sure on Booker being the one to beat HHH or whether they were going to give that honour to Goldberg, so there's a lot of factors into play. They could have not added the storyline and not put as much heat on HHH and the match itself, and risked even lower buy-rates. They could have let Booker win which would then cheapen the effect of Goldberg's win. Or they could let HHH win, which is unfortunate for Booker but for the company as a whole it made the most sense. If they wanted to get the title onto Goldberg would it really have been better for Booker to have beat HHH, then Nash, then lose to Goldberg? HHH can make a star better than Booker can.

Heh...have to laugh at myself for a second here. As I was reading your post (and it is a good one with a valid point) I got to the end of it, and read that last part and thought "Now what would have been so wrong with Booker doing just that? Taking down not only HHH, but Hunter's buddy Nash as well, and then losing to the monster Goldberg, the man who once RULED WCW and seemingly couldn't be beaten?"

Then the obvious occurred to me:

1) DUH! It's two former WCW guys fighting over the former WCW title...no WAY McMahon lets that happen on his shows, not without a WWE guy involved to somehow show how inferior the WCW guys are, and....

2) That scenario does not involve HHH winning. Therefore it is invalid in the logic of the WWE Universe. ;D

[AriadosMan]

Did HHH have any feuds that people actually enjoyed during the Reign of Terror?
Not defending Booker's booking, but the general consensus seems to be that most of the booking at this point sucks, in which case Booker's burial wasn't unique.

[wrestlecrapcrap]

Apr 16, 2010 17:50:33 GMT -5 AriadosMan said:

Did HHH have any feuds that people actually enjoyed during the Reign of Terror?
Not defending Booker's booking, but the general consensus seems to be that most of the booking at this point sucks, in which case Booker's burial wasn't unique.

Was there really anyone decent to make a real good feud out of? RVD was a guy for HHH to beat to establish the belt. Kane? Not really quality feud material. Steiner? Same. Booker? They did what they could. Nash? Meh. Goldberg, Benoit and the initial Orton match were all good. Batista was a great feud that ended the rain of terror.

Give HHH some good people to feud with and he will do well. Late 02 to late 03 was a period where the WWE had lost their top stars form their most successful era, and were using guys that could only ever be mid-carders really as main eventers. HHH's reign on 08 wasn't anywhere near as hated as he had decent enough opponents and the company as a whole wasn't so bear on stars.

[King Boo]

Apr 16, 2010 18:32:18 GMT -5 wrestlecrapcrap said:

Booker? They did what they could.

Isn't a common sentiment in this thread that people don't think they did what they could have or, better yet, SHOULD have, given the angle they presented?

I've said it once and I'll say it again:

If the WWE was unsure whether Booker could be a main eventer (which, btw, is crap. He was one in WCW, a champ five times over, and the crowd responded to him) then they never should have started a World Heavyweight Championship angle with him - to culminate at WRESTLEMANIA, no less - where they were unsure of who the victor would be.

Also, if you're unsure about where you want the whole angle to go, you decide to add some not-so-subtle racist innuendo to it? If they didn't know where they wanted it all to end up, they sure did book themselves into a corner with that choice.

Lastly, I have a hard time believing that the WWE went into that whole angle at Wrestlemania not knowing how they wanted it to end up. Every other match on that card had some sort of build up and course mapped out for it, but not that one? At WRESTLEMANIA? No way. I don't buy it.

[wrestlecrapcrap]

Apr 16, 2010 19:03:46 GMT -5 King Boo said:

Apr 16, 2010 18:32:18 GMT -5 wrestlecrapcrap said:

Booker? They did what they could.

Isn't a common sentiment in this thread that people don't think they did what they could have or, better yet, SHOULD have, given the angle they presented?

I've said it once and I'll say it again:

If the WWE was unsure whether Booker could be a main eventer (which, btw, is crap. He was one in WCW, a champ five times over, and the crowd responded to him) then they never should have started a World Heavyweight Championship angle with him - to culminate at WRESTLEMANIA, no less - where they were unsure of who the victor would be.

Also, if you're unsure about where you want the whole angle to go, you decide to add some not-so-subtle racist innuendo to it? If they didn't know where they wanted it all to end up, they sure did book themselves into a corner with that choice.

Lastly, I have a hard time believing that the WWE went into that whole angle at Wrestlemania not knowing how they wanted it to end up. Every other match on that card had some sort of build up and course mapped out for it, but not that one? At WRESTLEMANIA? No way. I don't buy it.

I'm not going to try and say the angle was perfect, no angle ever will be, but they gave one. Booker T vs Triple H was never going to be a massive money spinner to retain the companies boom audience, whatever they served up, so that's what I meant by doing what they could.

As for him being a main eventer, well being one in the failing years of WCW doesn't really mean to me he definitely deserves to be the flagship ahead of HHH or even Goldberg who was clearly a bigger star.

As for them not knowing the outcome, well with the other main events, it was pretty clear why they were happening. Angle vs Brock was there to launch Brock as the flagship of the company, he was always going to win. Hogan was always going to beat Vince. They could have decided to definitely launch Booker at Mania, or they could have left it open. Positive and negatives to both, but the company has to go with what will benefit them long term. They decide to launch Booker, and it can go off without a problem, and he gets the pay off. Fair enough. But what if Booker wasn't taking off as well as they would have hoped when they started the storyline? Do they follow through anyway, knowing he's not the right champion to drop to Goldberg or even be the flagship himself? It's irresponsible to not adapt when you know you need to.

[SEAN CARLESS]

Apr 16, 2010 16:51:28 GMT -5 wrestlecrapcrap said:

Apr 16, 2010 16:30:18 GMT -5 SEAN CARLESS said:

Except they didn't get their value for their money. It was a flat, uninspired and totally deflating ending, made worse by the fact that this was the finale to the feud and evil prevailed. And as for Goldberg--he was as much of a failure and transitional champ as the next. And he didn't even get a program until six months later. If anything, Booker was shafted so HHH could move on to a vanity feud with his buddy Kevin Nash which killed ratings for the next 2 months.

Bottom line was it was poor booking. They booked themselves into a corner by creating a scenario in which the challenger had to win the title to shut up the racist...then didn't. This was not even close to being the main event of that Wrestlemania. There was no need for a desperation hook they had no intention of following through on for arguably the 5th most important match on the card. People can argue that Booker should have got the title (I think it was too early) but there's really no defending the booking of this lead-up any which way you slice it. It was poorly thought out and even more poorly executed.

Giving them value for money in that they think it's can't miss event and therefore buy it, the company is in the business of making money and they wanted to make Mania look stacked.

The result was unfortunate but as has been explained, it looked like they weren't sure on Booker being the one to beat HHH or whether they were going to give that honour to Goldberg, so there's a lot of factors into play. They could have not added the storyline and not put as much heat on HHH and the match itself, and risked even lower buy-rates. They could have let Booker win which would then cheapen the effect of Goldberg's win. Or they could let HHH win, which is unfortunate for Booker but for the company as a whole it made the most sense. If they wanted to get the title onto Goldberg would it really have been better for Booker to have beat HHH, then Nash, then lose to Goldberg? HHH can make a star better than Booker can.

No one said Booker had to be Champion. It was the angle that burned people. And think about what you're saying about "adding buyrates". Now think about how those "extra buyrates" felt when the villain won and their hero was vanquished forever. Is that good long-term business? I only say that because you seem to believe that WWE HAD to book that angle to help sell that show. I disagree. And had they just treated it like a battle of WCW vs. WWE, there'd have been significantly less anger over the result.

Now, I agree that Booker wasn't the right man for the belt. But I think nothing was accomplished by booking it the way that it was since in reality, Goldberg played ZERO FACTOR for 6 months anyway--and when he did get the belt with all this so-called "rub", it meant nothing anyway since he was immediately booked as a transitional champion so H's could heal his broken penis and marry Steph. There is no proof to say they thought Goldberg was their savior. If anything, based on how they dropped the ball there, too, I'd think it was obvious that they were just throwing shit against the wall for 3 years until Big Dave accidentally got over. WWE stumbled into success there. It wasn't some master plan unfolding over 3 years. Hell, Batista pretty much confirmed as much on his DVD.

Apr 16, 2010 18:32:18 GMT -5 wrestlecrapcrap said:

Apr 16, 2010 17:50:33 GMT -5 AriadosMan said:

Did HHH have any feuds that people actually enjoyed during the Reign of Terror?
Not defending Booker's booking, but the general consensus seems to be that most of the booking at this point sucks, in which case Booker's burial wasn't unique.

Was there really anyone decent to make a real good feud out of? RVD was a guy for HHH to beat to establish the belt. Kane? Not really quality feud material. Steiner? Same. Booker? They did what they could. Nash? Meh. Goldberg, Benoit and the initial Orton match were all good. Batista was a great feud that ended the rain of terror.

Give HHH some good people to feud with and he will do well. Late 02 to late 03 was a period where the WWE had lost their top stars form their most successful era, and were using guys that could only ever be mid-carders really as main eventers. HHH's reign on 08 wasn't anywhere near as hated as he had decent enough opponents and the company as a whole wasn't so bear on stars.

In today's world where WWE makes main eventers out of just randomly putting a World title on people at their absolute coldest, how can you say that those guys would only be career midcarders? If anything, WWE has proven that if you push someone stubbornly enough, eventually people will accept them. Now picture doing that with people (like RVD or Booker) whom they actually care about already.

[King Boo]

Apr 16, 2010 19:23:15 GMT -5 wrestlecrapcrap said:

Apr 16, 2010 19:03:46 GMT -5 King Boo said:

Isn't a common sentiment in this thread that people don't think they did what they could have or, better yet, SHOULD have, given the angle they presented?

I've said it once and I'll say it again:

If the WWE was unsure whether Booker could be a main eventer (which, btw, is crap. He was one in WCW, a champ five times over, and the crowd responded to him) then they never should have started a World Heavyweight Championship angle with him - to culminate at WRESTLEMANIA, no less - where they were unsure of who the victor would be.

Also, if you're unsure about where you want the whole angle to go, you decide to add some not-so-subtle racist innuendo to it? If they didn't know where they wanted it all to end up, they sure did book themselves into a corner with that choice.

Lastly, I have a hard time believing that the WWE went into that whole angle at Wrestlemania not knowing how they wanted it to end up. Every other match on that card had some sort of build up and course mapped out for it, but not that one? At WRESTLEMANIA? No way. I don't buy it.

I'm not going to try and say the angle was perfect, no angle ever will be, but they gave one. Booker T vs Triple H was never going to be a massive money spinner to retain the companies boom audience, whatever they served up, so that's what I meant by doing what they could.

As for him being a main eventer, well being one in the failing years of WCW doesn't really mean to me he definitely deserves to be the flagship ahead of HHH or even Goldberg who was clearly a bigger star.

As for them not knowing the outcome, well with the other main events, it was pretty clear why they were happening. Angle vs Brock was there to launch Brock as the flagship of the company, he was always going to win. Hogan was always going to beat Vince. They could have decided to definitely launch Booker at Mania, or they could have left it open. Positive and negatives to both, but the company has to go with what will benefit them long term. They decide to launch Booker, and it can go off without a problem, and he gets the pay off. Fair enough. But what if Booker wasn't taking off as well as they would have hoped when they started the storyline? Do they follow through anyway, knowing he's not the right champion to drop to Goldberg or even be the flagship himself? It's irresponsible to not adapt when you know you need to.

If Booker T being a champion five times over in WCW meant nothing, why did they constantly refer to it? Why was it the main accolade he and announcers always touted? To you personally, it meant nothing but in the "WWE Universe" they treated it like it meant something and made him legitimate.

The nature of the angle dictates Booker had to win. I'm sorry, but you're trying to tell me that they felt it was worse to have Booker win a feud that he NEEDED to win, given the story they presented than to just have him win and then get screwed over by the nefarious Hunter at a later date?

Given this thread and the fact that 7 years later, people not only still remember it, but also remember it negatively, indicates maybe otherwise.

And again, I just don't buy that they were so unsure and uneasy about everything regarding Booker when a) it's their biggest show of the year and b) they had weeks to not do that type of angle. Booker's reactions didn't dissipate once the angle with Hunter began. If they felt he was in the right position before the program started, then he was at the very least in the same position during it.

[MGH]

This is something that drives me nuts that I've seen more than once in this thread. This ridiculous notion that Booker wasn't over or wasn't catching on with the people. Am I the only one who remembers the video package for the match they did that more or less focused on Booker's rise up the fan charts? They kept showing people holding up the "5x 5x 5x 5x 5x" signs like they were the old Flair "W-O-O-O-O-O" signs. Booker was never more over in WWE as a face than he was in those two months. So I don't buy this theory that he just wasn't over enough at all. The crowds themselves at the time shoot that theory in to pieces.

However, when the match and the pedigree of death were done? Yeah, he slipped back down. Much like anyone would when you treat them like garbage for two months then leave you to get hammered on the biggest show of the year.

[Threadkiller [Classic]]

Apr 16, 2010 19:41:14 GMT -5 MGH said:

This is something that drives me nuts that I've seen more than once in this thread. This ridiculous notion that Booker wasn't over or wasn't catching on with the people. Am I the only one who remembers the video package for the match they did that more or less focused on Booker's rise up the fan charts? They kept showing people holding up the "5x 5x 5x 5x 5x" signs like they were the old Flair "W-O-O-O-O-O" signs. Booker was never more over in WWE as a face than he was in those two months. So I don't buy this theory that he just wasn't over enough at all. The crowds themselves at the time shoot that theory in to pieces.

However, when the match and the pedigree of death were done? Yeah, he slipped back down. Much like anyone would when you treat them like garbage for two months then leave you to get hammered on the biggest show of the year.

This. If anything, HHH was the one who wasn't over enough to justify the win. I mean, of course he was over as a heel, but not nearly as over as Booker was as a face. The angle seemed devised to get people to hate HHH, but if the guy isn't getting over as a heel, or the fans are sick of seeing him in the title picture, then why do you piss off the crowd by continuing to force him down everyone's throats at the expense of someone they do care about? Maybe Booker would have made money as the champ. Maybe not. But he deserved, especially after THAT angle, at least one month with the gold. Especially since Goldberg didn't even become a factor until the late summer. And even THEN, they didn't pull the goddamn trigger and get the belt off of Hunter.

I think there should never be racially-fueled feuds in professional wrestling (or "sports entertainment," for that matter), because they always are going to piss off somebody. For example, it's weird to me that only white heels seem to be able to get away with the racism angle. Like HHH, who was able to say that "people like Booker" don't win world titles, and then reinforce it by winning the match. Meanwhile, Farooq argues that it's bull that no black man gets to win a world title and that the company is racist, to which Vince (as the interviewer) replies that the company isn't racist, it's just that no black man has gotten the job done. This goes on to be reinforced by Farooq jobbing to Undertaker in his one PPV title match. It seems as though the racist heel only ever goes over when the racist heel is white, which is why I think it's bad form to even have race angles because either a) the discriminated party MUST go over or b) the discriminated party loses and you piss people off. One is better than the other, but both options suck, for the most part, because it's pointless to even have an angle be racially motivated. I'd just as soon they fight over a shampoo commercial. Or, you know, the fifteen pounds of gold over Hunter's shoulder.

[sjones]

I think Booker was done dirty more by what they did with him after that match. They could've either A) continued to push him as a main event caliber guy who had a chance of winning the title, or B) started pushing him as a midcarder who had trouble even winning the IC title. And they went with option B. But had they gone with option A, nobody would've given a rat's ass about Booker losing to Hunter or any of those promos, because he still would've been seen as a top-tier guy. Look at Taker- lord knows he's been in his fair share of crappy storylines and feuds, but he's never NOT been over because they've pushed him as a big deal no matter how wack some of those angles and matches have been. That's why Booker took years to recover because THEY(The WWE) CHOSE to stop pushing him.

Most of Raw in 2003 was strictly about killing off the last of who was relevant in WCW's last days for the benefit of Hunter's push. And that was the wackest point of both Hunter's career and Raw, because they went WAY overboard. In '03 alone, they had him go over Steiner (justifiably because he fell off, skillwise), Nash (justifiably because he didn't belong in the main event in the first place at that point), Goldberg (no reason whatsoever), AND Booker (no reason whatsoever) and then they pushed them down the ladder.

[waluigi]

Apr 16, 2010 16:12:25 GMT -5 wrestlecrapcrap said:

Your point suggests that the buy rates couldn't have got any lower, which if they didn't put the effort in, there's the risk that they could have.

People here have all said they got behind Booker more, and it's about giving the viewers value for money for their biggest show of the year.

Again, you're citing Booker T vs. Triple H, which boils down to this:

a recently pushed upper midcard face vs. a heel who outclasses him in both kayfabe and star power

as a potential draw, on a card featuring Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold Steve Austin and Brock Lesnar, the guy who was destined to usurp THEIR spots? It doesn't add up. You can talk about could, would, should but logic dictates who was drawing what little buyrates they got on that WrestleMania night.

The crux of the matter isn't even Booker jobbing that night. It's how much of a bitch he was made to look, Pedigree, bam, goodnight. And he couldn't even win the tag match at Backlash, which wouldn't have done anything to anybody's plans.

Backlash is the Mania fallout so it technically counts as part of the Mania angles. So why would they run a Mania angle where the face gets no advantage at all and just takes L after L?

[Allie Kitsune]

Apr 16, 2010 17:36:39 GMT -5 Rorschach said:

2) That scenario does not involve HHH winning. Therefore it is invalid in the logic of the WWE Universe. ;D

From what I remember, in the end, it was Stephanie who decided that Hunter would be the one going over. All plans had Booker winning, until Stephanie started saying in meetings that she wanted Hunter to go over.

[waluigi]

Where are people getting all this news about who said and did what?