Although shaken by my failed marriage, I didn’t completely give up hope that a good relationship could be in my future. Sometimes during my darkest moments at home, I’d call Sharmell, a good friend who always lifted my spirits. Slowly but surely, we began to see each other in a different light and started dating. We were very tight, but I took my time to make certain she wasn’t just a rebound.
Meanwhile, back at WCW, the Harlem Heat 2000 Inc. angle ran its course. I found a partner in Kidman to end the story line at Uncensored 2000 in Miami on March 19. Kidman did a diving sunset flip from the top on Big T as he tried to suplex me, and we defeated Lash and Tony once and for all. After that, the team pretty much dissolved. I once again had control over my full name, music, and entrance pyro. Tony would eventually fade away from the WCW scene as well.
Russo and Bischoff had united their creative efforts backstage since the New Year, and after Uncensored, they came up with a plan to reboot WCW. On the April 10 Nitro in Denver, with the entire roster in attendance, the two of them prepared to address everyone from the ring. Then Jeff Jarrett, Steiner, Vampiro, Kidman, The Wall, Van Hammer, Ernest Miller, and I joined them at the front.
Jarrett grabbed the microphone and called Russo to the ring, where he cut a long, vicious promo on WCW. He ranted about how he left the WWF after six years of singlehandedly taking them to the top. He’d come here to personally destroy Vince McMahon. In a shoot that caught me off guard, he started smashing all the guys in the back trying to protect their jobs by keeping down the younger guys, The New Blood (TNB), as he called them.
I felt Russo was making a mistake. He was a writer nobody knew about in the first place. I thought he took the segment too far, and it felt like desperation.
Russo continued, ranting about Hogan and management and their politics, which he said caused The Radicalz to take off and Steiner to be suspended.
In his promos, Scotty had recently gone off script and called Ric Flair “a backstabbing, ass-kissing old bastard . . . with more loose skin than a shar-pei puppy,” and “WCW sucks, and so do you.”
As a result, Scotty had been legitimately suspended.
During his continued diatribe, Russo even called Flair a piece of shit.
Then Bischoff shockingly came out after being gone for months, hugged Russo, and then drove us further into the ground. In a self-deprecating monologue, Bischoff said he’d been blinded and put the vision of the company into the hands of guys like Nash, Sid, DDP, Sting, Luger, and especially Hogan.
I was standing there in the ring thinking these two should’ve been in the back writing compelling story lines and developing dynamic new stars to ensure the security of WCW—anything but this.
Russo said in order to reboot the company, he wanted to vacate all the championship titles and conduct tournaments with all the talent, old guard and TNB. He asked for all the champs to hand over their belts on the spot.
Reluctantly, the guys gave up their gold. Jarrett dropped the United States belt; Knobbs, the Hardcore; The Harris Brothers, the World Tag Team titles; and my old benefactor Sid, who’d returned after a near seven-year absence to become the World Champion, even gave up the Big Gold belt.
Bischoff went as far as to insult Sid, referencing the bloody Arn incident and asking him if he had a pair of scissors.
Through the whole meeting, I scanned the approximately five hundred guys under contract sitting there clueless. To wrap it up, Russo and Bischoff divided the roster into two major factions. The Millionaire’s Club would consist of all the veterans, such as Hogan, Nash, Sting, Luger, DDP, Sid, and the rest of the old guard. TNB were all the younger talent, including Kidman, Mysterio, Goldberg, Bagwell, Steiner, The Wall, Kanyon, me, and about fifty other guys. The concept was to pit the two factions against each other to elevate TNB talent and draw some viewership back to WCW from the unstoppable machine of the WWF.
Tournaments started between The Millionaires and TNB right away to crown new champions, and I was entered into the United States tournament.
By Spring Stampede 2000 on April 16 in Chicago, I had made it to the quarterfinals. Based on Russo and Bischoff’s new philosophy, it didn’t make a lot of sense that I’d lose to Sting, but I did cleanly after he countered my suplex into a Scorpion Death Drop for the pin. In a show of respect, I had Sting step back in the ring and we fist bumped.
The next night on Nitro in Rockford, Illinois, as part of the show, Bischoff came out and berated a group of TNB, including Hugh Morrus, Lash LeRoux, Chavo Guerrero Jr., and me for not performing well against The Millionaires at the PPV. I also got involved in the World Title Match between Jarrett and Steiner, giving Scotty the scissor kick to get back in Bischoff’s good graces.
The following week on the April 26 edition of Thunder in Syracuse, I wrestled Mike Awesome, who’d hopped over from ECW and was known for a reckless running powerbomb. When Steiner came out and distracted me, Awesome picked me up for his Awesomebomb in one corner and ran me in the seated position toward the opposite side.
Just before he released me, I tried to look up to the big screen to determine my position, but it was too late. He threw me headfirst into the bottom turnbuckle. For an excruciating moment, I thought my neck was seriously injured and my career was over. Scotty, not realizing I was in legitimate pain, came in for more and stretched me into the Steiner Recliner. Then, once again, he choked me too hard and dumped me on my face. Morrus, LeRoux, and Chavo, now known as The Misfits, came to clear the ring for my save as I lay there motionless.
When I made it backstage, the trainers checked me out and applied an ice pack to my neck.
Across from me was David Arquette. He’d been around for the last couple of weeks to promote the April 7 release of Ready to Rumble and had just won the World title in a match with DDP against Jeff Jarrett and Eric Bischoff. On his lap rested the legendary Big Gold Belt that Flair made famous in the eighties.
David looked at me, excited beyond belief. “How many times have you won the World title, Booker?”
I casually stared back. “Not once.”
He looked down. “Oh.”
I hadn’t meant to take away from his moment. He was justifiably having the time of his life.
I’d liked David since the day we met on the set of Rumble, but giving him the WCW World Heavyweight Championship to promote the movie was another example of Bischoff trying to bring in some mainstream media but ruining the credibility of our product.
A couple of days before on Nitro, David beat Bischoff in a singles match, which I think should’ve been the extent of his wrestling career, with the same media goal having been achieved. Arquette’s claiming the World title was taking it way too far. It wasn’t David’s fault. He hadn’t asked to be involved in WCW programming but reluctantly agreed after Eric and DDP convinced him it was best for Rumble’s exposure.
The same affable and humble guy he was on the movie set, he donated all the money WCW paid him for his appearances to the families of Brian Pillman, Owen Hart, and Darren “The Droz” Drozdov, a WWF performer paralyzed from the neck down after being dropped by D’Lo Brown during a running powerbomb attempt—the same move from Awesome that night that was giving me a lot of pain in my neck.
Directly after my chat with David in the locker room, I went to the emergency room to get it checked out. They gave me a series of scans and determined there was no break.
The incident made me doubly aware of the risks I was taking day in and day out in the ring. One wrong landing, and I could’ve been in a wheelchair for the rest of my life.
One week later in Birmingham, Alabama, on Nitro, Bischoff put Hugh Morrus in a three-way dance with Jarrett and Steiner, threatening to fire him if any of the other Misfits interfered. Morrus won the match after Jarrett smashed Steiner in the face with his guitar. Meanwhile, Scotty applied the Recliner on Hugh, then allowed him to cover for the pin. Afterward Bischoff, according to the story line, went back on his word and walked up and smugly fired all four of The Misfits even though the other three stayed out of the match, as he demanded.
To circumvent Bischoff’s firing and reappear the following week, all in the creative master plan, The Misfits signed contracts with new military personas. In fact, it was my own design to reintroduce my old G.I. Bro character from my first days in the WWA.
Hugh Morrus became Captain Hugh G. Rection, Lash LeRoux became Corporal Cajun, Chavo Guerrero became Lieutenant Loco, and Van Hammer became Major Stash, transforming themselves from The Misfits to The Misfits In Action (MIA).
Hammer had initially wanted to call himself Private Stash, but everyone knew he was dealing with addiction, and we argued about it. “Bro, you want to go out there with a dumb name you think’s an inside joke, but everyone knows you’re messed up. You’re going to get fired trying to use a drug reference on national TV. And besides, private’s not even a ranking; it’s a nothing. You’ve got to have status, man.” Sometimes Hammer just didn’t use his brain.
To continue the setup of my G.I. Bro return at Nitro on May 22, I lost a match to Ernest Miller when Shawn Stasiak ran in with a chair for the assault. I fought him off and gave him the scissor kick and started going to town on him with the chair, but Miller cartwheel kicked it into my face. They started beating me down, and The MIA came to my rescue. Then Bischoff fired me as he had The Misfits, giving me the same segue to repackage myself and introduce G.I. Bro to the world for the first time on a national stage.
Ever since I got to WCW, I imagined there’d be a day I’d be able to bring G.I. Bro out and display him at least once. On May 29 in Salt Lake City, I came out to full pyro. I was in army fatigues, a camouflaged vest, war paint, and my green army cap. I couldn’t contain my big smile. Great memories of the WWA and Cowboy Scott Casey, one of my first mentors, who’d encouraged the military persona, flooded my mind.
I grabbed the microphone and addressed the crowd. “Everybody’s been asking me, ‘Why, Booker T, have you gone back to G.I. Bro?’ Well, when I first got into this business, this is who I was, and this is who I am now!”
I also addressed Stasiak’s attack on me with the chair and laid the challenge down for a Boot Camp Match at The Great American Bash 2000 in Baltimore on June 11. Then I went straight into revenge mode in an Ambulance Match with slapdash neck-breaker Mike Awesome. I won with the help of DDP when he came out and smashed Awesome in the back with a chair on the ramp, prompting a double Book End off the side and through a table ten feet below. We went down, grabbed him, dumped him into the waiting ambulance, and slammed the door as I claimed the victory.
G.I. Bro climbed through the ranks to the national level with a five-star general win. Now I was on my way to war at The Great American Bash.
The Bash was on June 11, and Russo came up with the idea of having me zip-line from the top of one end of the Baltimore Arena to the ring. It was something Shawn Michaels had done years before in the WWF. We tested it out a couple of times prior to the match, and it worked out pretty well.
When it was go time, I was in full G.I. Bro force. My music hit, and the lights went down as they clipped me to a safety wire. I took off all the way down to the ring, scared out of my mind. All I kept thinking was, Come on. Come on. Please don’t let me get stuck halfway down there, dangling over the audience. Murphy’s Law came into play about halfway down as I did start losing momentum. In a panic, I kicked my legs together and made my landing on the top rope.
After a pinpoint landing inside, I unhooked, ready for the boot camp battle to begin. Stasiak came out in combat pants and camouflage face paint, as I had during my war a couple of weeks prior, but his looked almost like a sloppy homage to KISS. I ran up the ramp and dove in with heavy punches. The way you win a Boot Camp Match is pretty straightforward. Anything goes, and the last man standing after a ten count wins. We spent the first five minutes outside as I smashed Stasiak into the posts and the barricades before he grabbed me and tossed me back inside.
After fifteen minutes of warfare, Stasiak’s WCW World Tag Team Champion partner Chuck Palumbo ran down. Palumbo started hitting me with the Lex Flexer, an exercise bar Lex Luger had been carrying around with him. They both started in with the boots, but when they threw me into the ropes, I came back with a jarring double clothesline and did the Spinarooni back to my feet.
Mark Madden went insane. “Spinarooni! Spinarooni!”
I gave both of them huge Harlem Sidekicks, grabbed the Flexer, and knocked Palumbo down and out of the ring. Then I knocked Stasiak out for the ten count for the win. G.I. Bro had completed his mission.
After the Bash was over, I went straight into a short feud with Kanyon, who was always great competition in the ring. He was technical, smooth, and had a vast arsenal of innovative moves. We began on the June 19 Nitro, when I entered the ring as G.I. Bro for the last time. I tore away the camouflage warm-up pants to reveal my white Booker T trunks and boots. At the end of the match, Kanyon and DDP doubled up and gave me a twofold Diamond Cutter that continued our program over the ensuing weeks.
All this was leading up to our final match together at Bash at the Beach 2000 in Daytona Beach, where the most unexpected occurrence in my professional wrestling career would take place.
About a week before the PPV, I got a call from Russo, who told me he and Bischoff and all the other top office guys had just had a huge creative meeting. “Booker, we’re trying to figure out exactly what direction to take WCW, and so far the decision is to make you WCW World Heavyweight Champion.” They were still mulling over other options, but he wanted to place the title on me at Bash at the Beach.
Although I was beyond excited, I was also aware of how indecisive WCW could be. Because of their last-minute creative changes, I could only hope for the best and, to avoid disappointment, expect the worst. However, nothing could ever prepare me or anyone else for what occurred that infamous night in Daytona Beach.
Still holding on to the sands in his hourglass, Hulk Hogan, who’d since reverted back to nWo Hollywood Hogan, made it clear he wanted to defeat Jeff Jarrett that night for the World title and carry the torch for WCW and the old guard. He’d had full creative control written into his contract since day one, and he was pulling that ace for the Bash, driving Russo insane.
I was right there in the back amidst the continuing chaos, and now I wondered if I’d be wrestling at all, let alone for the belt.
At the very last minute, an exasperated Russo came in and said he’d booked a haphazard match between Kanyon and me just so we could be on the card. He had no idea what would happen with Hogan and Jarrett, but it was easy to see his mind was racing for a solution. I was a little disappointed at the situation but definitely not surprised as my music hit and it was go time.
Kanyon and I went out there and wrestled an intense match with all the crowd-pleasing moves the fans had come to see. Just as I was going up for the missile dropkick, Jarrett surprised me by arriving on the scene and smashing me over the head with his guitar, shattering it to pieces.
What’s this about? I wondered. Why is Jeff here?
I took a Kanyon Cutter from the top and lost the match.
I went to the back, thinking that was the extent of my evening. However, I and everyone watching had another big surprise coming.
In a live turn of events, Russo decided to supersede everything Hulk wanted to do. It was more real than anyone would ever imagine.
After Hogan and Jarrett made their entrances and introductions, it was time to lock up. Instead, Jarrett simply lay down on his back in the middle of the ring, making everyone, especially me, watch and wonder what was going on.
Hogan was visibly shocked and walking around the ring, looking at the announcers and the crowd.
Russo came stomping down to ringside and grabbed the Big Gold, yelling, “Is this what you want? Then pin him and get it over with!” He threw the belt in the ring next to Jarrett, who lay there like a corpse.
As Russo made his way backstage, Hogan grabbed a microphone and yelled, “Is this your deal, Russo? That’s why the company’s in the damn shape it’s in—because of bullshit like this.”
With his hands on his hips, Hogan walked over and put his foot on Jarrett’s chest and scored the pin fall.
The moment the three count was made, Jarrett jumped up and ran through the ropes as quickly as possible, hightailing it backstage, never even making eye contact with Hogan.
Schiavone, Madden, and Scott Hudson sat at the announcers’ table with their mouths wide open, scrambling for something to say.
After Hogan finally left the ring, he went to the back with the belt, grabbed his gear bag, and walked out of the door and WCW for the last time.
One thing many people don’t realize is that Hogan walked out of WCW with one of a few exact cast replicas of the Big Gold that the company had made for the boys. When Hulk had grabbed it from the ring and stormed from the building, he successfully took one of the new belts Jarrett had been given. Jeff had come out that night wearing his fresh copy. The original—the actual twenty-pound gold belt with the bent top nodule and missing jewels—was in the back.
Finally, Russo came down with a microphone and explained the actions everyone had just witnessed. “There’s only one way for me to do this, and that’s to tell it like it is.” He went silent and rested his head against crossed arms on the top rope.
The crowd shouted, “Russo sucks! Russo sucks!”
The commentary team still sat in silence, fully aware that what was happening wasn’t on a sheet in front of them. Finally, Schiavone muttered, “This is real life here, fans.”
Russo then went on a seriously emotional monologue about the frustrations of dealing with “the bullshit and politics behind that curtain.” He went on about how he left WCW a few weeks before and only came back because of guys like The MIA, The Filthy Animals, Jarrett, me, and everyone else who cared about the company. Then he blew his stack, yelling about Hogan and his creative control, saying people “will never see that piece of shit again.” Russo called the belt Hogan walked out with the Hulk Hogan Memorial Belt that didn’t mean anything and that he’d created a new WCW title for the one guy who never screwed anyone backstage: Jeff Jarrett.
I was shocked. Russo was committing career suicide.
Then Russo suddenly announced Jarrett was defending the World title against the one guy who deserved a shot more than anybody: me.
I looked around at the other guys, thinking, This is out of control.
“Booker T and Jeff Jarrett are the two reasons why I’m in this damn stinking business to begin with,” Russo said. “And, Hogan, you big, bald son of a bitch, kiss my ass!”
My heart was pounding. The moment happened so fast that it was hard to grasp the announcement. I was about to face Jarrett to go over for the belt, as he’d proclaimed a week earlier.
I quickly grabbed my gloves from the bench, realizing it was a good thing I’d left my boots on.
As soon as I had my remaining gear in hand, I heard ring announcer Michael Buffer yell, “Let’s get ready to rumble!”
My music hit, and my mind went blank as I walked to the curtain.
Jarrett and I had never even seen each other, let alone had a minute to discuss what we were doing out there. We’d have to call it on the fly. I took a deep breath and burst out to the ramp, psyching myself up. This is it. Everything you’ve been working so hard for is happening here in living color. Be cool. You’ve got this.
I made it down the aisle to the ring, still trying to put my gloves on.
Instead of using my usual brawling style, I wrestled Jarrett very technically with a ton of grappling moves and countermoves, taking the time to rest by working outside of the ring as well.
The action moved from inside the ring to deep into the audience and all the way up to the concession area. A sea of fans patted me on the back and cheered for both of us. I had control of Jarrett the entire way, until he took advantage and led me back through the audience and over the railing, where I landed at ringside.
Giving everything he had, Jarrett hit me with a chair and threw me onto the announcers’ table for a piledriver. When he picked me up vertically and dropped backward, the table didn’t break, and I bounced onto the floor. We made it back into the ring and went back and forth until the referee got knocked down and Jarrett went for his guitar.
Once he had it gripped, he climbed to the top turnbuckle to attempt to smash me over the head, but as Jeff leaped off and landed, I caught him with a Book End and the pin to score my first WCW World Heavyweight Championship.
The entire Ocean Center in Daytona Beach erupted, raising the roof in unison.
At the same time, Mark Madden, the guy who’d predicted my World title a year earlier, was busy announcing on TV. “Hard work pays off! Booker T busted his ass for fourteen years and is now the Heavyweight Champion of the world. This is what it should’ve been like a long time ago! Finally, the new WCW is the new WCW!”
I was never sure where Madden got the part about the fourteen years, because in total it was going on ten, with the last seven being in WCW, but it sounded good anyway.
I just couldn’t believe I held Flair’s original Big Gold belt, custom-made for Jim Crockett Promotions in 1986 by the late Nevada belt maker Charles Crumrine on behalf of the NWA. It was an unforgettable moment as my emotions took over and the show closed out on a close-up of me perched on the ropes, the look of disbelief captured on my face, and the belt on my shoulder.
Backstage, everyone—Lash, Sting, Steiner, and even Flair himself—came up to congratulate me, but I was still too overwhelmed to really grasp it all. Ric grabbed my shoulders and, in an unexpected and humbling moment, said, “I’m passing the torch of this belt to you, Booker. You deserve it, and you’re the man!”
That night was a series of flashing images, as if I were under a strobe light. I would have to piece it together later. Right then, I was physically and emotionally exhausted and went straight to my hotel room.
As I sat on the edge of the bed with the Big Gold across my lap, I pondered my career up until that point. I was now representing WCW at its very top rung. Sure, wrestling is a work and a business, but the enormity of being the trusted figurehead is as real as it gets. I was grateful beyond words.
A couple of weeks later, I was off and running as the defending champion. In Cleveland on July 24 for Nitro, I faced Bill Goldberg in the ring for the very first time, though I’d known him as a friend in the business. I knew Goldberg had viewed me as one of the only guys he could sit down and talk with since his monstrous debut back in 1997. I was always honest with the boys, and it put people like Goldberg at ease. He had a reputation of being a brick wall to most everyone else, but he was able to put his guard down with me.
I’d been looking forward to working with Goldberg, but when I told him I’d be going over on him, he didn’t seem too happy about it. The story was that he’d recently renegotiated his contract and told the office staff, “The only person I put over is God.”
I thought, Well, I don’t believe I’m God, but the Big Gold’s staying put, brother.
Whether he’d actually said that or not, Goldberg did an outstanding job of putting me over when the time came. The angle was that I was supposed to wrestle Sting that night but Goldberg attacked him backstage and substituted. We went at it in a stiff power match with a false finish when Lash came down and threw the towel in on me. Bill wiped his face and underarms with it before throwing it into the crowd.
Ernest Miller, acting as WCW commissioner, came out and said that although Bill was the winner, I was still champ because I never tapped and wasn’t pinned.
I demanded an immediate rematch.
In the finish, Bill told me to really lay into him, so when I Harlem Sidekicked him, it was directly in the mouth with my right knee brace.
He ate it harder than anyone I’ve ever seen, and then I Book Ended him for the clean pin.
As I was getting up, to keep his image strong in the face of a loss, Goldberg stood and speared me, then went for the Jackhammer. However, things went awry for him. As he got me up and slammed me down, he visibly popped his collarbone out of place and immediately rolled over, clutching the injury and screaming.
Much like Steiner, Bill hadn’t known his own strength and it could be a liability not only to his opponents but to himself as well. I felt really bad for him as I walked out of Cleveland the defending World Champion and one of the very few people to score a three count on the once seemingly indestructible Goldberg.
Where WCW would take us next was anyone’s guess.