Some of WWE's worst moments EVER happened in 2003. You won't believe what they booked!
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By 2003, it was clear the end of WCW wasn't good for wrestling
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The WWE had realized they could take their foot off the gas, and the end result was a drop in quality
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Wasn't a big surprise, everybody does need a break, but as WWE were the only game in town
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they assumed they would keep their audience regardless. Wasn't true, but it would take a little while before they picked up on that
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Now, of course, that doesn't mean that WWE was all bad in 2003, but man, there were some doozies
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So I am Simon Miller, I have no hair, and let's look at what came out at the bottom of the heap
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Number 7, WWE says they're boring. That's right, in 2003, everybody knew what wrestling was, was predetermined entertainment
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Therefore, anything we saw on screen came from Vince McMahon and the creative team
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This was their choice. Then in June 2003, when Lance Storm was having a match
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then General Manager Steve Austin walked out and said, Lance Storm, you are boring
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That's right, he basically stopped the fight too. So let us get into that, because it's absurd
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It could have worked if you picked a comedy character that was going to lean into all that, but Storm was already the opposite of boring
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He was serious, sure, which was part of his catchphrase, but my gosh
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He was such a good in-ring performer, and if you wanted to believe in what you were seeing
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you went and watched Lance Storm. Given he was from Canada, he almost felt like a new-age Bret Hart
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That's how much Storm could get you to buy in. There was no fluff. And sure, I think he'd be the first to say his promos weren't of Dusty Rhodes levels
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but who cares? Wrestling is great because you get all sorts. Go and watch Lance at ECW
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It's perfect. The most legit mother hubbard. But yes, as Vince McMahon didn't get this
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he sent the biggest star of all time out there to just suck it all away
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There was no way the rattlesnake agreed with this either, because he must have watched Storm's work
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And of course, the follow-up was a ha-ha-hee-hee team with Goldust. Nothing wrong with that either
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but there are just better paths to take to get there. I mean, push somebody's strengths and all of that
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It just felt like Vince thought this would be funny and that he enjoyed embarrassing people on live TV
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It was really dumb. This is why you do need competition. Always give talent the choice
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Number nine, the Redneck Triathlon. I mean, the title of this one alone
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how do you even get to say those words in a sentence for a wrestling show
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It does start with Eric Bischoff and Steve Austin being the co-general managers of Raw
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because won't that be funny? They had some real life heat after Bischoff fired Steve from WCW
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We can lean on that. It was for most of 2003 and come June, Austin was so mad
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He told Eric it was time for the redneck triathlon. Such challenges included were burping, a pie-eating contest and a sing-along
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I'm not joking, this was on pay-per-view too. WWE wanted you to spend money on this stuff
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It's Bad Blood 2003 where we also got Ric Flair vs Shawn Michaels
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It's bizarre. Halfway through the Austin Bischoff stuff as well, Mae Young came out to give Erica Bronco Buster 2, so I suppose that was a twist. There was another
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one as well. The karaoke was switched to a pigpen contest, so Austin threw Bischoff into some poop
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Great. Methinks that somebody may not have been totally over world championship wrestling
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I'm sure Austin was still getting used to the fact he couldn't wrestle anymore, but WWE was not using him right at all. The rattlesnake was fine with doing comedy
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but this was not good. And again, it was on pay-per-view, $50 to throw Bischoff into some..
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Well, you know the word. It rhymes with bit. Number eight, Al Wilson dies from sex. I mean
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I don't know how else to say it. WWE brought in Al Wilson, who was Tori's dad, and then killed him
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off. This was her real-life father as well. They didn't even get an actor. This did start in the
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latter part of 2002, but 2003 was way worse. Dawn Marie, who was obsessed with Tori for some reason
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decided that she would attack her personally by wooing Al and then marrying him too
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That's right, we got hitched on live TV, even though the age difference must have been close to 35 years
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Don't worry though, we also made sure to make plenty of erectile dysfunction jokes the whole time
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I mean, you do have to tick every box. I suppose that tied in as desperate to please his wife
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Al tried everything before he had a heart attack And yes he died while having sexual intercourse Now I bet at one point somebody suggested to put Viagra on a poll because WCW had done that in 2000 but thankfully we didn
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Although we did have a backstage segment where everybody was grieving. I suppose that's only
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fair as well. A pensioner had died because he wanted to please his wife. It was just a garbage
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storyline though and somehow just got worse and worse because yes, soon after the fact
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it basically turned into a lesbian angle too. Even if that was always the plan, there are other ways
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to do it than by bringing in somebody's dad and then murdering them
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Well, he wasn't murdered, but he did die. I just do not understand who would tune in for this
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That was really dumb. Number seven, Brock Lesnar's WrestleMania mistake. So if you do go back and watch the main event of WrestleMania 19 now
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between Kurt Angle and Brock Lesnar for the WWE title, you will go hot damn as a damn good bout
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That's because it was. And in terms of the WWE roster, Brock and Kurt were probably two of the best
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It was the right thing to do as well because we were essentially making new stars here, especially Brock Lesnar who continues to climb the ladder
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When you get to the final move, oh my gosh, it's the most terrifying thing you've ever seen in your life
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Now, long in the internet rumor mill, people had said that Brock was able to do a shooting star press
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even though he is built like a mountain. I suppose because it was WrestleMania 19, it was time to show that off
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So he went to the top rope and my gosh, he got three quarters of the way through the move before something went wrong
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It does look like he slipped and he landed right on his head
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Obviously, he was knocked out instantly and had a concussion, but if he hadn't been built the way that he had been built
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I think it's fair to say that Lesnar would have been in way worse shape. I mean, a smaller person could have died. I'm not kidding
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You can even find behind-the-scenes footage that WWE shot of this, and Brock Lesnar is like an absolute crazy person because he can't get his bearings
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Again, I would warn you before you do go and tune in to see this if you haven't seen it before
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it's absolutely horrific. It is just watching somebody land right on their skull
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The story got worse as well because Kurt Angle shouldn't have been competing in this match either
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because he was scheduled for neck surgery, which meant you just get the last five seconds of two broken men figuring it out
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Fair play to the Olympic gold medalist because he just shouts F5 at Brock, who does get it done, but yeah
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Surely they both wish they could redo this one. It's not what you want, especially not in the main event of WrestleMania
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Now, nobody ever chooses to make a mistake, so you have to throw that one in there too, but this was bad just from a scary point of view
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reminds you how dangerous wrestling can be. That's why they all deserve our respect
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They genuinely do put their lives on the line every single time. Number six, Hulk Hogan becomes Mr. America
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So it is back to WrestleMania 19 here, which, yes, had Vince McMahon versus Hulk Hogan
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Given the history of those two individuals, it was pitched as a pretty damn big match
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I mean, you could call it decades in the making for obvious reasons. And actually, you won't be disappointed
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if you do go watch this fun brawl in Seattle. I think both guys knew what they were and weren't capable of
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They just go out there and have some fun. What made no sense, however, is that after the fact, these two decided to keep the program going
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It meant that Vince's on-screen character reacted to losing by firing Hogan
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And then, yes, on the 1st of May 2003 SmackDown, we had a brand new character debut on Piper's Pit, Mr. America
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This wasn't random either. WWE had spent weeks of vignettes teasing his arrival
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Now, obviously, you can see the image on the screen right now, but I need to make this clear. nothing was done to hide the person's identity it was literally hulk hogan in a mask like if wwe
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had released his action figure beforehand the title would have read now you can buy hulk hogan
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in a mask and oh my gosh it's blue the real issue from a kayfabe point of view though is that every
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heel in the company went out of their way to try and prove to you this was hulk hogan even though
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every single person on the planet including your nan could just look at it and go well yes i'm aware
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of that why do you even need to do any investigating to begin with somehow that led to a judgment day
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match between Hulk Hogan and Roddy Piper. Look, I don't want to be horrible here, but it was one of
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the worst matches of 2003. What's even worse is that Hulk Hogan and Vince McMahon fell out before
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this storyline even finished, so Mr. America just vanished into the dust. I really don't know what
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the payoff was going to be, or why Hulk Hogan couldn't have just been Hulk Hogan, but let me
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know in the comments below I mean at least one of you was probably 10 watching this likely thought it was the best thing ever Number five the unmasking of Kane Now I can totally understand why on the 23rd of June 2003 Raw Kane Vince McMahon and everybody else decided it finally time to take off the mask
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The Big Red Machine had been wearing that since 1997. And if he was going to be a character that had serious longevity, well that's just wrestling dude
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It was always going to happen eventually. So I can only talk about this from my vantage point
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But during that moment and even now as I sit here today, I just think it was a massive mistake
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Sometimes you can just get a character and a gimmick and a story so well
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that you don't actually need to tinker with it at all. I mean, I would use The Undertaker, but of course he went on a transformation of his own
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But even in June of 2003, well, I was happy for Kane to keep that damn thing on his face forever
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Now, I think there's probably more to this as well, because in 2002, what storyline had Kane been subjected to
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Two words, my friends, Katie Vick. I've talked about that on other videos, so I won't go into it here
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But the headline is, it was about necrophilia. So if Glenn Jacobs did get a year down the line and was desperate to get away with that
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and the best way to do that was to show his face, well, believe you me, I get it
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The other thing we did do here is that we just threw the entire Kane law down the toilet
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because as soon as you could see his face, there were no burns, so we had to sell this as psychological
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I wouldn't think about that too much, because it doesn't make sense as to what happened with The Undertaker and Kane when they were kids
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But once again, it is wrestling. Sometimes they just don't care. Now you can't fault it too much, because the Kane character essentially went on for another two decades
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But also after this, he electrocuted Shane McMahon's testicles. Maybe the peak was always going to be 1997 and 1998, because as debuts go, well it's pretty much perfect
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One of the best character arrivals of all time. Number four, the sad reality of Scott Steiner
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Now I don't want to take too many shots at Scott Steiner after he debuted at the Survivor Series in 2002
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because everybody wanted this to begin with. the real shame is that he didn't walk in during the invasion angle that would have been massive
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much like scott look at his biceps those peaks the problem with 2003 though as styler did move up
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into the main event scene is that he just wasn't the man he once was because injuries and the
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wrestling lifestyle had caught up to him i mean he barely only had one foot it meant really that
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if wwe were gonna book him in bigger bouts all of these should have gone short when we got to the
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triple h feud and yeah they just went on and on and on even if some of the elements were pretty
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decent, after a while you kind of just tuned out because again, Scott wasn't able to keep the same
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pace he used to be able to. And around this juncture I'm going to tell you to watch his main event run
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in WCW because you will see a totally different performer, but that's why this one was so damn
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disappointing. He was struggling with drop foot so could only move at half the speed that he used to
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do, and think how tough that must be, nothing else is going to affect your mental game. It just meant
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the two matches he had with Triple H at Royal Rumble and No Way Out are not worth your viewing
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and that's a real shame because in a different year, it probably would have been absolute bangers
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I know that most people are excited to see Scott Steiner back in the WWE as well
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especially as Big Papa Pump. We probably should have pulled the trigger early with this
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My gosh, you can say that about a lot of people. We've waited too long
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Number three, Vince McMahon versus Stephanie McMahon. The best way to sum this up is twofold
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One, WWE would never do this today. And two, I dare you to show this to somebody that doesn't watch wrestling
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you won't do it because you'll be embarrassed and you'll cry into your cornflakes
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Given that we had done every single other McMahon scenario, though, I suppose this was always going to happen with the family
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And at No Mercy 2003, Vince McMahon went into an I Quit match against his own daughter Stephanie
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A pre-match stipulation also called for the loser to immediately vacate their position as an authority figure
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But actually, Stephanie technically didn't quit. Instead, her mother Linda chucked in the towel while Vince choked his own flesh and blood with a lead pipe
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You can now see this image on the screen now, how much Vince McMahon seems to be enjoying it
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If you feel uncomfortable, don't worry, because I do too. No, the truth was the McMahon family melodrama had peak years before this, likely around WrestleMania 17
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That is one of the issues that people had with WWE in 2003. Why do we keep going back to it
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We also run out of ideas which is why we did move to the shocking and repulsive Believe you me if you watch all of this and some of the promos you are going to sit there with a slack jaw We also do have to throw in as well because Stephanie McMahon talked about this in a documentary
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It was also this period, where we had one abandoned creative pitch
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which was for Stephanie McMahon to have a baby. And who would the father be
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That's right, it would be Vince. And surprise, surprise, Steph said, no dad, we're never doing that
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because that's totally flubbed up. Instead, she got whammed in the head with a lead pipe
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I guess that's just WWE. Number two, Booker T versus Triple H
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So we have talked about this time and time again, but it's important to keep the flame alive
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Although we have to say this, Booker T has always come out and said he was totally cool with it
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And his opinion probably should matter the most. I mean, he was one of the guys in it
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For a fan like me, though, back in 2003, especially moving into WrestleMania 19
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I was desperate to see Booker walk away with the World Heavyweight Championship
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just because I think this is what sports entertainment should be. Triple H and Ric Flair had been awful to this man
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so you get to the big show and the babyface proves you can't be a bully, it doesn't work out
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The reason this one is more than bad booking and still gets brought up today is because WWE really leaned into the race angle
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Like at one point the game even said to Booker, people like you, and had some terrible words to describe the hair on his head
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There was other things in here as well, all of which will make you raise an eyebrow, and none of it was handled with that much grace
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I really do think it would be easy to defend if Booker T had beaten this guy at WrestleMania
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Yeah, we've already talked about that. He didn't. And just to add fuel to the fire, I'm sure you've heard of this one
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After Triple H hits the pedigree, he takes around about 45 seconds before he pins Booker T
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I mean, it really didn't make any sense at all. If nothing else, there was zero need to inject race into this story anyway
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because Booker T absolutely could have been the guy coming from WCW that finally wanted his shot at the top of WWE
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He worked great with Triple H as well, because these two could go. but to throw all the other stuff into the mix
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well, it was a mistake, it was offensive, and it just did not work out at all
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Number one, Eric Bischoff and Linda McMahon. So before we do get into it
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you need to think about it for just one second. Vince McMahon, who once again was writing the scripts
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told old enemy Eric Bischoff it was time for him to get intimate
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with both his wife and daughter on camera in several ill-advised and really quite unfortunate pre-taped skits
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Eric Bischoff also talked about this in his 83 Weeks podcast and said when Vince described his kiss with Linda
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he wanted it to look very forceful. Did your stomach just turn
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Because mine most definitely did. Now the idea was that McMahon wanted fans to be so irate
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that when we did get to SummerSlam, they were desperate for Shane McMahon to beat up Eric Bischoff
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But once again, there's better ways to do this. It was the August 18th, 2003 Raw
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when Linda was shown speaking remotely on camera to Jim Ross. And yes, she was at home
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The doorbell then rings and who happens to be there? it's Eric Bischoff who somehow had her address
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We have to throw in that Linda was recovering after being hit with a tombstone by Kane
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when, I mean, I can't think of other ways to put it, Eric sort of forced himself on her
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while saying things like, you are a big-breasted beauty. I feel sick again
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The funny part to all of it is that Shane saw this happening on the big screen so got in a car to drive to save his mother
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The issue was he was at Raw in Grand Rapids and Linda McMahon was in Michigan
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that's around a 12 hour drive i don't think you're gonna make it eric also said on that podcast that
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vincent man was cooking eggs in the kitchen throughout all of this so there's some trivia
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you didn't need and i suppose the best way you can see how awful this is is by watching it for
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yourself once again i can't believe this was bringing anybody in to increase the ratings
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and it just felt creepy and weird it didn't get me more interested in eric versus shane
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it made me want to turn off my tv it was also really over the top and unbelievable and not in
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good way and it was just in bad taste. I know that makes me sound like an old man but it was
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You want wrestling to be entertaining man and seeing the Raw GM try to kiss the boss's wife
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Well that ain't for me. I would rather have anything else. Know of any other awful things that happen in WWE come 2003? Well you can now let us know in
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the comments below before you like the video, share the video and subscribe. You can then click
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the video on the screen too to get even more of me in your life which is probably a bad thing
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but ultimately I appreciate you my friends and I'll talk to you again soon


