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View Full Version : What does the future have in store for the former 5 time WCW champ?



Unknown
06-14-2004, 06:54 PM
Booker T is probably one of the best pure superstars on the SD brand. He has it all: in ring skills, mic skills, and that special it factor. There is no reason why he shouldn’t be at the top of the SD mountain right? Wrong. Right now, Booker is in the same situation he saw himself in on the Raw brand. Let’s go back to the beginning: his jump to the SD brand.

Booker came to the SD brand and made an immediate impact by downgrading the roster and its champ. IMO that was one of the biggest mistakes. Telling your viewers that one show is better than the other is not a smart business decision on the part of the WWE. Booker was showing the serious heel side of himself that no one felt he could play. I marked out for this one big because I saw an excellent feud with Eddie Guerrero on the horizon for him. Booker was finally going to get the top spot he deserved. Later on that night, Booker was wrestling Eddie for the championship which was another mistake. Angle shouldn’t of handed him a title shot just because he’s a heel seeing as he had just downgraded his show. He should have given Booker an opportunity to prove himself worthy of a title shot which would have brought back some credibility to the title and SD as a whole. Still things looked up for Booker. He was having a good matchup with the WWE champion. All of a sudden, JBL comes out and destroys Eddie costing him his shot at the belt. Heel or not, that should have pissed Booker T off. Booker’s rise to the top was sacrificed in hopes of building JBL. One of many nails in the coffin for the character of Booker.

Things still looked up for Booker as he was headed for a feud with RVD which should have done for both men what the Benoit/Rhyno would have done if it was longer. This feud was the feud that would solidify main event spots for both men. What did the WWE decide to do, end the feud about two months too early. They gave away RVD/Booker two times on SD within the space of two weeks. Dawn Marie/Torrie deserved a PPV spot when this match didn’t? Logic has never been one of the strong points of the WWE anyways. Booker’s rise to the top was once again passed up in favor of another angle not involving him.

Next Booker headed into a program with the Undertaker. Everyone knew how this one would have ended. Booker wasn’t even made to look as if he had any sort of a chance against Taker and the WWE even went as far as having him seek advice from psychic another stupid decision. He went into JD and lost which was probably one of the worst decisions of the year by the WWE. What does the win do for Taker? Absolutely nothing then again when has Taker ever jobbed let alone cleanly for the good of the company? The feud continued for a few more weeks where Booker was put up against jobbers week in and week out. Good idea but poor execution. Booker should have squashed each and everyone of those men with a post match beatdown to put his heel character over. Squashing a jobber isn’t enough to build credibility for your character. Booker was pushed as more confident though. He was starting to look like a top heel once again. His rematch with Taker was supposed to be the payoff for all of this building. What happens? The matchup doesn’t even finish in fact, Booker just disappears. What the ****? That was probably the final straw to his becoming a main event player anytime soon. Heyman’s angle with the Dudley’s took precedent over making Booker SD’s top heel. Once again, Booker passed up in favor of an angle.

Now, Booker is feuding for the US title. What the hell does this do for his character in all seriousness. He’s a former world champ why would he be feuding for a midcard belt? It seems as if they’ve put him back in limbo once again. What would be worse than him feuding for the belt is his actually winning the title. That would be one of the worst decisions IMO. What would it possibly do for his character other than set it back years.

What exactly does the future have in store for Booker? Rumor has it that he is frustrated with his push or lack thereof that he is receiving and may be retiring earlier than thought. Can you blame him? I surely can’t. Booker has been a victim of circumstance ever since coming to the SD brand. Right now, he should be top heel on SD. If I were the powers that be this is how I would have laid out his push:

Following his jump to the SD brand, I would have had him go against Eddie in a non title bout. I would have had him lose the matchup. Then, I would have had him for the next few weeks cutting promos about how he’s the best on SD and deserves to be champ. Week by week he’d get decisive wins and would be considered soon #1 contender for the title. All of a sudden, RVD would come to him about them reforming their team (one of the things they actually did right). Booker would say that he has bigger things in mind right now and that he doesn’t have the time. RVD would find a way to persuade him to go for the belts with him. Booker would then wrestle with him against the champs and RVD would end up losing the matchup. Booker would look as if he was helping RVD up and would end up destroying RVD. He would get on the mic and say that RVD couldn’t even get the job done and that he is going to make him pay for disrupting his quest for the WWE Championship. They’d then have a feud with the 1st match being at Vengeance with RVD going over after a 25 min matchup. RVD would then boast about how he considers himself more worthy for a title shot than Booker which would infuriate Booker leading him to challenge RVD for one last matchup going into the GAB which would be a Last Man Standing match. Angle would declare this matchup a number one contenders matchup for the WWE title at Summerslam. Booker would then go over putting him in line for a title shot while RVD would be able to still hang around the main event scene because of the way his character would have been built as a result of the feud with Booker transforming him from the laid back face to the ruthless babyface. Booker would then have a feud with Eddie going into SS which would bring back some credibility for the belt as both men will be feuding with strong characters which won’t call for any being sacrificed in hopes of building the other. This would have been a much better way of building his character.

Honestly, I don’t know what the future has in store for him. He could get sick of his role and just quit. He could just stay in limbo for the rest of his career. Maybe he might get a strong main event push. Booker does deserve much more than he is being given by the WWE and hopefully the future will have a top heel spot on SD along with a WWE title run.

The Kid
06-14-2004, 08:00 PM
Man, I wish you could win POTM two months in a row.

I agree with everything that you said. From the start of the whole draft thing, Booker was handled improperly. It should have been JBL who went against Taker and got squashed by him. It gives JBL a high profile fued without being too high that it becomes unbelieveable.

I really liked your plan for Booker and RVD. The match would be really good because I think that their styles mesh very well. After that I'd have Booker win the title from Eddie in a very hard fought match that lasts in the half hour range. With the title, Booker could continue his character of being better than everyone on Smackdown. To prove it he could say that he'll defend the title at any time against anyone. He'd build a Samoa Joe ( ROH Champion held title for over a year) type character in which he'd defend the title against all challengers and in the process build up the title's credibility.

He'd basically be like Triple H only Booker's fueds would revolve around people in a quest for the title and not so much revolving around Booker himself which I found was the major fault of Triple H's title reign. The only problem with this plan is, I'm not sure if most of the WWE's fans would be able to handle a long title reign. Fans now a days seem to have very short attention spans and don't usually like particularly long title reigns.

The WWE would have to find a way to get around this problem and the most likely solution is to have a 3-4 month reign which includes Booker defending the belt in Fatal Fourways and matches along those lines. The Fatal Fourways and other multiple competitor matches would establish that everyone seems to want a shot at the title which portrays the belt as being important and makes Booker look like a strong champion when he comes out of those matches where the odds appear to be stacked against him with the belt still around his waist.

As for what I see in Booker's future, I have to admit, it's not looking all that great to me. He might get in a pretty good fued with Cena or RVD but ultimately I feel that he won't really be given a chance to shine. I hope that I'm wrong but I don't think that I am.

Unknown
06-15-2004, 05:05 PM
Yeah...I do too. :) Just kidding. Guys like Mac Daddy and Chazz deserve to be the next POTM. This along with my Batista one were my attempts at writing a column. I was just seeing what kind of discussion would come out of them. I don't want to write a column but just like posting stuff like this in order to promote and spark intelligent discussion.

The Kid
06-15-2004, 07:16 PM
I think that pretty much all of your posts could be taken as columns. That is a really good thing because it really promotes intellegent conversation. And another thing is I've also noticed Mac Daddy really picking up his game around here. And Chazz is a well-known great poster so he's really no suprise that he's doing well. There are so many more great posters that it's really unfair to say just two but oh well, life's not fair.