Andrew Lutzke
“Guest Booker with Jerry Jarrett”
Presented by Sean Oliver and the Kayfabe Commentaries Crew
Sean Oliver explains the concept of this edition of “Guest Booker”, which is having WCW hire Memphis promoting legend Jerry Jarrett to take over in 2000 instead of putting Vince Russo and Eric Bischoff back in power.
Jarrett explains how WCW’s revolving leaders would call him up and try and siphon knowledge from him. Then the WCW leaders would come back with excuses about not being able to do them due to Turner oversight. Jarrett told them to just fold the promotion then because Vince McMahon has made wrestling the corporation, not tried to fit a wrestling group into a corporation’s umbrella.
One man should be in charge, if the booker falters, fire him. The booker must have 100% of control over the talent and not have some people with “creative control”.
Jack Petri, Bill Shaw, Bill Busch and others brought Jarrett to WCW headquarters over the years for insight.
Jarrett worked with Vince McMahon for a while, but grew homesick and went back to Memphis.
WCW eventually paid Jarrett just to sit at his home and watch the WCW TV, then offer pointers after the fact. At the same time McMahon was still sending him consultant checks as well.
Once WCW went into free fall, Jarrett put together an investment group to attempt to buy the company. Jarrett felt if he was in charge, WCW could have been run efficiently.
Jarrett claims they offered Turner 70 million dollars for the company, but McMahon had already sealed a deal for 5 million. (One can assume Jarrett’s group had assumed TV came with the deal.)
The structure of guaranteed contracts hurt the business, since it removes the incentive for guys to work hard to draw a house to earn money.
Jarrett feels had he actually took the job in WCW, he would have ended up the same as Bill Watts since both of them only knew how to work within the promoting structure of the past decades.
Entertaining the fans is the top goal of any company, if the fans are bored or turned off somehow, their money won’t be back next time.
Make things realistic so the fans can buy into the stories and become invested in the angles.
Jarrett talks about taking over the Dallas area once the World Class promotion went out of business. He tried to rebuild things by simplifying the product.
Bad bookers tend to over complicate things, which means next time they try to do something they have to go that much farther to wow the fans.
Vince McMahon is the greatest booker of all time. He explained to Jarrett that a booker needs to focus on no more than three guys on top to make into your real drawing talent.
Jarrett booked a lot of bloody brawls in the Memphis territory that other promoters told him was going to exhaust the fans. Jarrett counter pointed that he was making lots of money.
“Wrestling is Shakespeare for the illiterate.”
Ideally a promotion would have three titles, a top title, a mid-card title and a tag title.
Jarrett explained that ICW (The Poffo Family’s outlaw promotion that was in Jarrett’s territory) would spend more time having “Macho Man” Randy Savage bashing Bill Dundee and Jerry Lawler on TV than building up their own brand to make money with.
TV should sell your tickets and you should run at least three shows a week to keep the talent rust free and their abilities sharp.
Jarrett claims Bischoff wanted him to talk to Hogan about turning heel in order to avoid the confrontation himself.
TNA was a bad experience for Jerry and it caused a rift between himself and his son. Jerry is also not a fan of the Carter Family in the least. He rips on Dixie for being unfit to run a company. As of the time of this DVD being produced, Jerry and Jeff were still not really talking.
Now that he has stress related heart issues, Jerry gets excited over gardening instead of stressing about wrestling.
Being on a cold slab in an operating room opened Jerry’s eyes to what is truly important in life.
The Booking:
WCW should have held meetings and explained to the talent that the company was failing and dramatic changes have to be made.
Jarrett would release the entire roster to go to the WWF if they so desired. If they wanted to stay and try and find a renewed push, they would be welcomed into the fold of the new regime.
Jarrett next goes over the WCW 2000 roster and hand picks who he’d desire to have on board: Vampiro, Three Count, AJ Styles, Barry Horowitz, Billy Kidman, Torrie Wilson, Booker T, Brian Knobbs, Chavo Jr., Chris Candido, Tammy Sytch, Curt Hennig, Dustin Rhodes, Elix Skipper, Rey Jr., Juventud Gurrerra, Konnan, Stevie Ray, The Harris Twins, Hulk Hogan, Jimmy Hart, Jeff Jarrett, Hacksaw Duggan, Kevin Nash, Lex Luger, Miss Elizabeth, Meng, Ric Flair, Sid Vicious, Stacy Kiebler, The Steiner Bros, Shane Douglas, Sonny Siaki, Sting, Tank Abbott and Terry Funk.
Jarrett always tried to pay 25% of the gross back to the talent.
The World title, the US title and World tag titles will be the only three titles that Jarrett would use.
The titles need to be emphasized as the goal of everyone on the roster.
World champion Sid Vicious would be given a three-month run of destruction on top to reestablish the title. He’d beat legit tough guys like Rick Steiner, Meng and Tank Abbott to come across as the ultimate badass.
Meanwhile Hulk Hogan would be given a string of wins in order to prep him for a mega-match with Sid. Hogan would have a series of vignettes to talk about his history and question whether or not he still can be the man.
Sid degrades Hogan constantly to build sympathy for Hogan. Hogan would start to question himself for the first time. The other top guys will come out and question if anyone can stop Sid. The final Nitro before the PPV, Hogan finally snaps out of his doldrums and cuts a vintage Hogan promo. Then at the PPV Hogan beats Sid and takes the title. Hogan spends the next few months beating the other top guys.
(I hate this booking since Hogan, God love him, was beyond played out in 2000 and all Jarrett did was double down on the same crap that hampered WCW in the final years. I wish that Oliver had questioned if a guy in his mid-40’s was the best choice to rebuild a company around.)
The Harris Boys are favorites of Jarrett as he feels they can work and are tough guys. Jarrett wants to keep the World tag titles on them for the next six-months while squashing other teams. Meanwhile, the Harlem Heat is built up to meet them in a penultimate encounter down the line. (There’s a reason the Harris Boys never got over anywhere Jerry!)
Jeff Jarrett will be booked to lose his US title to Curt Hennig and become the classic underdog babyface, chasing Hennig for months without ever being granted a rematch. (Another case where Jarrett doesn’t use the fact that this is based on the year 2000 and Hennig was a burnt out drug addict who was pilled up from back pain.)
AJ Styles is built up on the undercard using Terry Funk or someone similar as a mentor to try and help give him the rub. Jarrett wants Styles to work a less high spot oriented style. Eventually Jarrett and Styles feud for the US title.
Stacy Kiebler and Dustin Rhodes become an on screen item before she starts to have eyes for Scott Hall and the men have physical altercations over her. (2000 Scott Hall = Sex magnet. Well, maybe better than fat Dustin…)
The undercard would have a bunch of six-man tag matches and mixed gender matches as garnish for the top angles. The Filthy Animals and 3 Count would have a long series of matches.
Overall, just keep things logical and business will fix itself.
Final thoughts: Clocking in at ninety minutes, this actually felt a lot longer as Jarrett proved to be a pretty dry interviewee. I am always annoyed on these “Guest Booker” DVDs when the guys don’t put perspective behind the time frame they are retooling also and this was especially noticeable here since Jarrett just became Eric Bischoff 2.0 and booked a Hogan heavy product. Recommendation to avoid.
