The Reality of Wrestling: Batista & Booker T
By Phil Clark & J.D. Speich
One of the biggest stories to hit the wrestling world this year is still going on in a sense. That story is the Batista/Booker T fight at The E’s SummerSlam commercial shoot. Apparently Batista hasn’t been making many friends since going to SmackDown! and has in fact been portraying himself as the company backstage. Obviously this hasn’t gone over well with the locker room and Booker T just happened to be the guy who became a metaphor for the locker room and finally snapped. While Batista did look dinged up after the fight, he didn’t look to be really effected by it. Of course this fight, along with allegations of an affair with Melina, has really made Big Dave public enemy #1 in any locker room as of now.
J.D. says: WWE should run with this angle between Booker and Batista
Over the last week the rumor mills have been going wild with updates on the Booker T./Batista incident that happened at the Summerslam commercial shoot. For all who don’t know (although I doubt there’s anyone who doesn’t know) I’m going to take you through a quick recap on the situation that has sent the wrestling sites buzzing.
Over the past couple of months an injured Batista has said to have been throwing his weight around in the WWE saying certain comments like, “I am the Smackdown roster,” and “I’m friends with management.” He’s been saying these comments to wrestlers of all caliber, the most recent one being Booker T., and at the Summerslam commercial shoot is where it all came to a head. It was reported that during the shoot Batista was running his mouth off to the entire roster to the point where Booker couldn’t take it anymore and decided to take it upon himself to stand up to Batista on behalf of the entire roster. Booker got so riled up that he started beating up Batista to the point where he was bleeding from the head. Now when I read this originally I was shocked to hear that Booker was able to beat up Batista seeing as Batista is a much larger individual than Booker, but later on it was reported that during the fight Batista was protecting his injured arm which means Batista wasn’t able to defend himself against an angry Booker T. After the fight Vince pulled both Booker and Batista into a conference room to discuss the matter and both men came out of the meeting with comments on the incident. Both men ended up having about the same comments saying that they would still agree to work with each other and that there would be no further incident based on the fact that it was better for the business. And as of recent news it seems that Booker and Batista were spotted sitting and talking with each other at the CW Network press conference. Was this just a showing of good faith by the two men or were they forced to sit together by Vince himself? That is a question in itself but there is a bigger question on everyone’s mind: will the WWE run with this recent fight and turn it into a live feud similar to the Edge/Matt Hardy angle, or will they leave the situation buried for the rest of eternity?
In my opinion I think the WWE should roll with this recent fight because it could work on so many levels. For one, when Batista comes back he should feud with Booker because all of the smarks will know the history and the WWE can bring the real life detail on to television. It would also work for the marks because this would be a great feud to see during the summer. What I think the WWE should do, and quite possibly will do according to some recent rumors, is let Booker feud with Rey Mystero up until Summerslam. At Summerslam Booker wins the title so that Rey can stay off of T.V. for a while to recover from his injuries. As soon as Booker wins the title however, Teddy Long’s music hits and he comes out with mic in hand. He comes out and says congratulations to Booker on a great victory but that he has an even bigger announcement for the fans, that announcement being that Batista has officially returned to Smackdown! Batista’s music hits and he walks down to the ring and a stare off ensues between the two with the camera panning out with Tazz saying, “The Beast is back.”
This sets up a great feud for Smackdown considering how desperate they are right now with all of the injured talent to get a good main event feud. Batista and Booker could go on for two months tops, but a good two-month feud ultimately seeing Batista regaining his World Heavyweight Title from Booker at Survivor Series. This is what I feel the WWE should do because they’ll easily get a hot feud between the two with all of the recent history among the rumor mills, and because it would be a good feud to start at the end of the summer to rejuvenate a desperate Smackdown. Hell, if and when Batista gets HIS belt back, whether it be from Booker or JBL, we could see a possible Angle/Batista feud that would take us to the Royal Rumble. I’ll just end my article with that left in the minds for all of you fans.
P.C. Says: If there’s a Batista/Booker feud, it shouldn’t be for the world title
Some may call me crazy, but I honestly don’t think this feud would draw money if a belt (any belt) were on the line. The Hardy/Edge feud worked (for as long as it did) because it wasn’t about a title, it was about real life hate. In real life, there aren’t any titles to be won, there’s just pride. That should be the point of any feud between these two. Not only that, but I could see Booker telling Batista that he was forced to be chummy with him at the CW press conference as a way to heat up the feud.
I believe that this feud shouldn’t be for the world title because I don’t think anyone buys Booker T as a legitimate world title contender. Think about it: WM 19 (yes, people still remember that), the losses to JBL, the Boogeyman feud, does this guy have any credibility left? Yes, he won King of the Ring; good for him, but that shouldn’t automatically jettison him into a world title feud. What is should do is make him an automatic U.S. title contender and possibly champion sometime in the summer.
A feud with Big Dave in a non-title situation would be the perfect way to bring him back. If I may use Dave’s “friend in management” HHH as an example, you’ll see my point. HHH’s first big feud when he came back was with Ric Flair that not only got The Game face cheers not only helped RAW’s pitiful undercard, but also rocked the house at every big show they faced off on. It also gave people a reason to want to see HHH back in the title picture. All of that is dido for Big Dave. I don’t think too many people want to see Dave win the gold on his first match back. I do believe that a feud with Booker (shoot feeling included) would be the start of Dave’s rise back to the gold. Where should that climb end? Mania would be an awesome guess (Angle/Batista at Mania, sweet!), but since it’s SmackDown! I’m going to say thatâ€â€Âif things go the way I think they shouldâ€â€Âthen Dave gets the title win over Angle at Survivor Series after Angle takes the gold at SummerSlam.
The Reality is…we don’t know what’s going to happen. The E has been almost schizophrenic with their booking starting with Mania. From what I’ve heard, JBL was originally supposed to beat Rey on Sunday, but the decision was reversed at the last minute making me and many others wonder where Rey’s title reign goes from here. The same could happen with Dave upon his return. The E knows that he is SmackDown!’s biggest draw, so he could win the title in his return match or he may go a long time without winning the belt like his counterpart on Raw.
PLUGS
Once again, got to give a shout out to my boy Dave Ditch and his site Ditch Wrestling.
This week’s “FUCK YOU!” goes to:
THE UNDERTAKER
So, you job clean to someone for the first time in how long and it’s….it’s….The Great Khali?! Are you f*cking kidding me Mark. So you couldn’t do a clean job with Angle that the fans would appreciate, but you let this worthless pile pin you with one foot! That’s not only jobbing, that’s megajobbing, which scares me because that more than likely means that The E (for whatever reason(s)) has plans for Khali. I’ve seen this guy in Japan and he makes Big Show look like Ric Flair in his heyday. This is not the guy that should be getting the rub from the Deadman. Hell, there are probably 15-20 guys on the SmackDown! roster alone (including a certain suspended legend killer) that deserve or deserved to be put over by this guy. Boy, another reason for me to dread Mean Mark. That’s just grand.
