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Vince Russo recently recalled how Hulk Hogan once exercised his "creative control" in WCW to avoid following the script.
Vice Network's latest episode of Dark Side of the Ring chronicled the controversial Bash at the Beach 2000 event. Hulk Hogan was set to challenge Jeff Jarrett for the WCW World Championship at the show. However, Jarrett fell to the ground just when the bell rang, allowing Hogan to pin him for the win.
An enraged Hulkster left the arena only for Vince Russo to come out and fire him from the promotion and reinstate Jeff Jarrett as the champion. Russo also booked a new main event, during which Jarrett dropped his title to Booker T.
On Sportskeeda's UnSKripted, Vince Russo recalled that after rejecting the first script, Hulk Hogan agreed to follow the second script he penned.
"So then, I write the second script, where I make Hulk look even stronger, but he doesn't win the belt. [John] Laurinaitis presented it to Hulk; Laurinaitis comes back to me and said, 'Vince, Hulk said he's fine with that.'" [30:47 - 31:02]
Vince Russo, however, revealed that he later learned Hogan had gotten his attorney to send a fax to WCW's head office on the Friday night before Bash at the Beach. The 62-year-old added that, as per the fax, The Hulkster was exercising his "creative control" powers and refused to follow the script.
"I found out this in the deposition months later. After Hogan told Laurinaitis he was good with it, Hogan's attorney sent a fax to WCW's office after closing hours on Friday. The pay-per-view is Sunday. Sends the fax to the office after closing hours, stating, 'Hulk Hogan was gonna play his creative control card and not gonna do what was written.' Friday after the office closes, and everybody is on their way to Bash at the Beach. So nobody saw this fax prior to the show." [31:35 - 32:22]
Check out the full video below:
Vince Russo on Hulk Hogan's creative influence in WCW
On an episode of Sportskeeda's The Wrestling Outlaws a few months back, Russo made it clear he had no issues with Hulk Hogan for exercising his creative powers in WCW.
Russo explained that he had "heat" with the promotion for letting one of its talents have so much influence that it came in the way of the overall creative direction.
"Bro, I never one time got upset with Hogan for playing his creative control card. Bro, WCW gave it to him. Why would I get hot at the guy for playing it? Bro, I had no heat whatsoever for Hulk pulling that card. The heat was with WCW. If you guys are stupid enough to give a talent creative control, you better believe he's gonna play the creative control card."
Russo and Hulk Hogan later went on to work together in IMPACT Wrestling from 2009-2011, when the former was among the head writers.
If you take any quotes from the first half of this article, please embed the YouTube video and credit Sportskeeda Wrestling.
