Mechanically Fine, Triple H vs. Booker T is Driven by Spite

You can do all the moves right and still have a bad time.

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Let’s cut to the chase: Triple H plays a racist in this feud. That’s obviously what this feud—along with the eventual result—is best known for, but I recall all the strange ways that those involved have tried to dance around it. Perhaps the most common “defense” of the direction the build to this match took would be that Triple H didn’t mean that Black people couldn’t be World Champion, more that former convicts like Booker T could never be champion.

But we all understand that’s fucking bullshit, right?

There are implicit racial undertones involved in the feud here. A white man antagonizing a Black man about his prison history has an inherently racist tone to it, that’s just a reality of the world. What wasn’t quite obvious to me about this match’s reputation though is just how shameless the WWE was about that aspect of the story. Notably, the line that most people recall from this—"Somebeody like you doesn’t get to be the World Champion”—gets a prominent feature in the pre-match hype video. That same hype video opens with a lengthy segment about Booker T’s struggles growing up, even lingering for quite a long time on his actual mugshot.

The WWE knows what they’re doing here, and they don’t mind flaunting it.

Even in this hype video though, the first signs of trouble reveal themselves. Yes, Booker T’s childhood struggle takes up the opening of the video, but then things start to change. The deeper we get into the video, the less important Booker T feels in his own World Title challenge. Hunter’s voice begins to dominate the edit, the energetic 2000s editing revels in Evolution’s beatdowns of Booker T. Notable too is the booking of the go-home Raw before WrestleMania. Booker T gets a pinfall on busted open bleeding Hunter, leaving the champion’s confidence shaken going into the Mania title defense.

The question the hype video leaves us with isn’t “Can Booker T overcome the racist bullies at the top of the heap?” Instead, the video dares to ask, “Can Triple H regain the confidence he needs to be the World Heavyweight Champion we already know he is?”

It’s insidious stuff.

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In the moment, I can understand how it might have been possible to dismiss those misgivings. The racial angle used in the build is rather tasteless, of course, but if Booker T is going to overcome then perhaps it won’t be so bad. The most effective voice rallying us behind this cause is none other than good ole Jim Ross, whose expressive voice does such a wonderful job putting over Booker T and how impressive his climb to this moment has been.

“From the age of 12, Booker T has been on his own,” says JR. “And did he make some bad decisions? Absolutely. And did he pay the price for that? You're damn right.”

Jerry Lawler is far less impressive. That’s always been the case, and a big part of it is him playing the villain to JR’s straight man but it’s especially infuriating in this case. Lawler makes a crack about Booker T being the only potential World Champion having Johnnie Cochran on speed dial, it’s a crass joke that fits the tone and themes of the feud but one that’s especially crude given Lawler’s on brushes with the law in the past, as well as the fact that admitted sex offender and multi-time World Champion Ric Flair is at ringside at Triple H’s side. It’s just such ugly, awful stuff.

Even then though, JR as a voice reason can’t help but cut through the bullshit. “What kind of people is Booker T?” he demands.

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The sneakiest part of this whole presentation though is that the match itself isn’t so bad. Even with the right result, I doubt it tops anyone’s 2003 Match of the Year list, but it mostly has the right idea. Triple H has trouble getting going early on and Booker T’s able to control much of the opening moments. Hunter really only cuts him off by playing a trick on the apron, luring Booker T and bashing him into the ringpost to initiate the match’s first heat segment.

Yes, first.

That’s another one of the match’s tricks as Booker T actually makes an early comeback in this that’s shockingly effective. Even when Hunter goes to his trusty Sleeper hold to try to cut off the momentum, Booker escapes it and spares us that interminable plague on so many other 2000s Triple H title matches. It almost feels like the match is climaxing too soon, with the hero getting his second wind long before things are ready to wrap up.

Then, the second heat segment. This time, it comes with help from Ric Flair hitting Booker T with a shinbreaker to the steel steps. Even then, the idea here makes a lot of sense. Flair’s the heel manager at ringside, he’s helping his client steal the advantage here. What follows makes sense too, Triple H goes after the bad limb. WWE crowds never quite buy into Hunter’s Indian deathlock no matter his efforts over the years to get it over, but I honestly don’t mind how it’s worked here.

As much sense as the leg work segment makes on paper though, there’s a nastiness to its function in the greater narrative though. By the time Flair drops Booker’s knee on the steps, the match is lost. Booker commits to selling the leg, which means that his scissor kick has a little less power. The damage also keeps him from making the cover in time, letting Hunter kick out at two.

It’s the injury to the leg as well that stalls Booker long enough for Triple H to finally get a Pedigree in.

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The Pedigree is, of course, the most effective and brutal finisher known to man. So powerful that despite a lengthy crawl to get to Booker, Triple H need only place his hand on Booker’s chest to get a three-count and the victory. There’s close to zero body weight across Booker’s shoulders when we get the happiest possible ending to a WrestleMania title match: the racist champion gets over his shaken confidence from Monday night to put away the challenger with the help of his geriatric manager and a systematic attack on the knee.

There’s a finality to it all too, there’s none of that condescending cooing and soothing that might accompany a similar heartbreaking defeat in 2020s WWE. There’s no commentary offering consolations or promises for a better tomorrow. In fact, for much of the match, JR’s emphatic about the idea that this very well may be Booker’s only and last shot at Triple H, as the champion will be too cowardly to allow for rematches.

Booker T isn’t getting his win back and everyone involved knows it.

What’s perhaps most painful about it all as that all of this—the racism, the devastating match structure that rewards our heel, the sense of finality—is in service of something far pettier and pointless. As with so much of this particular World Title reign for Triple H, it all comes back to putting down WCW.

The stink of the WWE’s victory lap permeates the entire build. After all, so much of it too revolves around the idea that this is Booker T’s “big shot” at the title: dismissing the five World Title reigns he’d amassed beforehand. It’s not even dismissal by omission either. Hunter, as proxy of the WWE promotional machine, says the quiet part out loud constantly throughout the feud: WCW was a joke, and Booker T’s title reigns, by extension, are a joke.

Even Jim Ross fails us here. When Lawler starts taking digs at WCW, the two have this exchange.

“Well, how long did you work for WCW, King?”

“Never.”

“Well, I have.”

“And was it a joke?”

“Damn right.”

All of it’s a joke, WCW’s the punchline. And if it takes killing Booker T’s chances at the World Title for another three years to tell it, then that’s what they’ll do. When even good ole JR buys into the propaganda, where can one turn?

Where are the clowns

There ought to be clowns

Well, maybe next year

Rating: **1/4