Booker T was a star in WCW and when WWE bought out WCW, Booker T came over as part of the “Invasion” angle and eventually became one of the rare few who eventually thrived to have a Hall of Fame career.
But things apparently didn’t start out that great as Booker T got a bit of a taste as to how things were in WWE.
On Booker T’s podcast, Heated Conversations, Bruce Pritchard and Booker remembered a story about Booker breaking Stone Cold Steve Austin’s hand in his WWE debut in 2001. For punishment for breaking Stone Cold’s hand, owner Vince McMahon suggested to Pritchard to call Booker and suggest to him to call up Austin and carry his bags at the airport. You can see where this is going.
Pritchard explains:
“I remember calling Booker late at night. I had gotten a phone call from our owner, Vincent Kennedy McMahon, who suggested that I call Book to suggest to Book that he should call Steve [and] make sure Steve is alright and he should be at Steve’s door to carry Steve’s bags the next day at the airport. And so, I’m like, ‘let me get this straight. You want a fat white guy to call the new black guy and ask him to meet the star white guy and carry his bags through the airport? Okay.’ So obviously, that went over like a fart in church … I was straight up with Book and I just didn’t pull any punches and I just told him how it was, man, and where it was coming from and why. And he said, ‘okay, great. I ain’t carrying nobody’s bag.’ And he didn’t and I respect him for that. And he respects me for being the one to have to make the call and do my job.”
Booker T’s side of the story corroborated with Pritchard’s and Booker didn’t carry Stone Cold’s bags.
“My debut in WWE, where I had to make my debut coming over the rail and dropping ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin on the table. I find out later that Austin supposedly had broken his hand. Bruce Prichard calls me and tells me that, ‘hey man, you broke Steve Austin’s hand your first night out.’ I’m like, ‘oh, what? You’re kidding me. You’re not serious, are you?’ ‘You broke his hand, you know?’ ‘Give me his phone number. Let me give him a call and apologize. I didn’t mean to do that.’ ‘No, maybe you should just meet him in his hotel in the morning and pack his bags to the arena.’
“Maybe it was a test. Do you know what I mean? Maybe it was a test. Do you know what I mean? I passed it, obviously, with flying colors because I ain’t packing nobody’s bags. You can forget about that. 100% of the time, you speak up. 99%, you keep your mouth shut. We ain’t packing no bags, 100%. Do you feel me? So I’m glad I was able to step up and stand up for myself. I saw Steve Austin the following couple of days and he didn’t say nothing to me about it. A bunch of them suckers were scared of me anyway, man. They didn’t want no trouble.”
This could’ve gone a variety of ways and for everybody’s sake, it ended with cooler heads prevailing. At that time, there was so much animosity between WCW and WWE superstars that when WWE won the “Monday Night War,” the WCW superstars that came over were literally seen by WWE superstars as the enemy who tried to put them out of a job.
Let’s say for the sake of argument, Booker T actually did break Stone Cold’s hand. Yes, in professional wrestling, when you make a mistake like that, particularly to a top star like Stone Cold, you make up for it in some way. But maybe the punishment of carrying someone’s bags, particularly in a racial sense, was a bit wrong. Maybe paying for Stone Cold’s beer for a month would’ve been a better punishment because that looked pretty expensive.
But maybe it was all a test and McMahon wasn’t actually trying to be racist, but wanted to see what his new superstar was willing to put up with. To Booker T’s credit, he didn’t put up with it, wasn’t going to carry Austin’s bags and except for that storyline against Triple H at WrestleMania XIX, had and still has a great career in WWE.
[Uproxx/Photo: WWE]
