WWE Hall Of Famer Booker T recently appeared as a guest on Ring Rust Radio for an interview. Below are some of the highlights.
On his Reality Of Wrestling promotion debuting as a new weekly program on the FITE TV streaming service beginning in September: “Aw, man, it’s huge to actually have a platform and let the world see Reality of Wrestling as well as to be able to compete with all the other independent companies around the world. You’re only going to get better if you’re actually competing. It’s almost like the Monday Night Wars for me all over again. That’s the kind of feeling I get with Reality of Wrestling. My thing is we have a lot of young guys and I probably have the youngest roster in professional wrestling as far as our company goes. For me to actually let my guys get out there and show how good they really are is what’s important. For me, when I went to WWE, I wanted to compete with the best wrestlers out there and now Reality of Wrestling is going to be able to compete with the best indie wrestlers around the world and I’m really excited and looking forward to it.”
On running for Mayor of Houston, Texas in the 2019 election and transitioning into politics: “I relate with the majority of the voters, I think. Everybody is not born with a silver spoon in their mouth. There are only a very small percentage of those types of people, you know what I mean? I think I relate with more than a few. I’m talking to the young people here in the city of Houston, the millennials, the ones that feel left out. The ones that feel like older people think they’re part of the problem as opposed to being part of the solution. I’m one of the guys that say respect your elders, but we are in a time now with social media is such a huge thing and we have to know how to respect our young people and bring them in the fold. We have to let them be a part of the process and not be the silent majority. I think that’s going to propel me to City Hall more than anything. Just knowing what young people want. I walked in a lot of those shoes and they know that. I want to give them hope and inspiration to be bigger and better than they ever thought they could be and I think that’s why I will win.”
On who stands out to him as his biggest career rival and who his dream opponent would be if he were to come back for one more match in WWE: “Booker T vs. Shawn Michaels in our prime, not now of course. He’s still looking real good, but even in our prime, I think Shawn Michaels and I could’ve went out and created some magic between us. He’s the one guy I never really got a chance to get in the ring and perform with. There’s been so many rivals, most of them Canadian guys like Rick Martel, Christian and Chris Benoit. Those guys were all ultimate professionals, every one of them. They went out and worked under the same roof for so many years with the same tenacity and they went out and performed just tirelessly. I was one of those guys. I felt like I went through that same school, but the Canadian guys were pretty much my all-time rivals in the business.”
On transitioning from a longtime active pro wrestler to a retired wrestler establishing himself as a WWE television announcer: “Man, I love it. I love having the best seat in the house and watching the young guys go out there and do their thing. It’s their time now and I embrace it. I push them to go as far as they can go and do much more than Booker T did. I love making the transition and changing my levels and being able to still be around what I love more than anything. Then to try and figure out the nuances of that game as well. Just being a commentator is not as easy as people think with going out there and talking for three hours. So, I don’t call myself a commentator, I call myself an analyst. I know my role and I go out there and try and have fun with it every week because you just never know when it’s going to be the last time. So, for me, making that transition and doing a job that I never imagined or dreamt of doing was surreal. I don’t have any broadcast experience or anything like that, but I used to play around doing commentary in the back. One day they said, ‘Hey Book, you want to try this out?’ So, I went out and tried it. The thing is you never know what you can do until you try it. Even if you try, you still may fail but that’s when you have to go and prepare because if you’re not prepared, you’re preparing to fail. That’s my advice to the young people is just prepare.”
Check out the complete episode of Ring Rust Radio podcast featuring the Booker T interview at BlogTalkRadio.com.
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