Post by flame3169118 on Aug 2, 2016 17:49:46 GMT -5
JBL welcomes us to the show and talks about how nearly 30 years ago he shared a locker room with a man that would become a life long friend. He does a great job of putting over Booker T and all that he has accomplished in the business, and you can see a smile creep over Booker’s face. JBL jokes that 25 years later he is still putting Booker over.
Booker says it is 26 years this month that he has been in the business and they show a picture of the two of them together early in their careers. Booker puts over Black Bart and Manny Fernandez for showing him the ropes. JBL and Booker brings up the Sportatorium and JBL affectionately calls it a dump. Booker talks about just being happy to get a tryout with his brother in the building. Just a few years later, he and his brother were selling out the building as The Ebony Experience.
JBL talks about how he has been friends with Booker for over 20 years and never knew of his past until he read Booker’s back a few years ago. He says Booker has to be a 1 in 100 million chance to be sitting where he is. Booker says his mom told him that if he continued on path he was on as a child he would end up in prison or dead.
They discuss Booker’s family and how his father passed away when Booker was 10 months old. His father didn’t leave him and his father wasn’t a bad man. He was a great dad from everything he has been told. Booker has a photo of his dad (which they show) and he says his dad was a strong man and Booker always wanted to live up to the man he saw in that picture. His mom took the 8 kids and moved them to Houston in hopes of a better life. Booker lived vicariously through his mother and life was good as a kid.
Tragedy struck when Booker was 13 years old as his mom had an accident trying to get a ceiling fan from the attic. She fell through the sheet rock and injured her back, but nobody thought it was serious. Booker was outside playing with his friends when he saw his mom was being taken to the hospital and it was the last time he would see her as she had complications from anesthesia during a surgical procedure. She passed away and that was obviously a crushing blow for the family.
Now the family had to survive on their own. Booker was living in an abandoned house at age 13. The electric was turned off and they had no heat for a period. It was him and his sister living together and they relied on each other. The older sisters would come over to help out, but they still left them there. Booker had hoped one of his older brothers that went to college would help, but that didn’t help. He didn’t feel his family abandoned him because they all had lost their mother and everyone dealt with it in a different way.
Booker lived a tough lifestyle as he no longer cared about school. He took a job at a coke and heroine house (which also doubled as a brothel) at 15-16 years of age. He tried to be a regular kid and attend school, but he didn’t have the focus. He felt there was no light at the end of the tunnel and he just wanted to get through each day any way possible.
Booker did find something thanks to a school security guard who steered Booker towards band. He became a drum major and that kept him on track for a little while, until he lost focus in high school. That is when he started to hang with the wrong crowd and he became a lost soul. He dropped out of school and took whatever job he could find. He never wanted to be a person who robbed, but that is what the people around him did. He learned a lot from his sister, Billie Jean, who Booker calls a gangster. His other sister showed him the trick of trying on a suit and then putting his regular clothes back on over top to be able to walk out with it. It made him think he could do no wrong so he kept doing things.
He next started selling marijuana, and he won’t say he didn’t have a choice, but he didn’t have a good choice. He didn’t know what could happen if you got into drugs and the like as he never saw the news or read papers to see how dangerous things could get. At a few times Booker tried to get out of the rough life as he had a young son and took a job at Wendy’s.
Booker didn’t want to listen to his manager and he ended up getting fired. He and his friends decided to show her so they robbed the place and they became the Wendy’s Bandits. He and his friends hit various Wendy’s throughout the Houston area and Booker says it wasn’t about the money. It was more for the thrill of it and he admits that his mother raised him better. They show the newspaper story as they hit 26 restaurants before they were caught. There was a $5000 reward out on them and his friend’s girlfriend rolled on them to get the money. Booker came home one night and police swarmed the house and next thing he was facing 5-99 years in prison which shocked him.
The Judge he had was Ted Poe, who is now a Senator. He was a hanging judge and everyone before him was sentenced to prison. Booker was put in a large, overcrowded cell with nothing to do when he was in County Jail. There was one TV for all of them to share and you had groups of whites, blacks, and Mexicans and everyone fought for supremacy. 50 guys in 1 room to share everything including just 1 toilet. Booker spent a lot of time thinking and reflecting on what he did. He became a very big Randy Travis fan as he heard a lot of his music.
The judge gave him 2 options and Booker took a plea bargain as a way to own what he did. He got sentenced to two 5 year stints that ran concurrent. He ended up in Navasota Prison in Texas and he took the time to get his GED. He didn’t like working in the field so he did what he could to find something else to do. He joined the weight lifting team as a way to get out of doing field work. He took advantage of his time there and he never hung his head. He has seen things worse than being behind a prison wall, so he didn’t let it get to him.
He got the news that his parole had come through and he was going home. He was respected by the guards and other prisoners. He stood by the code the prisoners had, but he was also a stand up guy which the guards appreciated. One of the guards told him when he left that he would see him when gets back.
Booker ran into one of his co-defendants just a few months ago at a hotel. The guy was working as a valet and he told Booker that he loved him. Booker shot back that everyone loved him and then soon he realized who he was talking to. It all came back to him and the guy told him that he had done well for himself.
JBL asks if Booker ran into that guard who told him he would be back. Booker says it happened at a wrestling show and it was a cool reunion.
The first things Booker wanted to do is get his son back. His son had ended up in foster care as he was left by his mother. His brother, Stevie Ray, gave him the option of coming to live with him. Booker took him up on the offer as he was with his sister who was still selling weed. Booker decided to steal the 5lbs of weed the dealer had and he sold it all in one shot to get some financial stability.
Booker spent over a year going through the courts to get his son back. His first job (that Stevie helped him get) was as a security guard and he didn’t tell them he a record. They found out 6 months later and had to let him go. He made a connection with someone though and he gave Booker a job in maintenance and a free apartment to use. That job led to another job and Booker ended up running a warehouse. He felt proud as he was a single dad and they were all doing well together.
Booker says he always wanted to be like his brother, Stevie Ray. He talks about how Stevie got out of the business in 2000 and hasn’t needed anything. If it wasn’t for his brother he would not have gotten his son back and he looks up to his brother.
It was his brother’s idea to get into pro-wrestling. He followed his brother into the sport and they trained at Ivan Putski’s school which led to a shot in the GWF. He followed his brother around and that lead to them being in a tag team. Booker had a stigma as being a hot head in the business, and he says that goes back to his mother. She told him if he is 100% about something he needs to say something, but anything less he needs to keep his mouth shut.
He was working at an Independent show as GI Bro and the booker wanted him to get beat up by his friend in a National Armory. Booker didn’t feel that it was right for his gimmick to be losing in an armory and especially since it was the time of the Gulf War. JBL brings up a story of Booker speaking out against Tugboat (Shockmaster) as he only paid Booker $10 for working a show that he helped sell out. His opponent got $500 and Booker thought he was getting a nice stack, but soon realized it was a stack of ten $1 bills. Booker threw the money in his face and that again led to him having the reputation of a bad attitude.
Booker knew he had talent in the ring and he felt it was his one and only shot to do something memorable. He wanted to be able to make sure people remembered him for something other than what happened at Wendy’s.
We see the debut of the Spin-a-rooni in the Sportatorium during a GWF show. Amazing they can just casually throw things like that up there now. From that point they were off and running as a tag team. Sid Vicious started watching them and put in a call to bring them to WCW. He wanted to get into the booking side of things and Booker/Stevie were going to be his first project. They all knew that being on ESPN with GWF would eventually led to them getting a job somewhere else. Booker puts over Sid for all he did for them. He put them up in his apartment, made sure they got raises, and took care of them when he could. That is why they got the in the War Games match with Vader and Sid as their partners.
JBL brings up how they were first called Cain and Cole in WCW and had to wear shackles and prison suits. Thankfully, they became Harlem Heat and were known as Booker T and Stevie Ray. Their careers took off from there.
JBL asks about Booker’s relationship with Ron Simmons. He taught Booker lessons that nobody else could and talks about how he had big shoes to fill as he wanted to be a World Champion. Ron would always tell Booker that he was going to be the next black World Champion in WCW.
Harlem Heat ended up being 11 time World Tag Team Champions in WCW and that is when Stevie decided to step back and let Booker run on his own. Booker knew he could never be as big as his brother, so he knew he needed to get better in the ring
End Part 1
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This was a real eye-opener, if you have the network I implore you to check this out this was really good
Booker says it is 26 years this month that he has been in the business and they show a picture of the two of them together early in their careers. Booker puts over Black Bart and Manny Fernandez for showing him the ropes. JBL and Booker brings up the Sportatorium and JBL affectionately calls it a dump. Booker talks about just being happy to get a tryout with his brother in the building. Just a few years later, he and his brother were selling out the building as The Ebony Experience.
JBL talks about how he has been friends with Booker for over 20 years and never knew of his past until he read Booker’s back a few years ago. He says Booker has to be a 1 in 100 million chance to be sitting where he is. Booker says his mom told him that if he continued on path he was on as a child he would end up in prison or dead.
They discuss Booker’s family and how his father passed away when Booker was 10 months old. His father didn’t leave him and his father wasn’t a bad man. He was a great dad from everything he has been told. Booker has a photo of his dad (which they show) and he says his dad was a strong man and Booker always wanted to live up to the man he saw in that picture. His mom took the 8 kids and moved them to Houston in hopes of a better life. Booker lived vicariously through his mother and life was good as a kid.
Tragedy struck when Booker was 13 years old as his mom had an accident trying to get a ceiling fan from the attic. She fell through the sheet rock and injured her back, but nobody thought it was serious. Booker was outside playing with his friends when he saw his mom was being taken to the hospital and it was the last time he would see her as she had complications from anesthesia during a surgical procedure. She passed away and that was obviously a crushing blow for the family.
Now the family had to survive on their own. Booker was living in an abandoned house at age 13. The electric was turned off and they had no heat for a period. It was him and his sister living together and they relied on each other. The older sisters would come over to help out, but they still left them there. Booker had hoped one of his older brothers that went to college would help, but that didn’t help. He didn’t feel his family abandoned him because they all had lost their mother and everyone dealt with it in a different way.
Booker lived a tough lifestyle as he no longer cared about school. He took a job at a coke and heroine house (which also doubled as a brothel) at 15-16 years of age. He tried to be a regular kid and attend school, but he didn’t have the focus. He felt there was no light at the end of the tunnel and he just wanted to get through each day any way possible.
Booker did find something thanks to a school security guard who steered Booker towards band. He became a drum major and that kept him on track for a little while, until he lost focus in high school. That is when he started to hang with the wrong crowd and he became a lost soul. He dropped out of school and took whatever job he could find. He never wanted to be a person who robbed, but that is what the people around him did. He learned a lot from his sister, Billie Jean, who Booker calls a gangster. His other sister showed him the trick of trying on a suit and then putting his regular clothes back on over top to be able to walk out with it. It made him think he could do no wrong so he kept doing things.
He next started selling marijuana, and he won’t say he didn’t have a choice, but he didn’t have a good choice. He didn’t know what could happen if you got into drugs and the like as he never saw the news or read papers to see how dangerous things could get. At a few times Booker tried to get out of the rough life as he had a young son and took a job at Wendy’s.
Booker didn’t want to listen to his manager and he ended up getting fired. He and his friends decided to show her so they robbed the place and they became the Wendy’s Bandits. He and his friends hit various Wendy’s throughout the Houston area and Booker says it wasn’t about the money. It was more for the thrill of it and he admits that his mother raised him better. They show the newspaper story as they hit 26 restaurants before they were caught. There was a $5000 reward out on them and his friend’s girlfriend rolled on them to get the money. Booker came home one night and police swarmed the house and next thing he was facing 5-99 years in prison which shocked him.
The Judge he had was Ted Poe, who is now a Senator. He was a hanging judge and everyone before him was sentenced to prison. Booker was put in a large, overcrowded cell with nothing to do when he was in County Jail. There was one TV for all of them to share and you had groups of whites, blacks, and Mexicans and everyone fought for supremacy. 50 guys in 1 room to share everything including just 1 toilet. Booker spent a lot of time thinking and reflecting on what he did. He became a very big Randy Travis fan as he heard a lot of his music.
The judge gave him 2 options and Booker took a plea bargain as a way to own what he did. He got sentenced to two 5 year stints that ran concurrent. He ended up in Navasota Prison in Texas and he took the time to get his GED. He didn’t like working in the field so he did what he could to find something else to do. He joined the weight lifting team as a way to get out of doing field work. He took advantage of his time there and he never hung his head. He has seen things worse than being behind a prison wall, so he didn’t let it get to him.
He got the news that his parole had come through and he was going home. He was respected by the guards and other prisoners. He stood by the code the prisoners had, but he was also a stand up guy which the guards appreciated. One of the guards told him when he left that he would see him when gets back.
Booker ran into one of his co-defendants just a few months ago at a hotel. The guy was working as a valet and he told Booker that he loved him. Booker shot back that everyone loved him and then soon he realized who he was talking to. It all came back to him and the guy told him that he had done well for himself.
JBL asks if Booker ran into that guard who told him he would be back. Booker says it happened at a wrestling show and it was a cool reunion.
The first things Booker wanted to do is get his son back. His son had ended up in foster care as he was left by his mother. His brother, Stevie Ray, gave him the option of coming to live with him. Booker took him up on the offer as he was with his sister who was still selling weed. Booker decided to steal the 5lbs of weed the dealer had and he sold it all in one shot to get some financial stability.
Booker spent over a year going through the courts to get his son back. His first job (that Stevie helped him get) was as a security guard and he didn’t tell them he a record. They found out 6 months later and had to let him go. He made a connection with someone though and he gave Booker a job in maintenance and a free apartment to use. That job led to another job and Booker ended up running a warehouse. He felt proud as he was a single dad and they were all doing well together.
Booker says he always wanted to be like his brother, Stevie Ray. He talks about how Stevie got out of the business in 2000 and hasn’t needed anything. If it wasn’t for his brother he would not have gotten his son back and he looks up to his brother.
It was his brother’s idea to get into pro-wrestling. He followed his brother into the sport and they trained at Ivan Putski’s school which led to a shot in the GWF. He followed his brother around and that lead to them being in a tag team. Booker had a stigma as being a hot head in the business, and he says that goes back to his mother. She told him if he is 100% about something he needs to say something, but anything less he needs to keep his mouth shut.
He was working at an Independent show as GI Bro and the booker wanted him to get beat up by his friend in a National Armory. Booker didn’t feel that it was right for his gimmick to be losing in an armory and especially since it was the time of the Gulf War. JBL brings up a story of Booker speaking out against Tugboat (Shockmaster) as he only paid Booker $10 for working a show that he helped sell out. His opponent got $500 and Booker thought he was getting a nice stack, but soon realized it was a stack of ten $1 bills. Booker threw the money in his face and that again led to him having the reputation of a bad attitude.
Booker knew he had talent in the ring and he felt it was his one and only shot to do something memorable. He wanted to be able to make sure people remembered him for something other than what happened at Wendy’s.
We see the debut of the Spin-a-rooni in the Sportatorium during a GWF show. Amazing they can just casually throw things like that up there now. From that point they were off and running as a tag team. Sid Vicious started watching them and put in a call to bring them to WCW. He wanted to get into the booking side of things and Booker/Stevie were going to be his first project. They all knew that being on ESPN with GWF would eventually led to them getting a job somewhere else. Booker puts over Sid for all he did for them. He put them up in his apartment, made sure they got raises, and took care of them when he could. That is why they got the in the War Games match with Vader and Sid as their partners.
JBL brings up how they were first called Cain and Cole in WCW and had to wear shackles and prison suits. Thankfully, they became Harlem Heat and were known as Booker T and Stevie Ray. Their careers took off from there.
JBL asks about Booker’s relationship with Ron Simmons. He taught Booker lessons that nobody else could and talks about how he had big shoes to fill as he wanted to be a World Champion. Ron would always tell Booker that he was going to be the next black World Champion in WCW.
Harlem Heat ended up being 11 time World Tag Team Champions in WCW and that is when Stevie decided to step back and let Booker run on his own. Booker knew he could never be as big as his brother, so he knew he needed to get better in the ring
End Part 1
------------------------------------------
This was a real eye-opener, if you have the network I implore you to check this out this was really good