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[upbeat music]
♪ ♪
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‐ Growing up with close to nothing in South Park, Texas,
kicking it around New York City is kinda surreal.
♪ ♪
The sounds, the energy;
there's nothing like it.
♪ ♪
It's like another world, man.
♪ ♪
It's also a place that I dreamed of as a kid...
♪ ♪
'Cause of "Shaft."
♪ ♪
I watched that movie at least 100 times,
and I literally wanted to be John Shaft.
We didn't see black guys like this in movies back then.
♪ ♪
He was a bad man and didn't back down from nobody.
♪ ♪
See, Shaft, he resonated with me
and inspired the five words
that define the two‐time WWE Hall of Famer.
Can you dig it, sucka?
["Rap Sheet" playing]
‐ Act one of being a pro wrestler
is when you come through that curtain.
He went in, and he took it to the moon.
‐ Can you dig it, sucka?
[laughing]
‐ You see how he just soaks up the adulation and the energy,
just makes it bigger and bigger and bigger.
‐ Now our two‐time WWE Hall of Famer, Booker T.
♪ ♪
‐ Booker's persona is a street‐smart, hungry,
athletic, over‐the‐top,
kick‐your‐ass professional wrestler.
‐ Take a look at this punk!
[grunting]
♪ ♪
‐ Even growing up,
Junior was never afraid to fight.
He would fight big kids,
dogs, cats.
I mean, he just loved to fight,
and he could fight very well.
[lively music]
♪ ♪
‐ You try to get somebody like, "Did you see that?"
[cheering, indistinct chatter]
‐ One of the things I loved about Booker T
was his flair for the theatrical side...
[indistinct commentating]
‐ And the drama of it.
‐ Austin‐‐ Austin attacking Booker T!
‐ Here you go, brother.
[shouts] ‐ Oh, Booker with a shot.
‐ This is show business.
‐ Booker T! ‐ Hey, Booker!
[cheering]
‐ The key in this business is charisma.
[cheers and applause]
Booker T walks into a room, you notice him.
‐ [laughs]
Fun, larger‐than‐life personality,
and big, and loves to laugh.
‐ [laughs]
‐ Go to every length
just to entertain you.
‐ Tell me I don't look like that!
‐ Pin him!
‐ And let me tell you,
Booker is the same way when he is at home.
‐ Yes, yes, yes, yes! ‐ Oh, no!
Yeah.
‐ I'm like, "Really?
Are you really doing this right now?"
[laughs]
♪ ♪
‐ Pioneer, trendsetter,
two‐time Hall of Famer...
♪ ♪
Five‐time champion.
He's always managed to stay on top.
♪ ♪
‐ It's very, very important to see people
who look like you doing great things.
If he's doing it, so can I.
‐ Can you dig that, sucka?
[cheering]
♪ ♪
[hip‐hop music]
‐ ♪ Welcome to my home ♪
♪ On the south side ♪
♪ Nah, uh‐uh ♪
♪ That's just the south side style ♪
♪ You got a big game, you know what I'm saying ♪
[dogs barking]
‐ This is where it all started so many years ago.
You don't miss what you don't have.
We didn't have a lot, but what we had, it was enough.
‐ ♪ South side, the south side, yeah ♪
♪ South side, the south side ♪
♪ Everybody do the south side, the south side ♪
♪ Yeah, south side, the south side ♪
‐ There was a lot of shooting dice.
We'd shoot marbles.
Then we'd try to get some mischief,
looking for some girls.
[dog barking]
‐ ♪ South side, yeah ♪
♪ South side, the south side ♪
♪ No one but you ♪
‐ Don't let nobody push you around, you know?
Hey, man, if you get into a fight, you know,
make sure you throw the first punch.
‐ ♪ You know the south side ♪
‐ You know, and that's what‐‐
not my brothers was teaching me,
but my sisters was teaching me that.
‐ ♪ You know the south side ♪
[indistinct singing]
‐ That's what life was here in this neighborhood.
♪ ♪
We moved here back when I was actually about seven years old.
We moved around Houston
till we finally settled right here in this neighborhood,
and I tell you, just standing here right now,
the memories just‐‐just flood back.
[hip‐hop music]
♪ ♪
I was born in a little place called Plain Dealing,
about 50 miles outside of Shreveport, Louisiana.
♪ ♪
I was the youngest of eight kids.
I never knew my father.
He passed away when I was ten months old.
♪ ♪
My mother was a registered nurse,
and she packed up, and she moved us here
because she just wanted more for her kids.
As long as I can remember,
my mother worked from 11:00 at night
to 7:00 a. m. in the morning.
‐ It was very important for her to be there
when we woke up
and to be there when we came home from school every day
and to make sure that we were fed,
that we did our homework,
and that we were in the bed before she left, so...
That graveyard shift can be very, very tough,
but my mom did it, and she did it for us.
We had four girls, four boys,
and some of the older ones were already out of the house
when we moved to Houston,
but she was still a single parent with a full household.
My older brother, Lash,
others know him as Stevie Ray,
his wrestling name.
Booker T, myself,
the three of us were all three years apart,
so we were the closest,
and all three of us were the youngest.
‐ Sports was always in the equation,
and my brother would always play football
with me and my friends.
For some reason or another, he wanted to play with us.
‐ Whatever Lash wanted to do, Junior wanted to do.
Whenever we would get new mattresses,
Junior and Lash would ask the old mattress,
and they'd set it up in the backyard
and make a makeshift ring,
and me and my niece, we were guinea pigs
for the sleeper hold.
He did look up to his big brother.
♪ ♪
My mom, not that she didn't love all of us,
but she loved Junior 'cause he was the baby.
‐ He could cry for three hours without stopping.
Sometimes he'd cry so much, you'd have to pay him to stop,
and he'd get your money,
and then when she come home, he was crying again
so he could plead his case.
My mama would be, "Oh, my baby, my baby,"
and he'd be hugging her
and looking over there and winking at us.
[laughs]
‐ I was a mama's boy, yeah.
I always said one day
that I was gonna buy my mother a big house,
and she wasn't gonna have to ever work again.
I'd just lay on my mother
and just listen to her heartbeat.
The relationship was very, very special.
♪ ♪
‐ We had a attic fan,
and for some reason,
the attic fan had stopped working.
♪ ♪
All my of my brothers are older,
and she had been trying to get one of those guys
to go up there and take a look at it for the longest,
and finally one day she said, "I'll go and do it myself."
♪ ♪
She went up to the attic, you know, to check it out.
You know, she stepped on the sheetrock,
and she fell through the roof to the floor.
♪ ♪
From that point on, she always had back problems,
and she had to have surgery.
‐ She had the surgery. She came through.
Everything was fine.
Her leg began to stiffen, and she was in pain again,
and when she went back to the doctor,
they said that they needed to go in again.
‐ It was basically, "I'm gonna go to the hospital.
I'll be there a couple of days.
Here's lunch money,"
and you kiss your mom good‐bye.
‐ Something happened, complications,
and her heart stopped beating,
and bam, 49 years old,
my mother was gone, yeah.
[somber piano music]
♪ ♪
We had lost our leader, our rock, our provider,
our strength‐‐ we had lost that.
♪ ♪
Everything changed for me, of course,
being a 13‐year‐old kid with no parents.
I don't blame any of my sisters and brothers
for not stepping up and being, you know,
a father figure or a mother figure,
and I don't think anybody was prepared or equipped
for the loss of my mother.
No one was.
‐ We were like little ants without the queen.
Everybody was just, like, everywhere.
‐ It kinda splintered our family somewhat.
You know, I know it did me.
‐ And the younger kids, Booker, Bonita,
that's all they knew, was their mom.
‐ From a legal standpoint, we were "orphans"
because we didn't have a mother or father,
and we were both minors.
[indistinct chatter]
For a short period of time, we did struggle
because we were basically the two
that were left in the home after my mom died.
♪ ♪
‐ So here's this kid at age 13 living with his sister
in a house that is abandoned.
You know, the electricity's being turned off now.
It's becoming a derelict house.
They don't have any food.
They have nowhere to go.
‐ They kept the lights on as long as they possibly could.
They kept the water on as long as they possibly could,
and then no lights, no water, no gas, no anything.
♪ ♪
It was a lot of scary nights in the house,
you know, with candles.
We toughed it out as long as we possibly could.
The house got foreclosed on, and the bank took it.
My sister actually, you know, took us in,
and we were in a better place as far as we had lights,
and we had gas.
We had water. We had food.
♪ ♪
But we were still in a environment
that two kids shouldn't have been in,
wondering what was next.
‐ Right now we're deep in the heart of South Park, Texas,
where I pretty much grew up
and, I always say, created all my dirt.
The lifestyle that I led, you know,
was a little bit different than most kids
because, you know, most kids were,
you know, thinking about getting home
and going outside
and playing with their buddies,
and it was like that for me, to a point,
and then after I lost my mother,
things totally went in another direction
as far as now I had to police myself.
Now I had, you know, peer pressure.
In the neighborhood, the kid on the corner's asking you,
"Hey, man, you wanna smoke some of this?"
You know, and you go, "Yeah, man, I'll smoke some of that,"
and, you know‐‐and that's where it all starts.
[somber piano music]
One of the first things I saw,
actually, we was at the car wash.
A friend of mine by the name of Ted,
he was a kid that I went to school with.
So I'm getting into it with another guy
down at the car wash,
and it was just gonna be a regular fight,
and next thing you know,
Ted pulls out a gun and boom, shoots the kid,
and then the kid's friend pulls out a shotgun,
boom, and kills Ted.
So as a kid, you know, seeing stuff like that,
you just wonder, man, you know,
what is life all about, you know?
What are we here for, and how long are we here for?
Life in the neighborhood.
I could pretty much do whatever I wanted to do.
I didn't have to think about going to school
if I didn't want to go to school.
I would just stay at home or just go somewhere else.
♪ ♪
Who was gonna tell me it was wrong?
No one.
Who knew I was at school or not?
No one. Who cared? No one.
When you find yourself in that position,
you start doing things a young kid
definitely shouldn't have been doing...
Going out and partying, drugs,
hanging out till 4:00 in the morning out on the waterfront,
watching the ladies of the night.
Things changed in the neighborhood, South Park,
but, you know, nothing,
nothing like when I start coming in this area right here.
It's called the waterfront area, you know?
The docks is not too far from here.
Everybody would frequent this area, you know?
Especially on Friday nights after they got paid.
Prostitutes, gambling,
you'd see gambling on the corner.
The drug scene, the needles,
that's what I remember more than anything, is the needles.
‐ ♪ Talking about Slick ♪ ‐ ♪ Slick ♪
‐ Listening to some Willie Hutch,
some of the pieces of music
went hand in hand with the game.
‐ ♪ Walking fast, talking trash ♪
♪ Trying to beat you out your cash ♪
♪ Who is he? ♪
♪ They call him Slick ♪ ‐ ♪ Slick ♪
‐ They sit out here, and they‐‐they'll gamble,
and they'll loiter,
and they'll try to make their drug sales.
‐ 35, it's on a 21.
‐ ♪ They call him Slick ♪ ‐ ♪ Slick ♪
‐ ♪ Now Slick ain't got no regrets ♪
♪ Slick ain't got no sorrow ♪
♪ If he don't get you today ♪
‐ I knew I didn't want to do drugs.
I knew I didn't want to be a pimp.
I knew I didn't want to have that lifestyle.
‐ ♪ They call him Slick ♪
‐ I knew I didn't want to do that,
but I was right in the middle of it.
♪ ♪
‐ Booker just kinda fell through the cracks.
I mean, here's a kid that was literally on his own,
and then he ends up getting a job
with sweeping the floors in a heroin den,
and it doubled as a brothel.
He's trying to survive.
He's trying to live till tomorrow.
‐ I had no ambitions.
I was in that whirlwind,
and it was spinning,
and where it stopped, that's where I was gonna go.
‐ When you have that mind‐set
and you're stuck in that position,
you do things that are‐‐
you look back and say, "Well, that was a terrible decision."
♪ ♪
‐ You just start making your own rules,
whether those rules are right or wrong.
You just start making them, and that's what I did.
I remember hanging out with my buddies,
and they became my family,
and we started writing our own blueprints.
‐ So when he sees an option to deal a little pot
or rob a good‐‐ a fast food restaurant,
of course he's gonna do it.
‐ The robbery, the incident, the way it started.
It was myself, a friend of mine, Zachary,
a friend that I grew up with, Wendell.
We worked at Wendy's.
There was this one manager
who just used to give us a hard time all the time.
We were talking about it one day,
"Man, we should rob him."
We did it, and we got away with it,
the store that we actually worked at.
Then we did it again,
and we got away with it.
Somebody said, "Hey, man, when we going out again?
Let's do it."
We got away with it again.
It was like we weren't ever gonna get caught.
And we saw it on the news, and we was like,
"Man, this thing is getting crazy.
You know, we getting really big."
We were like rock stars then.
It was like cat and mouse,
catch me if you can.
It's hard to understand how do you think
you know more than the cops.
[laughs] That's their job.
They were‐‐they would come to the office.
Only thing they'd do is sit around and investigate
and try to figure out how to catch someone doing wrong.
♪ ♪
I was coming home to my apartment.
I came around the corner, and I saw no one.
It was so quiet that night,
and I just remember, man,
just something does not feel right at all.
And literally 10, 15, 20 people came out
at the same time.
[siren wailing]
They all had guns, and they were all pointing at me.
♪ ♪
[siren wails]
That ride from 45 and 610
to downtown Houston to the county jail,
that was the longest ride I ever had.
[desolate music]
♪ ♪
I was in Harris County for about eight months.
I sat in that jail
waiting on whether I was either gonna go to trial
or I was gonna take a plea,
and I was gonna take a plea.
I knew I was wrong. I knew I was guilty.
I knew I would have been convicted very, very easily.
I took the sentence, which was five years.
♪ ♪
I had to go a place called Pack 2.
It was in Navasota, Texas.
I remember seeing a chain gang on television.
I didn't think that was a real thing.
I thought it was just something that was outdated
or in the past,
but we really had to wake up early in the morning
and get on the back of this big truck,
and we would go to literally just clear a field.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
And we would do it pretty much by hand,
pulling up stumps, and it was for hours.
And I'm like, "Man, this is real.
This is as real as it get right here."
It was a education for me as well.
I got a chance to get my GED.
I wanted to go to school. I wanted to learn more.
I wanted to be able to teach myself.
I got a chance to work on the laundry, you know,
and doing detail from that perspective,
learning about myself,
atone for my mistake and, you know,
try to move on in life.
‐ I never went to visit him
because I never wanted to see him locked up.
♪ ♪
We kept in touch via letter.
♪ ♪
In those letters he talked about his regrets,
his dreams, and his goals.
♪ ♪
"I've made the mistake. I own up to it.
I'm gonna do my time,
and I'm gonna come out and do better."
I remember talking to him about stick to the goals
and not just the dreams
because dreams you have to wake up from.
‐ He needed to stand on his own two feet and be a man,
so he was in the penitentiary for 19 months,
and then he came up for parole.
‐ "Booker T." "Yeah?"
They go, "You're out of here."
I was like, "Oh, man, you kidding me, right?"
You know, he's like, "No, man, you're out of here.
Get your stuff."
When I left that prison wall, there was‐‐
there was this one guard.
He was sitting on his big horse,
had this big cowboy hat on,
and he said, "I'll see you when you get back,"
and got my 200 bucks.
♪ ♪
They put me on that Greyhound and sent me back to Houston.
Life was what I was gonna make it from that point on.
♪ ♪
‐ One thing that you‐‐ when you got out,
you wanted to get your son Brandon back.
You didn't have the money in the bank,
so you pulled one last heist.
♪ ♪
‐ I was a kid when Brandon was born myself.
I was 17.
His mom and I, we never was anticipating
on getting married or anything like that.
It was two kids having a kid, you know,
not knowing anything about life.
When I ended up going to prison,
she was on drugs really, really bad,
and that's when the CPS came into play and took him,
and from that point on, he was in foster care.
I wouldn't say I abandoned him or anything like that,
but I definitely wasn't a dad or a father in the beginning.
♪ ♪
Was I gonna leave my son in foster care,
or was I gonna go through the system and get him out?
And it was a very simple answer.
My mother raised eight kids.
How could I look at myself in the mirror and not raise one?
When I came home, I was‐‐
I got paroled to my sister's house,
and, you know,
she was still in the game selling weed.
My sister's dealer, you know, he was supplying,
you know, 5 pounds here, 5 pounds there,
and, you know, one night I knew where the stash house was,
and it was about 5 pounds.
I crept in.
I got all of it.
I got out of there.
‐ You stole from a drug dealer?
‐ I stole from the drug dealers, and‐‐
‐ But for the right reasons.
You wanted to get your son back.
‐ It was for the right reasons.
‐ You gotta have money in the bank.
‐ I needed money, and‐‐and I needed it quick,
and I just needed a platform,
a springboard to get out of that life.
But I still needed a little bit more help,
and that's where my brother came in.
I asked my brother, you know, for a little bit of help.
I said, "I actually need you to help me get a job."
‐ You gotta get out of this environment
if you want to be something in life,
and that's pretty much the conversation that we had.
I'd been put in a position to help him,
and that's what I did,
but it's up to you to make it work.
‐ First job he got me was a security guard.
[laughs]
Fresh out of prison, he get me a job as a security guard.
And at the time my brother actually let me stay with him.
I had to prove to the court system
that I was worthy of being a dad,
and it took me about a year.
You know, certain days,
I had to make sure I was there,
keep a steady job,
and I showed them that.
They ended up granting me full custody
when Brandon was five years old.
We didn't have a lot.
We had each other, and we had our dog.
We had our apartment, and I had a job.
Working that security job, you know,
it only lasted for a few months,
and then they found out about my prison record.
They told my brother that they was gonna have to let me go,
but the guy that I had worked for,
his name's Bruce Gasarch,
saw me as a‐‐as a human being,
and he saw my character.
‐ I saw how hard he worked and tried.
We found another job for him.
One of the properties we bought was a mini storage,
and he ended up helping me run that property,
leasing new tenants, cleaning up the property,
making sure that people have paid their rent.
‐ I was working for Bruce,
and my brother, he was like, "Hey, man,
I know this guy opening a wrestling school.
You want to try it out?"
‐ I'm Ivan Putski.
If you've got what it takes to be a professional wrestler,
let me show you the ropes.
You do what you like, and I loved wrestling.
Ivan Putski's Professional School of Wrestling,
that drew‐‐ "Hey, I watched him on TV."
People would read that, and they came in.
‐ I'm like, "Hey, man, you doing it,
I'll try it out too," you know?
Since I was a kid, whatever my brother was doing,
I wanted to be a part of it.
We was like a tag team even before we were a tag team.
Wrestling school was $4,000.
I knew I didn't have the money for it, but I was blessed.
My boss, he sponsored me to go to the wrestling school.
‐ He wanted to do something to improve himself.
You want to improve yourself and I can help, I will.
I had the money available, so I helped,
and if you're willing to take a little chance,
sometimes it pays off.
♪ ♪
‐ When Booker T and his brother first arrived,
they didn't know a thing about wrestling.
I mean, they were just green.
I just showed them how to get the holds on you,
the bumps and the slams, throw punches.
I taught them how to take their fall
and how you protect yourself.
Then we blend in their personality.
‐ Scott Casey was the main trainer there.
Ivan opened the school,
but Scott Casey opened our minds.
We went 7:00 to 10:00 Monday through Friday
for, like, three months straight.
This is what I'm clapping on somebody's head
and make it pop, goes the weasel.
♪ ♪
And after that, they give you a certificate.
It's kind of like these online gimmicks that you have today,
you know what I'm saying?
In 90 days, I'm a professional wrestler,
you know what I'm saying?
So it's like, wow.
‐ Booker was what you called a natural.
He caught on so fast.
‐ [shouts]
Come on! Get up!
[shouting]
I always wanted to be the best student,
you know, in the school, so I would go and push myself.
‐ Get up! Get up!
[shouting]
‐ I would run the ropes for five minutes
and I literally pushed myself
farther than anyone in there
could ever think about pushing me.
[shouting]
‐ Man, I got a jewel here.
‐ Notice how I concentrate mainly on the sweep.
‐ Right.
‐ We're pumping up these massive quads,
as the G.I. Bro can only do oh, so well.
[grunts]
I was working at the warehouse,
and I had to clean up one of the units.
There was a old army hat in there,
and I was like, "Oh, man, I like this hat,"
and I went to practice, and I wore the hat.
Ivan Putski goes, "That's who you are.
From now on, you're G.I. Bro,"
and I go, "G.I. Bro?
All right, I like that. It's pretty cool."
♪ ♪
Right after we finished the course, actually,
by the grace of God,
Ivan Putski had local television here.
‐ Precious Johnny Valiant, watching just like all you
other fans out here of the WWA,
a local favorite here in Houston, Texas, G.I. Bro.
This guy is very charismatic.
‐ G.I. Bro.
‐ G.I. Brother, G.I. gravy.
‐ Cranking it up. Yeah, count him out.
‐ Oh. ‐ Did he get him?
Yes, he did. Control. G.I. Bro.
‐ I got a chance to wrestle in the Sam Houston Coliseum,
you know, eight weeks out of wrestling school.
I remember after I started wrestling,
I had to take payrolls to the bank,
and they go, "Hey, aren't you G.I. Bro?"
and I was like, "Yeah, I'm G.I. Bro," you know?
'Cause they're watching me on television.
‐ Everybody's favorite, G.I. Bro.
The G.I. Bro.
♪ ♪
‐ The kids, they would‐‐ they would just mob me,
and they would just‐‐you know?
And I was like, "Man, what is going on here?"
I got a new haircut. Would you like to see it, man?
‐ Yeah, I want to see it.
All right. ‐ G.I. Bro.
G.I. Bro's my name, and beating people up is my game.
Look in my eyes.
That's when I'm gonna declare World War III on you,
and thank you [inaudible]. I'm a demon.
[shouts]
♪ ♪
I don't think I was ever asked one time
what I want to be when I grow up as a kid.
I don't think I was ever asked that once.
Then I found myself through wrestling.
It was an escape.
It was something that I could do,
and I could do it very well,
♪ ♪
Put my boots on and become like a superhero for a moment.
I realized I had something.
I had a connection,
and I was like, "Wow, this is so cool,"
and I had so much fun finding myself
as far as possibly who I could be
‐ After the Western Wrestling Alliance closed down,
Booker T and his brother went to work for TAP,
Texas All‐Pro Wrestling.
I got Stevie Ray in an issue
of "Wrestling Main Event" magazine,
and he got noticed,
people up in Dallas at the GWF, Global Wrestling.
Skandor Akbar called him
and wanted him to come up to Dallas,
and him and his brother went up there,
and Akbar and "Hot Stuff" Eddie Gilbert
took a liking to them right off the bat.
‐ They wanted to give my brother a try‐out,
and my brother was going to Dallas,
and of course, jumped in the car, and I rode with him.
‐ We finally walk into Eddie Gilbert's office,
and Eddie Gilbert was like, "Who's that?"
and I was like, "Oh, that's my brother."
‐ He goes, "Is he a worker?"
and he goes, "Yeah, he's a worker."
He goes, "Have you guys ever done any tag team?"
and we go, "Yeah."
‐ We were lying.
We had never tagged together before, ever,
but we had tagged against each other before.
That's what we were saying. We have tagged together, so.
In that sense, I wasn't lying.
‐ Boom, that's how we got started
in the Global Wrestling Federation, just by accident.
There was this wrestler back in the day.
His name was Mr. Ebony.
Black guy, he wore a mask.
I never knew who Mr. Ebony was,
but he was one of the black guys
that was representing us,
so we remembered Mr. Ebony.
Why not be the Ebony Experience,
Booker T and Stevie Ray?
‐ The Ebony Experience!
[upbeat music]
♪ ♪
‐ The Global Wrestling Federation
was on ESPN at the time,
and it was geared towards
that afternoon kids coming home from school,
3:30 in the afternoon.
There were 30‐minute show,
and then there was an hour show,
and it was based out of Dallas, Texas,
in the world‐famous Sportatorium,
which I think it's just world‐famous
because it's old, ugly.
It stunk, no air conditioning,
and there were rats the size of dogs.
It had atmosphere. It had atmosphere.
Let's just say that.
‐ You almost took your life in your own hands
in the Sportatorium.
Back then the police,
if somebody tried to stick you with a knife
or hit you with a whiskey bottle or something,
they would bring them back to the dressing room
and literally let you beat them up.
It was the law of the west.
[dramatic music]
But there was a huge racist element there too.
People would sit there and shout out
some of the most vile things imaginable at those guys.
‐ And we got called the n‐word, of course.
They didn't want to see us coons.
‐ And those people called us
every racial epithet known to man.
♪ ♪
‐ It wasn't the first time
I had dealt with racism in my life.
♪ ♪
When I first got in the wrestling business,
a very, very famous man by the name of Ox Baker
told me, he said, "Kid, you got a lot of talent,
"but you're gonna come up against
a lot of obstacles in this business."
He didn't say racism or anything like that,
but I knew exactly what he was talking about.
You gotta figure a way around it, under it.
You may have to go over it,
and that night we had to go right through it,
no matter what.
‐ You want to see what the competition's
looking like out here?
We got us a couple of big homeboys
from Houston, looks like to me.
‐ In the situation that you're in,
you gotta be able to adapt.
You gotta be able to figure it out.
You have to face the fire, and we dealt with it.
‐ I gotta say, where did these guys come up with this?
The Ebony Experience, what are they,
a magazine or something like that for ugly people?
‐ But I learned the power of entertainment that night.
I did the Spinaroonie in that match.
‐ He did some type of hop‐skip‐spin type thing.
I never saw it before. Did you see that?
What was that, they used to have them break dance moves?
He did some spinning‐‐
‐ The same guy that was calling me the n‐word,
he was totally excited when he saw the Spinaroonie,
and it totally changed him all in one breath,
and it was like, "Whoa, what was that?"
The fans started to change.
Now the fans are rooting for us.
‐ Make it, Booker T! Make it, Booker T!
Make it!
‐ It was like the Rocky movie, man,
when Rocky was fighting Drago.
The Russian fans start rooting for the underdog.
‐ 'Cause when I did the Spinaroonie,
it seemed like everything changed in that arena.
I realized how much power the Spinaroonie had,
and not just in the Global Wrestling Federation
with those fans but throughout my whole career.
‐ Spinaroonie [indistinct]. [laughs]
‐ We all love to dance.
My mom loved to see us dance,
and we all had good rhythm too, still‐‐
still have good rhythm.
‐ My cousin, come over here, man.
This is my cousin right here, man, you know?
‐ The neighborhood boys were always trying
to outdo each other with their dance moves.
That was the competition.
Michael Jackson had nothing on my brothers.
‐ He used to break dance on the patio.
That's where I learned the Spinaroonie at.
On his patio right around the corner, you know?
We'd be on that patio.
We'd have the cardboard box out there.
We had a beat box. ‐ Yep.
‐ We'd be out there breaking ourselves, man,
and‐‐but that's where the Spinaroonie came from, yeah.
‐ That's where they learned those moves.
That's where they learned to spin,
so that Spinaroonie came from a pop‐lock dance move.
‐ Ladies and gentlemen, they're dynamic.
They're sensational. They're the Lockers.
[funky music]
‐ The Lockers, they were it.
That was the best dance group
perhaps in the history of the world.
♪ ♪
Fred "Rerun" Berry,
he used to be on the show "What's Happening!!"
He was actually one of the Lockers,
and just watching these guys move the way they did
and perform the way they performed,
I wanted to be in the group when I was a kid.
I wanted to be one of the Lockers, you know?
When I saw them on "Soul Train,"
I was like, "Man, how do I get on 'Soul Train'?
I gotta be a part of this."
The pop‐locking craze started curving off a little bit,
and then the break dancing curve started coming around.
[upbeat music]
♪ ♪
I said, "Man, I'ma try this now,"
so any wrestling fan around the world,
you say Spinaroonie, they know who you're talking about.
Bad Breed, you're going down.
We're gonna take you out into the ebony zone.
We're gonna drop you off into some ebony funk, man.
It wasn't about how much money I was making.
It was just being able to do something
that you love doing so much
that you would do it for free, and my brother and I,
we was making 125 bucks you know,
to make the drive all the way from Houston to Dallas,
and sometimes we would work four times in one night,
sleep on my sister's sofa,
then get up and make the drive back to Houston.
‐ Junior wore out the couch in my den.
Stevie Ray, Lash, wore out the couch in my living room.
They would come every Friday,
and I know they did that for a couple of years.
[cheering]
It was just a great time
to watch them get better and more popular.
[dramatic music]
‐ The fans weekly warmed up,
and they started liking something
that they didn't even know they liked.
all: Ebony! Ebony! Ebony!
Ebony! Ebony!
Ebony!
[cheering]
‐ And then we started getting more black fans
coming into the arena.
You just couldn't say anything anymore.
How you like that, baby?
‐ Within a few months, we were the hottest thing in Global.
Everybody in the place had a sign
with the Ebony Experience on it.
[cheering]
♪ ♪
‐ We finally got to that point to where we had to win
the tag team championship, and all of my family was there.
♪ ♪
‐ That night that they won, we screamed, and we cried.
It was so great, and all I could think about
was that I wish my mom
was there to see that.
♪ ♪
‐ My brother and I, we had accomplished something
that we never dreamt of accomplishing in our lives.
♪ ♪
We had watched wrestling on television for so many years,
and then we're the ones who got the belts and holding them up.
♪ ♪
‐ These guys are superstars.
You knew they were going somewhere.
There was not a doubt in anybody's mind.
‐ It was like Hansel and Gretel.
Somebody was dropping crumbs,
and we were picking them up and following the trail.
‐ My brother and I, we had regular jobs,
and we worked in the Global Wrestling Federation
one night a week,
and we did that for 18 months straight.
We were getting ready to work one night, and the phone rang,
and a man named Mike Davis came in and goes,
"Hey, man, Sid Vicious wanna talk to you guys."
‐ Sid Vicious had been watching us on television,
and WCW was interested in us.
We were, like, really excited, you know?
Like, wow, Sid Vicious, man? Wow.
And WCW? Wow.
‐ One of the biggest companies in the world,
and we had a great spot.
‐ We just had to come up with a name.
Houston Heat might have been put in there, Miami Heat.
We was like, "What about Harlem Heat?"
Harlem Heat, okay, you get a picture in your mind
as to what Harlem Heat should be,
and boom, you start going for it artistically.
‐ We needed some cool shirts,
and we didn't have no one to make them for us,
so I didn't know the country group or anything,
but it turned out to be Brooks & Dunn,
and they had shirts,
and they had this cool flame pattern on them.
♪ ♪
So I went and got us some Brooks & Dunn shirts
and had them tailored.
We made the hats out of the sleeves, actually,
'cause they had flames on them as well.
The ensemble actually came together
and looked pretty cool.
‐ You know, we're gonna see a new tag team,
the Harlem Heat, and what an appropriate name,
seeing that Harlem's been about
100 degrees the last two weeks.
‐ You know, as a kid, you just like all the bright colors
and the energy,
and I just feel like they represented that, you know?
It felt like they was from around my way, like,
you know what I'm saying? How they talked,
how they dressed, how they carried theirself,
and even they music was tight.
Like, they had the best music on WCW, like, probably ever.
‐ Harlem Heat had cool ring music.
Like duh, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh‐duh.
[funky music]
♪ ♪
‐ We're gonna kill somebody tonight!
‐ [shouting] Sucka!
‐ They were two guys that were coming in
who were bad to the bone, man,
and they were gonna talk it.
They were gonna walk it,
and they were gonna kick your ass.
[laughs]
♪ ♪
‐ They had an aura about them. They were big.
They were intimidating.
They were scary, like big wrestlers should be.
♪ ♪
With the name Harlem Heat, I mean, come on.
You can't come up with a better name than that anywhere.
‐ Take a look at this punk!
♪ ♪
All the years my brother and I slept in the same bed,
we were a cohesive unit.
♪ ♪
Both of us brought the pain in our own way.
My brother was ground, and sometime I would go air,
but together we gelled.
♪ ♪
‐ It's the Harlem Hangover. Oh!
‐ Thank you, I'm talking about suicide Harlem Hangover!
On right now, bro!
‐ Harlem Heat did not really have a gimmick.
They were just big, black badasses
that really were themselves turned up,
and when they talked,
I felt like if I ran into them in the street,
that would be exactly how they are.
‐ The moves you punks making, the route you're taking
is gonna lead to heartbreaking.
‐ This country hick town of Tupelo, Mississippi,
gonna get a lot heat raised up.
‐ Any gimmick that really works
is an exaggeration of who you are.
‐ It was so easy to actually go out
and know what it's like to be in a fight
'cause when you've been fighting your whole life,
you know what it feels like.
You know what it's like to get hit in the mouth as well.
For my brother and I to go out and produce drama
from a realistic perspective
was just our field house.
We were at home.
‐ We created these two guys.
Now we gotta be these two guys,
but a lot of times I just wanna come out
and just bust out laughing,
but I gotta hold it in,
and I gotta try to keep this mean look on my face, man.
I have to put myself into this character.
I got to go into him all the way.
What some [inaudible] hillbillies,
stay on the hill, sucka!
‐ We had so much fun going down the road
in certain towns.
Somebody is gonna get a Harlem Hangover.
People just hating us to the point that where,
man, they just want to kill these black guys.
‐ Ladies and gentlemen,
welcome to the Black Hills of South Dakota.
250,000 bikers are here for WCW Hog Wild.
‐ There's no black folks there. ‐ No.
‐ We're the only two black folks...
‐ No, none.
‐ In Sturgis, South Dakota, at that time.
♪ ♪
We almost started a riot.
What you want, but you ain't gonna get it!
Just like all these suckers out here, man.
[shouting]
‐ Even the Steiner brothers was like,
"Hey, man, don't do what y'all usually do every night
'cause y'all got the Hells Angels out there."
We don't even know who the Hells Angels are, you know?
We're getting ready to go do what we do.
They're just gonna have to watch this
'cause we getting ready to get in everybody's you‐know‐what,
Hells Angels or not.
We get out the ring and start talking trash to everybody.
[loud shouting]
You know, "I got a problem with rednecks,
and as far as I'm concerned,
everybody in here's a redneck," you know what I'm saying?
‐ [laughs]
‐ "Come on up in this ring and watch what happen to you."
Now everybody's infuriated,
and by the time we got through...
‐ Aw, yeah, we got a [inaudible] going now.
‐ 25,000 motorcycles, it sounds like.
‐ As far as you could see, motorcycles and people,
and all of them revving their engines at the same time.
‐ They're cranking up the crowd.
‐ Oh, yeah.
‐ The fans are making noise.
‐ Because we just told them what we thought of them.
‐ It don't get any better than this.
[upbeat music]
[cheering]
‐ The Harlem Heat was able to pull it off so well
that the people in Harlem felt represented
by a couple of Texas boys.
‐ The Harlem Heat, they are bad men
off the streets of uptown Manhattan
in the heart of Harlem, and gentlemen‐‐
‐ Shut up, Mean Gene, 'fore I slap a patch of hair
out of the top of your head.
Being able to talk about certain landmarks in Harlem
that we fictitiously, you know, thought up in our own minds
was really, really cool, you know?
One of the places that we used to visit all the time
was Artie's Pool Hall.
Three blocks south of Artie's Pool Hall,
right on the corner of 110th Street.
Gene, the graffiti is written all over the neighborhood.
You looking at a couple of straight OGs from the hood!
I've had several people come up to me to talk about
when we were kids back in Harlem,
did I remember them from, you know, back in the day,
and of course you go, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember you.
Yeah, yeah, right." You go right along with them.
Only clique you need to know about is the Harlem Heat.
‐ Booker T has the most viral wrestling moment of all time,
I guess, right?
'Cause he slips up, says the n‐word.
‐ We coming for you, [bleep]!
[somber music]
That was the problem with ad‐libbing back then.
That's probably why they write everybody's stuff today,
and that's a word that we used a whole lot back in the day
when I was coming up, and that's the first time
and the last time any of my peers
ever heard me say that.
‐ It is a interesting lesson to not get lost
in your character or not being too real
when you're talking about somebody,
but that's the risk you run
when you are as authentic a character
as Booker T is, right?
‐ That's right, we finna hurt these pups Harlem‐style,
if you know what I'm saying.
‐ When I think about the early '90s
and I think about the black characters
and your Koko B. Wares
and your Papa Shangos
and people who fit a lot of stereotypes
but also did not get pushed.
[bell dinging]
♪ ♪
So watching two black guys who go on to win championships
and did not back down from who they were
was great to watch,
but also what's important
is that here were two brothers, right?
‐ Harlem Heat!
‐ So seeing a familial relationship
between black guys on TV
who genuinely loved each other,
who celebrated together, who had each other's back
was really empowering.
♪ ♪
‐ That was so important for my brother and I
to go out there and represent
because we knew young guys like we were
was watching us now.
♪ ♪
Harlem Heat will go down in history
as being one of the greatest tag teams
that ever put on a pair of boots.
♪ ♪
‐ That was just me and my brother being us,
natural‐born entertainers,
and that's what we pride ourself on.
‐ Those are memories that me and my brother
will live with for the rest of our lives.
‐ It was a journey.
‐ It was the coolest nine years of my life.
All‐time greats,
we're immortalized forever in the WWE Hall of Fame.
♪ ♪
I never thought about having a singles career,
never thought about it until it happened.
‐ Now let's see how Booker T can operate
as a single wrestler.
‐ ...somebody. Now can you dig it?
I never thought about having a singles career.
‐ A chance to reverse...
‐ Never thought about it until it happened.
‐ Oh! ‐ Oh!
‐ I told my brother, "Man, go ahead and go.
Go ahead and do your thing,"
and I gave him my blessing.
‐ As Booker T goes solo,
WCW starts getting to this point
where they're the biggest wrestling promotion
in the world.
WCW was using money from the Turner Organization.
They were part of a bigger corporation.
Scott Hall and Kevin Nash end up leaving the WWE
for a lot of money in WCW,
and they start this reality‐based storyline
of a takeover and formed a group with Hulk Hogan,
who for the first time in his career became a bad guy,
unheard of at the time,
and started the New World Order.
‐ The following announcement has been paid for
by the New World Order.
‐ When I came out as Hollywood Hulk Hogan,
nWo, we took off like a rocket,
so the Monday night war started getting really, really intense.
‐ We had "Monday Night RAW" on the USA network.
[upbeat rock music]
They had "Monday Nitro" on TNT,
on Ted Turner's network.
You're looking at every single rating point,
every eyeball we were competing for.
They beat us for 83 weeks in the ratings.
‐ WCW became the top game in town.
‐ The most powerful organization
in professional wrestling.
‐ Honestly, I really didn't care about the war.
It had nothing to do with me.
I was making a lot of money.
I was in a place in my life
that I'd never imagined being in a million years.
‐ As they're concentrating on the other big stars,
Booker T, right under their noses,
is just getting better and better
and better and better.
‐ My peers, they always told me,
"There's only one Tiger Woods of wrestling."
[laughs]
And I go, "I appreciate that, bro."
‐ That's when he became no longer a tag guy.
That's when it just‐‐like, okay, he's a star.
‐ You can tell when somebody has the it factor.
Booker T just looked main event material.
He carried himself like the sky was the limit.
He had it all.
‐ I used to raise the roof back then.
When I used to raise the roof,
everybody used to raise the roof with me.
♪ ♪
And it let me know that hey, I was moving up.
You know, it was the beginning of my run
as a singles wrestler
and a whole different life.
[funky music]
‐ I was born and raised in Gary, Indiana,
had a great childhood.
I caught the entertainment bug very, very early.
I started doing beauty pageants when I was 12 years old,
so that was always something that I enjoyed,
and then I was always into dancing.
That was my first love,
so all that ended up paying off.
You know, I went on to become Miss Black America.
I ended up touring with James Brown,
the Godfather of Soul,
so I spent three and a half years on the road
touring with him
and then ended up in sports entertainment.
‐ Here are the Nitro Girls.
‐ We met back in WCW
when she was a Nitro Girl.
♪ ♪
We started talking a little bit
on the movie set of "Ready to Rumble."
Then we just gradually became friends.
‐ He was always very polite, very well dressed,
and he looked like a businessman
instead of a professional wrestler.
That was my first impression of him,
but I will never forget when I heard him
listening to Tupac,
and that surprised me because to me,
I thought he would listen to Frank Sinatra, not Tupac,
so I got to know a few things about him.
He's a great guy all around.
I got to see he's really, really funny.
He's really, really silly,
but we just kinda gelled.
We just kinda meshed, and it was very exciting
to see Booker be able to carve out a path for himself
because he was such an amazing talent.
‐ WCW welcome you to the summertime tradition,
the World Championship Wrestling's Bash at the Beach!
‐ All the backstage drama that went on that night
put more light on me actually winning the championship.
Me winning it just would have been me winning it.
‐ The title match is between
Jeff Jarrett and Hulk Hogan.
The story is that Hulk Hogan wants to win,
doesn't want to lose to Jeff Jarrett.
Jeff Jarrett's the champion.
The writer, Vince Russo,
he doesn't want Hogan to be the champion.
He wants Jeff Jarrett to hold on to it.
They can't come to an agreement because Hulk Hogan,
in real life, has a creative control clause
in his contract.
‐ There's a million stories,
and everybody has their opinion.
All I know is, when I signed on with WCW,
I had what's called creative control.
I'm gonna exercise my creative control.
I'm gonna go ahead and beat Jarrett, one, two, three.
It went right up Russo's ass.
‐ What's Jeff doing? ‐ Hang on a minute.
What's Jeff doing?
Russo, I think, told Jarrett to lie down.
What's going on? ‐ Jarrett's down.
‐ I know, and Hogan is as shocked as we are.
‐ What in the world? Jeff Jarrett.
‐ Oh, God, this is real life. One, two, three.
‐ I took the belt, and I left. ‐ What the hell?
I think we're deviating from the script.
I hesitate to say that, but what the hell is going on?
‐ Is it a storyline?
Is this real life? Is this some weird mixture?
Vince Russo's says they have two world championships now.
‐ There will be a new WCW belt.
‐ Jeff Jarrett and Booker T fight for it
later on in the evening.
‐ Opportunity has knocked, and I will be damned
if I don't answer that door.
I am gonna do what I have to do tonight to take that gold home,
take it around my waist,
and take it into the next millennium.
Can you dig that, Gene?
‐ I can. Tony, back to you.
‐ Not just did the fans not expect this to be going on.
Me and Booker didn't expect for it to be going on.
‐ I watched everything play out just like America.
I had about ten minutes to prepare
for the biggest moment of my life
in professional wrestling,
but I was prepared for it.
I got there by working my ass off,
and I started at the bottom of that company,
and I went out and I performed every single night.
‐ It's been a long journey, a lot of titles,
but never the big one.
This is Booker T's chance.
♪ ♪
‐ When I finally got in that position,
I always wondered if the fans wanted to see
a black champion.
WCW hadn't had a black champion since Ron Simmons.
It was a lot of questions in my mind,
you know, if the fans really, really wanted to see me
in that position.
I'm just so happy
that people looked past my color and said,
"This is the guy."
♪ ♪
‐ Booker T and Jeff Jarrett
brawling through the crowd.
[indistinct shouting]
Two, three!
[cheers and applause]
‐ We've got a new champion! ‐ Oh, my God,
Booker T's the world champion!
‐ The crowd erupted. They went crazy.
I was like, "Wow, man, they really care about me.
They really wanted to see me win."
It was a moment that changed my life.
[dramatic music]
‐ It's one of my most fond memories in my career.
I'm the guy that Booker beat to become the world champion
for his very first time around.
I'm pretty proud of that.
♪ ♪
‐ He became champion,
and it was a great crowning achievement for him
evolving and elevating himself,
and Booker T, especially for black boys and girls
who watched wrestling, he is a hero.
♪ ♪
‐ Booker has so much respect from all the guys
and girls in the locker room
that when he came back through the curtain after winning,
people were standing there and applauding.
I remember a few of us had tears in our eyes.
It just really was a special moment
to finally see him rise to the top
because he really deserved it.
‐ Look at the fans standing,
and they're raising the roof with Booker T,
the world heavyweight champion.
What a moment in WCW history this is!
‐ WWE was synonymous
with the best in sports entertainment.
‐ How you doing, pal? ‐ I'm fine, thank you.
‐ And now we were being challenged,
so it creates an atmosphere of having to fight from underneath,
creating new and unique storylines
new and unique talents,
and changing the way we looked at the business.
♪ ♪
‐ It made WWE regroup,
taking the gloves off and changing what the company was
and going with the Attitude Era.
♪ ♪
‐ Oh, my. ‐ Oh, my God.
‐ Good lord, have mercy.
‐ Somebody's gonna get their ass whipped!
When that energy comes out, that intensity comes out,
and I look like an ass‐kicking machine,
it was all about the attitude.
‐ Stone Cold is here!
Oh, yeah!
He got McMahon!
‐ Ahh! ‐ What do you think about that?
Huh?
♪ ♪
‐ A badass locker room full of men
who had starved,
kicked, scratched,
clawed to get to the top
and who weren't afraid to go out on a limb
and push the envelope.
‐ Oh, my God!
‐ The Rattlesnake has struck!
[indistinct shouting]
‐ When we started kicking the WCW's ass,
you know, we just took off,
and their infrastructure was kind of unorganized
and kinda started falling apart,
and then we just crushed them,
and then later on down the road Vince would buy the company
from Ted Turner for pennies on the dollar.
‐ I, Vince McMahon, bought my competition.
That's right.
I own WCW.
‐ They raised the flag, and they said, "We won.
The war is over."
‐ For all of us at World Championship Wrestling,
a historic day in sports entertainment.
This is the last "Nitro" on the Turner Network,
so we're going out with a bang, all the titles on the line.
‐ I didn't know what was gonna happen.
I didn't see it coming till that night.
I found out that I was gonna be going out a dual champ.
♪ ♪
They closed the company down
as World Champion and as United States Champion.
‐ Picks him up, Booker T, lands on his feet.
He's got him! Book end!
‐ Book end! ‐ Here it is!
One, two, could it be it? Yes, it is!
‐ Yes, yes!
‐ Booker T is WCW World Champion!
‐ That is the last "Monday Nitro,"
what a night for Booker T.
‐ I didn't feel sad like everybody else did.
I lost my mother when I was 13,
so I always knew nothing lasts forever.
I remember one the guys actually talking to me,
and he literally had tears in his eyes,
and he's like, "Man, Book, it's the end of WCW, man.
It's over."
He goes, "Man, what are you gonna do, man?
What are you gonna do?"
I said, "Man, I'm going to WWE."
[laughs] You know what I mean?
What else could I do?
♪ ♪
[laughs]
‐ I don't think we knew
that we were gonna keep Booker, had no idea.
When you're looking at the talent base
and you're looking at talent that's available,
all of these top‐tier talents
chose to stay on their AOL Time Warner contract,
stay at home, collect their money,
not go to work.
‐ I sat at home for 17 months
and got paid bank‐‐bank.
‐ But then you have a guy, Booker T,
who did have a pretty good guaranteed contract
who said, "Man, I want to work.
♪ ♪
I want to be a star on the biggest platform I can."
‐ I was a performer. I was talent.
Something I tell young people all the time,
you know, believe in your talent.
Do not forsake your talent.
Going into the WWE locker room,
those guys didn't too much care for us.
They wasn't gonna treat us special or anything.
They didn't want us there, and I understood that.
I was ready to go out there and show those guys
I was just as good as I said I was.
‐ Booker had enough confidence in himself
to step up and say, "Put me in."
[cheering]
‐ Wait a minute! What the hell?
[cheering]
‐ Booker T,
he's the WW‐‐WCW champion.
‐ The WCW champion
has just attacked Stone Cold Steve Austin!
Oh, my God!
‐ Man, it was a good night for me,
debut, drop Steve Austin.
‐ Booker T! ‐ I'm off and running.
Everything's beautiful.
‐ Right through the announce table!
‐ My first thought was, "Hey, man,
Booker T just came in here,
he just took away what I do for a living,"
broke three transverse processes in my back,
and I was in intense pain,
and I was like, "What in the eff just happened?"
[somber music]
♪ ♪
There is that layer of hey, man, we need to watch this guy,
or is he safe to work with,
or is he gonna do that to me?
‐ Steve Austin had the kind of stroke at that time
in the company where he could have
went to the office and said,
"Man, this guy's reckless and doesn't know what he's doing,"
even though it wasn't my fault.
‐ When I look back at it, he did everything right.
He executed with perfection, but I was so sweaty,
when I hit the top of that desk,
I just skipped off, and my back hit a chair.
It was an accident.
Accidents happen,
but hey, man, anytime the lead guy goes down
and someone has done something to him,
yeah, you might have some heat on you from the boys.
‐ You walk in the door coming from somewhere else,
and you take out one of the top guys
that's putting food on all our tables,
that's not gonna sit well with a lot of people
'cause most of these guys never met him.
‐ Who in the blue hell are you?
‐ Coming into that company,
it wasn't gonna be easy for me by any means.
‐ Hell, my name is Booker‐‐
‐ It doesn't matter what your name is!
[cheers and applause]
‐ You can bring someone in up at the top.
It's difficult for them to stay there,
especially when you had the kind of personality
and the kind of talent of a Steve Austin,
Rock, Undertaker.
‐ Stepping into the ring with the five‐time former W‐‐
‐ Here we go, Booker T on the offensive!
‐ Booker T [inaudible] The Undertaker.
‐ Rock, I would say you're the sucka, sucka.
‐ Look out! Rock Bottom!
Rock Bottom! Rock Bottom!
‐ Book hung.
Book hung and said, "Y'all come on up to me."
‐ The bottom line is, if you come to WWE,
you better be able to work,
and Booker T could work his ass off.
He wasn't accepted just 'cause we liked him.
He was accepted because he was damn good.
‐ It was kind of a Jack Nicholson,
"Wait till they get a load of me."
Yeah, Big Henry, you better lace them up tonight,
'cause we finna be moving and flying and singing, baby.
The greats can't stick to a script.
It's emotional.
♪ ♪
‐ To make it real, it's gotta look raw.
It's gotta look uncut.
We're close enough to the fans
that want sweat to fly all over them.
♪ ♪
That part is as real as it possibly can get.
♪ ♪
‐ Book has a unique ability
to relate to the audience and conversely,
and that's really what you look for.
He's a man who gave it all.
If he had an opportunity, he was going for it.
‐ I wanted the fan that was watching
to have that same feeling that I did.
It was a out of body experience.
I could tell what the fans were feeling
because I was one of them.
♪ ♪
‐ You would have never thought that somebody with the talent
that he had in the ring,
he would have just as much talent behind the scenes.
You can't just define him as a wrestler.
He was a entertainer.
‐ Now, can you dig that, sucka?
[cheers and applause]
[indistinct chatter]
‐ Booker watches a lot of movies.
He's always studied movies his whole life,
whether it be kung fu movies
or, you know, any type of action movies,
so I really do believe
that if he weren't a wrestler,
he would definitely be an actor.
‐ For you today. ‐ [laughs]
‐ The doctor authentic‐‐ ‐ I'm serious, man.
‐ A lot of those movies were my escapes as well,
and I used to skip school and go to the Majestic OST,
and all those movies made me feel a certain way.
I literally would go to that place.
‐ A little bit more structure here.
‐ I literally would be in that movie.
I knew every line. I knew every scene.
I knew what made that scene work
because of what happened before it
and what's gonna happen after,
and that's what wrestling has always been.
So for me, my WCW career was so serious all the time.
There was never a laughing moment,
and then when I got to WWE, everything changed.
Booyah! Hey, what's up, suckas?
Your ass is about to get whacked
by the five‐time master Jedi champion!
Now, can you dig that, sucka?
[cheers and applause]
‐ He was always a comedian.
He always liked to make people laugh.
‐ Tell me I don't look like that!
‐ That just came,
and we would all do little skits at home
and make up things, so, you know,
just what kids do who don't have a lot of money.
You have a great imagination.
‐ [exhaling sharply]
‐ Imagine what we could be and what we could do.
‐ [laughing]
You‐‐you didn't say that.
Tell me you didn't just say that.
You just gave me the key to your heart, baby.
Yeah.
‐ It's like the actor in a film that you've only seen
play a very serious, badass role.
‐ Oh, my goodness.
‐ And then you see him in a buddy comedy,
and you're like, "Oh, my God,
I had no idea this guy was so funny,"
and, like, it just opens up a whole new world for you.
‐ Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah‐wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah‐wah.
Look, that ain't me, brother.
You know, I got to feel what I'm doing, man.
I got bass!
You know, I got to feel, man,
can you dig it, sucka?
[cheering]
Just because you know kung fu‐‐wah!
Doesn't mean you know shampoo,
but that's all about to change
thanks to new Yakamoshi shampoo.
It won't make your hair look as good as mine...
But you gotta start somewhere.
Give me the script, and let me make it
what I want it to be, no matter what it is.
I don't care what it is.
Now let me check to see if they're fresh.
‐ Creative tells us, "Hey, man,
"you and Booker are gonna have this brawl
in a grocery store."
Okay.
Here's a blank canvas that Booker T and I
are gonna have an opportunity to paint together.
‐ Action.
[can pops open]
We created magic.
‐ Austin‐‐ Austin attacking Booker T!
[both grunting]
‐ Get up, Booker. We ain't done.
Want some ketchup on that ass‐whupping, huh?
[both grunting]
I'm walking through the store, up an aisle, down an aisle.
You're working off of instincts...
I like shopping, Booker. Ahh!
As if you were in the ring.
You know you're trying to entertain people.
Let's go back for more burgers.
‐ Oh, Booker with a shot to the jaw of Austin.
‐ Hey, Book, you got milk?
‐ Got milk! ‐ I'm action.
He's reaction, and his reactions
were just off‐the‐chart gold.
You want to burp?
[both grunting]
‐ This is what wrestling is right here.
The stuff that we do in the ring,
that's one thing, but this is wrestling.
‐ By the time it was all said and done,
it was about $10,000 worth of damage to that store.
"Price check on a jackass,"
people still remember that line.
Price check on a jackass.
[siren wailing]
‐ [Booker moaning]
Oh, I'ma get you.
‐ Booker T and I painted a Mona Lisa
with a bunch of damn stuff that you'd find in a grocery store.
‐ Who wants to see the Spinaroonie?
‐ Who, at 6'3" and 260 pounds,
can do, like, the Spinaroonie, you know,
the break dancing move up on his shoulders, flip up and?
‐ It starts with the hand, of course,
and then you drop to one knee.
All the centrifugal force comes from the dreads,
you know, shake‐‐ once you shake the dreads,
it goes through the body all the way down to the legs,
which gives you torque.
‐ Oh, wait a minute.
I think Booker T's gonna give him‐‐
he's on the ground,
and he's taking a big old‐‐ and it's a Spinaroonie!
‐ A Spinaroonie! ‐ Oh, yeah!
‐ Spinaroonie! Spinaroonie!
‐ Can you dig that, suckas?
♪ ♪
‐ The Spinaroonie in concept is not, like, that silly.
Like, it's a cool way to get up and get to your feet,
and it's just a charismatic moment,
but over time,
the Spinaroonie kinda took on a life of its own.
‐ Everybody had a roonie.
The most infamous night was trying to get the Undertaker
to do a Taker‐roonie.
I think it's time for the Undertaker‐roonie.
[cheers and applause]
‐ If you know the Undertaker,
like, he don't come out of character ever.
‐ I tried to get him to do it.
You know, I tell the fans, you know,
get the fans hyped up.
Get up!
[cheers and applause]
[fans chanting]
And Taker looks at me, and he goes,
"I'm gonna kill you."
All the named players on the card come out,
and literally,
we're 30 minutes after we're off the air
trying to get the Undertaker to do the Spinaroonie.
Everybody does the Spinaroonie.
‐ You want to see the Rock do the Rock‐a‐roonie?
[cheers and applause]
‐ There ain't no way in hell
you could do something like that.
♪ ♪
‐ Vince McMahon.
He does the worst Spinaroonie I ever seen in my life.
♪ ♪
Out of all the wrestlers,
I've gotten everyone to do it, except the Undertaker.
He's the only one, still to this day.
‐ There ain't a chance in hell I'm gonna get out there
and do the Spinaroonie,
so you might better send the cavalry.
♪ ♪
[mysterious piano music]
‐ My first son, he's 35 years old now,
we had a somewhat of a rough life growing up,
and I thought it was due to me being on the road a lot,
being on the road wrestling, not being there.
When I got in the wrestling business,
he went to stay with my sister.
‐ When he'd get a weekend off, he would fly from Atlanta,
and he'd come back to Houston,
and they'd spend time together,
still trying to get a relationship with his son.
It's just a process.
I'm sure they had their ups and downs.
‐ My son turned 16, 17 years old,
and that's when it really got tough between him and I.
It was always just rocky.
My son ended up going down that same road that I did,
you know, getting in trouble,
you know, even as an adult.
That's why he's not here right now.
He's sitting in a jail cell,
you know, waiting to see
exactly what's gonna happen with his life, you know?
You know, he's still my son.
I'm still there for him.
♪ ♪
It was totally different when I had my son
because I was a kid myself, you know?
I was only 17 years old.
Not having that male presence in my life was a huge factor,
but I tried my best.
I tried to make sure I did the same thing
that my mom did for me,
and that was work my butt off.
I tried to give my son a image
that I wanted him to actually be like,
but I didn't have the tools to actually be able
to teach him everything that he needed to know,
especially from a educational side.
♪ ♪
‐ He was so young, a young single parent
without a wife, working hard,
building up his career, a lot of time on the road,
but then when that second phase of his life came around,
there was different dynamics
that played into the role of fatherhood.
‐ Booker T! ‐ Hey, Booker!
‐ He was stable.
He was more established in his career.
He married a wonderful woman.
‐ All right.
♪ ♪
Booker and I were married
February 5, 2005.
It was a beautiful ceremony in my hometown of Gary, Indiana.
I only had, I think, three months
to plan the wedding because of our schedule.
Most women want to have a year to plan
and find the perfect dress and all that.
I didn't have time for any of that.
It was definitely a whirlwind
and then right back to work the following week.
‐ I was gonna quit the company right after we got married.
I didn't want to be away from Sharmell.
I didn't want to be on the road all the time.
‐ He was considering cutting back on his work,
and all of a sudden, they decided to bring me in,
to bring me back.
So babe, I don't know how you felt
the first time you saw action figures
'cause I know you've had action figures before,
but this was my very first one.
‐ Yeah. ‐ This is amazing.
How many husbands and wives do you think have this?
‐ Yeah, it's crazy, yeah.
‐ He's always called me his queen,
so we kinda just transitioned that into wrestling.
The true life stories make for the best work, right?
So it kinda just easily flowed into King Booker
and Queen Sharmell.
All hail King Booker!
‐ Oh, look at this!
‐ Oh, must be good‐‐must be nice to be the king.
‐ It was just entertaining.
It was something that people had never seen before,
and then they had never seen Booker T in that light before.
He was always rugged, raw, you know, tough,
and now he's coming out and just,
like, prancing around, elegant and classy and pompous,
contradictory on every level.
I thought it was brilliant.
[regal music]
‐ It was such an awesome, awesome time in my career,
so much fun,
but man, this fool's crazy.
He really is crazy.
‐ He would just open up the cape,
and he'd have his scepter, and he'd just twirl around
and look so very majestic.
All of the little things that he did
really made that character amazing.
‐ This guy is walking around like he's royalty,
holding his pinkie up in the air.
‐ I think he was just making it up as he goes.
‐ As I ponder.
‐ He started speaking in a bad British accent.
‐ Has become a much, much better place since I,
King Booker, has become ruler of it.
‐ He was almost like Kevin Costner in "Robin Hood."
Like, he would float in and out of the accent.
‐ If you got him too angry,
then his British accent went right back to the hood.
‐ It's going to be in a steel cage.
‐ Oh, hell no!
‐ What? Oh, baby, baby.
‐ Hell no! Oh, hell no! ‐ Come on, baby, you‐‐
‐ Oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh.
People would actually treat me like a king as well.
I don't think I paid for a meal the whole year
I was King Booker anywhere.
‐ This is Booker T reaching that nirvana
of character development,
the culmination of all of Booker T's years in wrestling.
All of that sort of led to him finding this perfect character
that was undeniable, I mean, to the point
where you gotta give him the championship.
He became champion as King Booker,
and it is as memorable
as anything he's ever done in wrestling.
‐ The poor kid from Houston, Texas,
has risen to the top of the world.
‐ All hail King Booker!
♪ ♪
‐ King!
Booker!
[laughter]
Ooh, give me some, baby.
♪ ♪
[camera shutter snaps]
‐ Watch out, now. And...
We know that...
‐ [laughs] ‐ You look great.
We're the one person we can count on
when all else fails, and we really hold that dear.
[light music]
‐ For us, it's been a team effort since day one,
us pulling together and now having twins...
Hey, guys. A boy and a girl,
eight years old,
I never imagined in a million years
that her and I would have kids running around.
It's pretty, pretty special.
Good day at school today?
‐ Yeah. ‐ Yeah?
I've been practicing all day long, yeah, baby.
[laughs] ‐ No.
‐ [laughing]
You know, Sharmell and I,
we tried to have kids for three years,
and things just didn't work out,
and then, you know, instead of one, you know,
God blessed us with two.
♪ ♪
I've watched them grow over the last eight years
and not being on the road wrestling
on a weekly basis in a different town.
‐ How do you do a Spinaroonie?
Whoa!
[clapping]
[laughter and chatter]
‐ That part right there, I think,
has been more special than anything.
♪ ♪
‐ Wait. [laughter]
Okay, don't eat it all at one time.
‐ I'm not. ‐ [laughs]
‐ I was working on prefixes and suffixes.
‐ So how much did Tessa save? ‐ Seven.
‐ $7? And how much did‐‐ ‐ $7.
‐ Mm‐hmm. ‐ $7 and $7, so $14.
‐ In some aspects, our kids are polar opposites,
but they're both extremely talented
and so very, very smart.
Booker is an amazing dad.
He's so playful with the kids.
‐ Come on!
[laughing]
Finish him! ‐ Yes!
‐ Oh, no.
‐ My son, Kendrick, is now really,
really into wrestling.
‐ I got him now, baby.
‐ A lot of times I catch just spontaneous moments
between the two of them.
‐ Hey, come on. ‐ [laughs]
Oh, my God.
‐ I'm very fortunate
for the way our kids are growing up,
and we're just afforded this family
that Booker, unfortunately, didn't have
when he was growing up.
‐ You got it! Yes!
Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! ‐ Oh, no!
‐ Yes! Yes! [laughter]
‐ Of course, Booker cooks really well.
He can cook better than me.
That's the only time I'll admit that.
So I'll tell you what I can do.
I can turn the oven on for the French fries.
‐ I get anxiety maybe three days
before I have to leave on a one‐day trip.
I literally‐‐I'll be sitting here, and I go,
"Man, I can't wait to get back,"
and I haven't even gone. ‐ And he hasn't even left yet,
Yeah. ‐ [laughs] So...
‐ Every time.
‐ Because I do love being a dad.
I do love being at home.
That's what's cool about, you know, this stage of life,
and I can honestly say, you know, it's the best stage.
I do want the memories that my son and my daughter
have of their dad
be something that's gonna catapult them throughout life.
They're gonna know exactly what it's‐‐
what it means to be a dad.
They're gonna know exactly what it means to be a mom,
and that right there, at the end of the day,
you know, we've done our job.
♪ ♪
‐ Let's bring in now our two‐time WWE Hall of Famer,
our good friend, of course, Booker T, to the panel.
‐ Whoo! ‐ Let's see those rings.
‐ Which one of these? Where my camera at?
‐ Right there. ‐ Right there? Oh. [laughs]
‐ Look at all that gold.
‐ Congratulations, sir, last night‐‐
‐ If you know Booker,
I've never seen the guy in a bad mood.
♪ ♪
‐ That feels good right there.
‐ Sports entertainment is in his blood.
‐ Coming to the final chapter of Wrestlemania.
‐ To see the guy that I first met in the '90s
and to know Booker now,
his legacy just continues to grow
because he's one of the guys that wants to give back,
that is giving back.
‐ And I understand exactly what you're talking about.
It will eat you all week thinking about that, I swear.
‐ I appreciate the words of wisdom.
‐ Holla. Stay up.
I love being around the events to be a mentor.
‐ Off the European tour.
‐ Shine some knowledge, you know,
let these guys sit under the learning tree.
‐ An African‐American kid coming up, you know,
wanting to do what you were doing.
It was‐‐it was always a sense of motivation,
so I'm just trying to‐‐ trying to pay it forward.
‐ So you gotta be champion in the ring
as well as out of the ring, all the time.
It doesn't cost you anything to be nice to people, man,
and it'll take you so far in life,
so definitely, man, just keep doing what you do, bro.
‐ Yeah. ‐ I love the business,
and the business have given me so much.
‐ Oh!
‐ It starts right here.
I had a dream back in 2005.
I said, "One day I'm gonna open up
my own wrestling school.
I'm gonna teach kids the proper way."
Good job, Callie, good job.
We come here Monday through Friday.
The gym's open from normally around 6;00 p. m.
It goes till the last man leaves.
Bang, all right? It's gotta be that big.
That's the thinking part, guys.
You're trying to think storytelling.
This is my livelihood. This is what I do.
This is my trade.
My knowledge is never gonna go away.
And then bam.
I loved doing that spot right there
almost more than any spot that I ever did
in professional wrestling, I swear to God.
Pop the crowd to where they go, "Wow, that was awesome."
Add a little bit more on it. It means something.
Think about the guy in the cheap seats.
I want my youngsters to be able
to create their own stories.
Okay, bro. ‐ I want to be with you,
brother. ‐ Hey, man, welcome to the club.
‐ Thank you.
‐ That's what it all started out as,
and then it manifested into
us having our own wrestling promotion.
♪ ♪
‐ This is really exciting. We have a huge crowd tonight,
and all of our hard work, I know it's gonna pay off,
and we're gonna have a great show.
‐ Yeah, do you hear that crowd behind us?
They're getting ready to have some fun.
[indistinct shouts]
Then our fans coming to see our own homegrown talent,
they are the stars of the show.
[indistinct shouts]
I mean, we got something here,
and we could take this thing to the next level...
♪ ♪
And we're on our way.
♪ ♪
‐ Hey! [indistinct shout]
‐ [laughs]
‐ He had all the odds against him.
If you were to pick out the kid
that was gonna end up dead by the time he was 30,
you would probably pick Booker T. Huffman.
♪ ♪
He grew up.
He experienced life‐‐
good, bad, ugly.
Book did what it took.
He never went and said,
"Well, here's a shortcut over here I can take,"
and the rewards matched the hard work that he put in.
♪ ♪
He is a real‐life success story.
‐ You ain't never coming back!
You going down for the one, two, three
because I got all my people standing behind me 110%!
Hey!
‐ People thought that he couldn't do something
because of either his race
or where he was from
or how he looked or the fact
that he didn't have a formal education.
That's what drove him.
♪ ♪
Booker's just a survivor,
and when you see Booker T, you take people at face value,
and you believe in redemption stories.
‐ Those kids who told me I wasn't gonna be anything,
I look back on them now,
and I say, "How do you like me now?"
Guys, all of you gonna get a chance
to make it through that.
Don't let anyone stop you
from making...
[cheering]
♪ ♪
‐ Statistically, he wasn't supposed to be
on that stage at Madison Square Garden
being inducted into the Hall of Fame.
That made it all the more special, because he made it.
He made it.
[cheers and applause]
♪ ♪
‐ I always ask God, you know, why me, you know?
I've always asked God, you know, why me?
♪ ♪
30 years later, it's really, really hard to explain.
♪ ♪
The safest place that I could ever be
was in the middle of the ring painting my Picasso.
♪ ♪
I always wanted to perform at the highest level,
and I wanted to be remembered
making people feel a certain way when they watch me.
♪ ♪
[inaudible]
♪ ♪
And if you guys, the fans are enjoying it
and having a good time, we're doing something right.
That's what it's always been about with me.
♪ ♪
Now, can you dig that...
all: Sucka!
♪ ♪
‐ I just want to say it's on
like a big pot of neck bone, baby.
I'm gonna put you in the pot like I do the neck bone.
I'm gonna stir it up, and it's gonna be on, daddy.
We gonna turn the thing up to 1,000 degrees,
and we gonna burn everybody!
Five‐time, five‐time, five‐time, five‐time,
five‐time WCW champion!
Now, can you dig that?
[crowd cheering]
Sucka!