The SGM Super 30 Black Professional Wrestler #3

Booker T

Booker T, in many ways, has had a career that has mirrored the success of Bret Hart. Here we have an incredible athlete who had broken out of the tag team division and made his first tenuous steps toward success in the singles division with a TV title win over Disco Inferno¹. Then, he made his way up the singles ranks, holding their secondary title and eventually making his way to the big gold belt ... five times, I do believe the number is.

The comparison with Canada’s greatest son begins to diverge a little bit. When Booker T joined the WWF roster, like Bret Hart in WCW, they didn’t know what to do with him. He was alternately an asshole heel and an ersatz “people’s champion.” He had incredible runs with the Rock, and he had some brief tag success with the likes of Test(?) and Goldust(??). In fact, Booker T has nearly accomplished the same distinction that only Bret Hart and Chris Benoit have ever done: held Triple Crown distinctions (tag team, midcard title, and World title) in the two major US promotions ever - WCW and WWF. All Booker T has to do is get his hands on the WWF World title. And that’s where Booker T’s career will fall short.

Booker T has been saddled with the distinction of being the “WCW guy” who made good. Unfortunately, while he was running around claiming the distinction of being the “five time, five time, five time, etc.” WCW champion, no one bothered to mention to him that he was indelibly liking himself with a dead brand. Granted, he was doing this during the Invasion, but there wasn’t much need for him to continue doing it when he’s chasing the tag team gold with Goldust. Of course, having a gimmicky crowd popping move like the Spinarooni did help his chances of being taken seriously as a world title contender. His two greatest chances at world title contendership were probably against Triple H at Wrestlemania 19, and against Eddie Guerrero the night after he was drafted to Smackdown.

Arguably, Booker T is probably one of the best athletes to ever step in the ring, up there with your Ric Flairs and your Harts and your Hogans. A retrospective of his career should note that he held his own admirably against that very individual against whom his career is being compared, the Hitman himself. But Spinaroonis don’t go over in the ghetto, and they don’t go over in Canada either. But Booker T, if you’re out there, you deserve every one of the accolades that you’ve accomplished to date; you’ve earned them. And just think, you didn’t have to suffer a Montreal screwjob, or lose your brother (Stevie Ray) to a freak accident, or suffer a career ending concussion to get the recognition you justly deserve.

¹The concept of a transitional champion for a lower mid-card championship ... an absurd concept, sirs, I assure you.