Booker T has seen people questioning his “Blackness” on social media, and he’s had enough of it. After more than 30 years of dealing with racial issues inside the wrestling business, Booker says the people judging how he handled those battles have no idea what he actually went through.
Speaking on the Hall of Fame podcast, Booker went there while looking back at becoming WCW World Heavyweight Champion. Getting the belt was one thing. Being a Black man expected to carry WCW was something else entirely.
Booker admitted he was “damn worried” fans wouldn’t accept him in that spot, especially after watching how WCW handled Ron Simmons years earlier.
“Yeah, man, I was damn worried. I was damn worried because I was wondering, was the fans going to accept a Black man in that role? I was wondering after Ron Simmons, how many years after Ron Simmons had did it, you know what I mean? It was quite some time. And then boom, I come along and I get put in that spot.”
Simmons had already broken that barrier, but Booker never felt WCW consistently treated him like the guy once he became champion. He remembered watching wrestlers like Ric Flair continue occupying those major spots and wondered whether history was about to repeat itself.
“I remember Ron’s time as champion. He really didn’t get the push that I thought he should have gotten. You know what I mean? As far as being the guy in that position, you know, he wasn’t built as a World Champion all the time, as far as in those main-event spots. Guys like Ric Flair and those guys still would have those spots. And I go, what’s going to happen to me if that actually happens? What’s going to happen?”
That’s where Booker turned the conversation toward something considerably more personal. He’s seen people online question his “Blackness” because of how he has responded to racial issues over the years. Booker says the mistake is assuming that because he wasn’t publicly talking about every fight, he wasn’t fighting them.
“I hear a lot of these questions about, you know, my Blackness and people questioning my Blackness as far as, you know, what I’ve gone through in this business, you know, the racial issues that I’ve had in this business and the way I’ve chose to handle those issues, normally silently, as far as the public know, but head-on and direct and believing in myself.”
Then Booker stopped talking about the past and went straight at the people questioning him now. He called them “suckers” and “clowns” who have never walked in his shoes or seen what he experienced during more than 30 years in wrestling.
“That’s for all those suckers out there that question my Blackness. And I just had to get that out there because I see it on social media, you know, and I try not to watch social media, and I see these clowns that has not walked in my shoes, that have not seen what I’ve seen throughout this business and have not taken it on directly and head-on. The only thing that they’ve ever been able to do to me is fire me. Ain’t nothing — ain’t never — it’s nothing never been soft about Booker T throughout this whole 30-plus-year run. I’ve been the straight-up OG that I was from day one all the way to 2026.”
Booker’s point wasn’t that racial issues never existed during his career. It was that the public didn’t always get a front-row seat when he dealt with them. He made his choices while actually living through those situations, and three decades later, he isn’t interested in having social media decide whether those choices made him Black enough.
What do you make of Booker T firing back at people questioning his “Blackness”? Let us know in the comments below.
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