Booker T had a huge mouth during his early WCW days, and William Regal apparently wanted no part of hearing it. The WWE Hall of Famer admits he used to walk back into the locker room after matches, tell everyone else to follow what he just did, and proudly announce that he was one of the five best wrestlers in the entire world.
During the Hall of Fame podcast, Booker looked back on the attitude he carried when he and Stevie Ray were still establishing themselves in WCW. Booker wasn’t quietly thinking he belonged with the best either, because he made damn sure everybody in the locker room knew exactly how highly he rated himself. Booker explained that after finishing a match, he’d come through the curtain and essentially throw down the challenge to whoever had to wrestle next.
“I would go out and work in the ring and I would come back in the locker room and I would tell the guys to follow that, you know, and I would tell the guys, you know, I’m top five worker in the world. You know, I’m top five in the world. I don’t care who you put me. Top five, you know.”
That kind of talk naturally led to the other wrestlers asking Booker where he actually ranked himself. He wasn’t about to give them a straight answer, because anywhere inside that top five worked just fine for him.
“And then they used to always ask me what number was I and I would say it doesn’t matter. I say I’m hovering somewhere, you know.”
When Brad Gilmore joked that Booker could have been No. 1 or No. 5, Booker completely embraced the idea. He also admitted the whole routine was driving people backstage crazy.
“I could be one. I could be five. I could be either way. You know what I mean? And they hated me for it.”
Booker knew exactly why the attitude rubbed veterans the wrong way. He was still green, still new to the locker room and already walking around talking like everybody else needed to catch up with him.
“It was trash talk. But I was green and—”
Gilmore jumped in to point out that Booker was new at the time. Booker immediately added another factor.
“And black.”
Booker said he knew he was stepping on toes, but having Stevie Ray around gave him a little extra confidence when it came time to run his mouth. His brother was 6-foot-5 and around 300 pounds, so Booker wasn’t exactly feeling intimidated.
“So I was walking on, you know, I was stepping—I was stepping on some toes, but I was very—I had my brother behind me. He’s 300 lb.”
After Gilmore brought up Stevie Ray’s size, Booker admitted that having his brother nearby made him feel like he could say pretty much whatever he wanted.
“6’5, and I felt like I could say anything I wanted to say. Damn it. What do you mean? What are you going to do? What are you—what are you—what are you going to do? It was one of those type of things, you know.”
Then Gilmore asked the question that really exposed who Booker’s big mouth irritated the most. When asked which wrestler hated hearing him brag about being top five more than anyone, Booker immediately named William Regal.
“Uh, William Regal.”
Gilmore repeated Regal’s name, and Booker made it clear that the future WWE star had absolutely no love for his routine.
“Yeah, William Regal. I think he hated me the most for it.”
There was already some real tension between the two men during those days. Booker previously revealed that he and William Regal nearly got into a fight the first time they met, explaining that they weren’t friends and viewed each other as competition before eventually becoming close years later.
Regal wasn’t the only WCW veteran rolling his eyes at Booker’s top-five declaration. Booker said Rick Steiner didn’t care for it either, and he eventually heard Steiner publicly dismiss the idea that Booker was anywhere near as good as he claimed.
“And I heard, you know, Rick Steiner in an interview and he was talking about—he didn’t like it either. He goes around talking about he’s top five in the world. He’s not that good, you know.”
Booker said those comments stuck with people for years, because plenty of wrestlers later brought up how irritating his confidence had been. He wasn’t shocked by any of it, because Booker admitted he knew exactly what effect his words were having.
“And I’ve heard a lot of guys, you know, bring it up in passing and reference it because—but it really made them feel a certain way.”
The best part is that Booker wasn’t accidentally pissing people off. He knew veterans didn’t like hearing some young wrestler declare himself one of the five best in the world, but he wanted to force everyone in that locker room to recognize what he believed he could do.
“Because—and I knew it did. I knew it did. But I really wanted to prove how good I was in the ring, you know. I wanted to prove how good I was, you know, as a performer. My brother always pushed me to, you know, go out and, you know, do my stuff, you know.”
Booker even admitted that he wasn’t exactly avoiding confrontation during that period. If his mouth created a little trouble along the way, he was perfectly fine with it.
“I was looking for, you know, some trouble, you know, good trouble, though. I was looking good trouble.”
For Booker, the trash talk was ultimately about planting his flag inside WCW. He wanted Regal, Steiner and everyone else backstage to know that he wasn’t showing up for a short run before disappearing.
“But more importantly, I would just let those guys know that I was here and I wasn’t going nowhere. I was going to stay in this party, you know, till it was over.”
Booker T may have been driving William Regal nuts with that top-five talk, but the guy certainly wasn’t short on confidence. He walked into WCW telling established veterans that he belonged with the best wrestlers alive, pissed a few people off along the way, and then spent the rest of his career proving that his mouth wasn’t writing checks he couldn’t cash.
What do you think about Booker T walking around the WCW locker room declaring himself a top-five wrestler in the world? Do you understand why William Regal and other veterans got irritated by it, or was Booker simply doing what he had to do to get noticed? Leave your feedback in the comments below.
This transcript was produced exclusively for Ringside News from the original recording. Republishing the transcription in full is prohibited. When using excerpts, provide prominent credit and a link to this article.
