Eric Bischoff is finally spelling out what happened backstage after Booker T dropped the N-word during one of the most infamous promos in WCW history.
On his 83 Weeks podcast, Bischoff revisited Booker’s 1997 Spring Stampede promo aimed at Hulk Hogan and admitted the entire moment brought everything to a dead stop.
“Time kind of froze. Everything just stopped. I didn’t know how to react. I was shocked. Not angry shocked. I mean, I was literally just like everything in my brain stopped working.”
Bischoff said nobody backstage believed Booker meant to say it. According to him, Booker knew immediately that he had screwed up and regretted it the second the word came out.
“Everybody knew it wasn’t intentional. He knew what he did was wrong the instant he said it, and he regretted it the instant he said it.”
Bischoff made it clear he was not trying to excuse the slip, but he believes it came from Booker falling into the kind of language people might use joking around off camera without thinking.
“I don’t want to sound like I’m making excuses for Booker here. Not that he needs me or anybody else to make an excuse.”
“When you grow up in a certain environment, when you’re hanging, talking with friends and people you hang out with and there’s no cameras on and you’re joking around or something, you’ll say things that you wouldn’t say on television.”
Bischoff admitted he never sat down with Booker and asked exactly what happened, but his belief is that Booker tried to be funny and the joke blew up in his face immediately.
“I’m guessing it was just one of those almost subconscious attempts at humor that backfired instantly. I don’t know. But it was regrettable.”
Despite the controversy, Bischoff said Booker T and Stevie Ray had built up so much respect in WCW that nobody saw the slip as a reflection of who Booker was. Bischoff said the locker room viewed it as exactly what it was—a brutal live-TV mistake.
“Booker and Stevie were both consummate professionals. Everybody knew it. They had a ton of respect from everybody associated with WCW as well as the fans.”
“Nobody took it as, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe he’d go there.’ It wasn’t that. It was a mistake.”
The comments surfaced after Booker T was asked whether he was still “coming for” Hogan, a callback to the promo that has followed him for nearly three decades. Booker laughed and turned the joke back on Hogan.
“Naw man, because Hulk Hogan is coming for himself.”
Booker T’s slip remains one of wrestling’s most replayed promo disasters, but Bischoff says there was never any mystery backstage. Everyone knew it was accidental, Booker knew he had messed up, and the moment died the second it happened.
Do you think Eric Bischoff’s explanation finally puts the Booker T incident to rest, or will that promo always follow him? Leave your feedback in the comments.
