WWE Hall of Famer Booker T recently spoke with Pwinsider to promote Reality of Wrestling’s upcoming joint events with World Class Pro Wrestling.
During the interview, he spoke about his memories of Sherri Martel and Vader, what his favorite WrestleMania moment involving himself was, and more.
You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On how Sherri Martel would feel about the evolution of women’s wrestling: “Well you look at a lot of the women wrestlers today as you watch the landscape and you watch how they go out there and perform, they’re not Divas, they are truly professional wrestlers. And Sherri, I think she would be really, really proud because Sherri was no Diva. She would get out there and scrap with the best of them. She’d take those high heels off and she would go, man. (laughs) I think Sherri would be so proud to see where the women have come in professional wrestling today, to actually have their own pay-per-view, I think that something that’s really cool but for me, to be able to honor Sherri Martel for what she did for myself and my brother, she definitely was our legitimizer, she made us credible and and I tell you for me, this is going to be a great, great day to let the world see the Sherri Martel Classic. And like I said, to see those women go out there and perform for Sherri Martel is going to be awesome as well.”
On his favorite memory of Martel: (laughs) “Aw man, that’s an easy one man. We were in Birmingham, Alabama and we had a tag match against Hacksaw Jim Duggan and…I can’t remember who the other guy was, but I remember I had Jim Duggan down by the ropes, he was on the mat, I was putting the boots to him and then I put his head between the second rope, and then I let Sherri Martel slap him, and she slapped him so hard he stopped selling, he was just looking at me like “What the hell was that all about?” (laughs) I’ll never forget it, because the match just stopped right there, you know? I remember Sherri also almost started a riot, in one of those towns when she slapped the crap out of a fan, and they literally had to escort us out of the arena that night working with Sherri Martel, it was awesome. Nothing but great memories working with Sherri Martel.”
On his tag team with Rob Van Dam: “[We clicked so well] because were friends, we were friends before we started working together. It wasn’t something that was out of the norm. Rob and I pretty much vibed from day 1, I remember him and I met on Venice Beach, I just happened to be walking past and he happened to be walking past, from that day on we clicked. We were in Venice Beach, in California, so we were feeling pretty good (laughs).”
On his favorite WrestleMania moment involving himself: “You know, I’ve been a part of many Wrestlemanias, but I don’t really have a Wrestlemania moment that I have for myself, I don’t know why. It’s been like that with a lot of moments, you could say Summerslam or any other pay per view, I’m not really going to think about any moments because I always looked at the moments as being for the fans, not for me. I always wanted the fans to have those moments to remind me of so then I could remember them. That’s the only way I could really go out and perform at my highest level and it was not thinking about me ever and I think that’s the reason why I don’t have any of those moments, but if you were to ask me what is my Wrestlemania moment? It will always be forevermore Wrestlemania 3 – Steamboat/Savage – the greatest match in the history of the business. I wish my students would be that way, would be inspired to be those guys and what they did.”
On his memories of Vader: “I always had a great relationship with Vader. I always thought the character that he brought from Japan was one of the most iconic, I thought it was so unbelievable what Vader did when he came over. The memory I remember from Vader more than anything is seeing those scared kids in the locker room, like sheep wondering if they were going to get bit, if they were going to go against Vader that night (laughs). But what an awesome, awesome performer and definitely should be in the Hall of Fame.”
