On the latest edition of his Hall Of Fame Podcast, Booker T had some advice for former NXT Champion and now AEW star Keith Lee in terms of mic skills.
Booker explained that as Lee reached his peak in NXT, he showcased a talking style that was different from the typical giants: “Keith Lee was a guy that was very different. Especially a big guy playing that beastly role, but he seemed more like a guy that could sing opera, a guy that was very, very intelligent. He always spoke very well, he didn’t speak any broken English or anything like that like you would normally see from a brother from the hood. Kind of like myself. He was always on top of his game. He thought people may have looked at him a certain way because of that.”
Due to this, Booker thinks that when angry, Keith Lee shouldn’t talk a lot: “Keith Lee was different, as far as cutting a promo, and then in the ring, he was this guy that you’re supposed to look at like he was a monster. It is hard to separate the two. Say, for instance, seeing Keith Lee mad and still talking like that. It’s not going to appeal to you. As opposed to a big guy like that being ticked off and really letting you know, ‘Bro, you’re about to get hurt.’ It’s almost like me talking as King Booker and then something would tick me off and I would be talking like Booker T. That’s what I mean. It just didn’t give me that raw feel that Keith Lee was going to go out there and rip somebody like a ragdoll from listening to him cut a promo. I understand, I get it. But I don’t know about the locker room, or if guys looked at him differently, or anything like that.”
In some occasions, Lee might need to get a little bit dirtier: “I would think from an entertainer’s perspective, as a wrestler’s perspective, if I was directing him, I would say, ‘Hey man, I’m going to need you to get a little bit more dirt on you. Especially when you’re going to go out there and whoop somebody’s ass. I need you to talk like you’re actually going to do it.’ You know what I mean? Maybe change your cadence up a little, You may talk like this idea at times. But at times you might want to, like I did, change it up a little bit.”
