Booker T is one of the most accomplished pro wrestlers of all time.
The 56-year-old is a five-time WCW Heavyweight champion, a former WWE World Heavyweight champion, an 11-time WCW Tag Team champion, a six-time WCW World TV champion, a former King of the Ring winner, and a two-time inductee into the WWE Hall of Famer.
Now, Booker T is giving back to the business that made him.
In 2005, Booker founded the Reality of Wrestling school and promotion based in his home city of Houston. The organization has sent wrestlers to AEW and WWE. You can catch their events on FITE.TV and they now can be seen in over 50 different television markets.
The promotion returns with perhaps their biggest event to date on Friday night, “One Night in Vegas,” at the MGM Grand Conference Center Premier Ballroom in Las Vegas.
Leading into the show, Booker talked with DAZN News about ROW, if he envisioned this type of growth for the promotion, and the criticism he's received for his podcast.
(Editor's note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)
DAZN: Did you ever think that you'd be giving back to the business in such a great and positive light that you are right now with Reality of Wrestling?
Booker T: That was the goal. I started this thing back in 2005 as far as my wrestling school goes, trying to give young guys and girls a chance to be a part of this thing, even if they don't get a chance to make it to WWE or anything like that. I know how important it is, or how important it was for me to have gone on the independent journey and just getting in the ring for the first time and finding myself. So many young people out there want to do that. So starting a school was first and foremost, and then promotion, which is something it morphed into, over the last ten years we've been producing. We've been on Fite TV for the last six years, and now we have got a deal with 50 different markets. We want to show the world what Reality of Wrestling is all about from an independent standpoint and try to show guys what it takes to make it to that next level.
DAZN: Has all of this exceeded your wildest expectations?
BT: I will say not. Like my wrestling career, I didn't slip on a banana peel and become one of the most decorated guys out there. It was preparation. It was planning, and I tried to make sure I did that part right, and I'm trying to do this right. I would say we crawled before we walked with this school and with my promotion. We walk before we run. We run before we start jumping off the top rope. But it's been something that we've been working on for a long time to have not an idea but something we could bring to the people and say, "Hey, look at this and check it out and tell us how you like and that's what this show in Vegas is about on the 19th." It's about showing the world Reality of Wrestling and letting us know that you can be a part of the road nation more than anything if you like it. We are just trying to get more people excited about young people getting into this business because I think seeing those young people out there doing it, younger people can aspire to be in that position.
DAZN: Your most famous student is AEW TNT champion, Sammy Guevara. How proud are you of Sammy Guevara?
BT: Man, that kid deserves all the credit for the work he put in and the charisma, the aura that he's built. He deserves 100 percent of the credit. I gave that kid some good advice along the way, and that's what I tried to do with all of my students. But I’m proud of him. I look at him now, and I can only imagine what he's gonna look like when he's in his 30s, when he really matures. He's still a kid. He's still a baby, and he's out there doing big things. That’s what this whole method of the madness has been about since day one. I've lived a great life. I've got a chance to go around the world and do this thing we call professional wrestling. It's been awesome. To let these young guys go around and see a little bit of piece of what I saw, for me, that is so gratifying. The Reality of Wrestling, not only are we going to show the world what we’re about on the 19th. This is something that's going to continue to grow. We call ourselves the Triple-A of professional wrestling because we are the stop before you make it to that next stop.
DAZN: What do you think are the one or two key things to where a talent can stand out and get to those places like a WWE, AEW, Impact, New Japan, or Mexico?
BT: For me, it's very simple. You got to know if you are as good as the guy standing across from you. That's just something that you got to know. You got to know how talented you are. You really do. Those are the things you can't forsake. You know very easily by watching and saying "Man, I'm as good as that guy." You can't lie to yourself. You got to be one of those guys that's very selfish to make it to that next level. But on top of all of that, you can never be thinking about yourself.
DAZN: I love your podcast, The Hall Fame, that you're doing with Brad Gilmore.
BT: (Interrupts) They talk about it. I get so many missed quotes on a weekly basis it’s not even funny (laughs).
DAZN: How do you block all of that out, and how do you not want to respond to everybody because if that was me and someone's misquoting me, I think I’d be pretty upset?
BT: I don't know. I think it's a coordinated deal. I seem to be the guy that they quote, and a lot of times, they misquote me. Just say, for instance, AEW. I always say a company like AEW for the wrestlers is a great thing because more guys get a chance to have jobs. Guys get a chance to work. Guys get a chance to feed their families. Nobody doesn’t hear that. They never hear anything. It's just like somebody coming to me and saying, "Hey man, is wrestling fake?" I remember a kid coming to me one day. He goes, "Booker T, is wrestling fake?" I told that kid, "Kid, anything that put a roof over your head, food on the table, clothes on your back is as real as it possibly could be." That kid walked away with a whole different experience about what life is truly all about. That's what people don't understand. Constructive criticism is good. Personally, if I hear constructive criticism, like, for instance, with CM Punk.
I've said things about CM Punk, but if he heard those things and read into it, he hears it as constructive criticism. I haven’t heard one word from CM Punk saying Booker T this and Booker T because as a professional, you should be able to take that and utilize it if there's something that you lost. Let's put it that way.