411’s WWE Rivals Report: “Stone Cold” Steve Austin vs. Booker T

-A weird one this week as I don’t think of these as being rivals. We know the reason this episode is here and hearing people talk about that should be fun. Other than that, we will see what they got. Let’s get to it!

-Gabriel Iglesias is our host and he is joined at the table by Sean Waltman, JBL, Kofi Kingston, and Nattie.

-We start in WCW in 1991 where Steve Austin makes his debut. Austin notes he emulated Ric Flair and tried to wrestle like him. “No one can wrestle like him.” He admits he didn’t have the gimmick or character.

-Waltman notes that both Steve and Booker came through the Sportatorium like he and JBL both did. JBL: “The breeding ground of champions.”

-Kofi says Booker is underrated as we get some Harlem Heat footage from WCW. JBL notes that Booker had a Hall of Fame career in WCW alone. Booker says he followed his brother to a wrestling try-out and that’s how he got his foot in the door. We get some sweet Global Wrestling Footage from June of 1993. Austin puts over Harlem Heat and Hogan took note as well as he said “these guys can draw money.” Both Booker and Stevie Ray have said that Hogan was a fan of their work in WCW and told Bischoff they were the best team they had.

-Booker talks about Austin in WCW and how their paths never crossed. He thought Austin was great, and was shocked WCW let him go. Austin says he was not ready to be in the top-tier at that point and wasn’t in the head space yet to be one in WCW. We skip the brief ECW run and get to Austin 3:16 and the famous King of The Ring promo. More revisionist history with JBL harping on everything changing for Austin that night. Again, he was still lost in the mid-card and off SummerSlam just a few months later. It was the Bret feud that shot him into superstar status.

-Back to WCW as Booker gets the blessing from Stevie to go on a single’s run. Hogan notes that when you are labeled a tag wrestler, it can be a hard thing to get over. He credits Booker for having it all. Booker become a multi-time WCW Champion.

-Sam Roberts goes over The Monday Night War and we jump to the final Nitro on March 26, 2001. I have an old review of that show here. Booker says he was preparing himself for what was next as WCW was dead. Booker beats Scott Steiner to become WCW Champion on the final Nitro as it was a night where every babyface went over to send WCW off on a high note.

-Prichard discusses the story of Shane buying WCW and the idea was to bring WCW talent into the WWE. We skip over the debacle that was keeping WCW separate, but using RAW time to showcase them. Instead, we jump to King of The Ring 2001 where Booker T invades and puts Austin through an announce table.

-Commercials!

-JBL notes that WCW had been on life support for a few years before WWE stepped in and bougth the company. Waltman notes they didn’t get Goldberg, Hall Nash, Hogan, etc as their contracts were with Time Warner, so they could sit at home and collect money. Booker opted to come in right away which takes us back to King of The Ring.

-Austin covers that when he went through the table, he slid and landed on a chair which broke three transverse processes. Booker notes he did his job, but Steve hit really hard. HHH says that everyone was talking about it after, as someone injured the money player. Waltman says people were looking for any reason to dislike the WCW guys that came over. Austin says he was hot at Booker at first, but when he watched it back, Booker did everything right. It was a fluke where he slid off and hit the chair.

-Gewirtz says they knew Booker was one of the top guys in WCW, but they didn’t know what he was capable of doing. We see him invade RAW in MSG and hit Vince with an ax kick. We see various WCW wrestlers invade, including Mike Awesome and Lance Storm.

-Invasion: Austin says that it was angle, but was kind of a shoot as there were only so many top spots. Booker says he always felt like a WCW guy and even still feels like that just a little bit. We jump to The Invasion PPV and Austin says when two guys like him and Booker lock-up, it’s on!

-Commercials!

-Back to Invasion as Gewirtz the show did over 800,000 buys which was a ton for a non WrestleMania PPV. Booker laughs as he knew the WCW guys were going to get their asses kicked. Austin turns on Team WWF in the Main Event and joins Team ECWCW. Roberts notes that with most of the top WCW stars sitting at home, they needed a top guy to be on the other side.

-Booker got a chance to shine over the summer. Austin says Booker had everything. JBL says everyone loved Booker and he was the most important thing they got from WCW. Prichard says Booker was the lone guy from that initial WCW group that became a mega-star. Austin: “Booker T could work his ass off.” We get a spin-a-roni montage because there isn’t much to the actual Austin/Booker rivalry.

-We jump to Rock/Booker T feud which is probably more of a feud that Austin/Booker. Even the talking heads note how everyone wanted to see Rock vs. Booker. Booker notes that Rock put the matches they had together over like crazy. Rock of course wins and is WCW Champion.

-The Invasion ends at Survivor Series where WWF wins thanks to Angle turning on Team WCW/ECW, which makes him a heel and makes Austin a babyface again.

-The following month at Vengeance, the WCW and WWF Titles are unified and it comes down to Austin vs. Jericho. Booker T costs Austin the match and the rivalry starts back up again.

-We get Austin dressing up as a fireman and attacking Booker in a private box at the arena. Booker escapes and ends up in a grocery store. HERE WE GO! Booker says it was one shot and one take while Austin says he had never done anything like that before. CINEMA!

-Commercials!

-SmackDown: Dec. 13, 2001: Everyone is dying to talk about The Supermarket Brawl. Austin on the intercom yelling about a “can of whoop-ass on aisle two,” is fantastic! Booker attacks a bald man in a black shirt, but that’s not Austin. Instead the real deal is behind him and cracks a beer open. Austin says they were given a blank canvas. Booker says fighting in a grocery store can be stupid, but they both wanted to make it work and memorable. Prichard says they told the store if they messed anything up they would take care of it. Yep!

-Austin beats the hell out of Booker all over the store while cracking jokes and providing running commentary. Austin says he would ask Booker if what they were doing was cool and Booker told him to do whatever he wanted as he trusted him. Booker says he let Austin go off on him that night. Austin abuses him with flour, eggs, butter, etc. Austin hits Booker in the head with a frozen pizza! Austin talks about the comedy of it as they played off each other well and Booker’s reactions were gold. The fight goes into the storage room as Gerwitz again notes that WWE told the store owners they would pay for everything.

-Booker gets an advantage for a second as he traps Austin in a cooler, but Austin comes through the milk section, guzzles a gallon, and thanks Booker. “You Got Milk?” That’s so awesome! Austin and Booker both mention that fight is still brought up by fans they meet today. Austin felt they hit a grand slam and of course we get Austin’s famous line, “price check on a jackass,” as he leaves Booker at the checkout counter.

-Commercials!

-Next we get Booker taking a pipe and destroying Austin’s truck. Booker laughs that rednecks are all about their trucks. Gewirtz knows that Austin loved playing the cat and mouse game with this feud.

-Kofi says everyone talks about the supermarket fight, but what stood out to him is the fight at Church Bingo. Amazing! Booker getting annoyed with old ladies at Bingo is great! Austin crashes that one and Booker bails. HHH notes that there is an art into making an ass of yourself and some aren’t comfortable with that, but Booker was all about it. No kidding! Between this, BookDust, and King Booker, plus what he was doing in TNA, Booker had no problem embracing comedy aspects of his character. Hogan says Booker is great for all that stuff and how he has a great feel for what the business is all about.

-Kofi notes the segment in the church ran 12 minutes and 10:30 of it was Booker interacting with people in the church. Booker says that is where he learned to embrace the character and tell stories. Booker in a confessional talking to people about being ladies of the night and smoking that green is glorious. Austin notes that he prides himself on what he does in the ring, but this character stuff is what makes Stone Cold.

-Hey, they finally meet in a one on one match on Dec 20, 2001 on SmackDown. It’s weird they didn’t do a PPV match! Booker notes that it was a fight when in the ring with Austin.

-Commercials!

-The match was also a First Blood Match for some reason. The Boss Man gets involved and hits Steve in the head with a chair, which makes him bleed and Booker gets the win. Austin says people remember the character aspects more than the matches they had.

-They have another match on SmackDown in Jan of 2002 in a qualifying match to become #1 contender. Austin says Booker hit him harder than anyone and he fired back with a receipt. Booker says they are Texas boys and understand the idea of a receipt. Austin gets the win this time. Booker regrets they didn’t get a WrestleMania Match or more time together.

-We see them come backstage after a show with Booker telling Austin how great their chemistry is together. The table discuss how Austin helped legitimize Booker in the WWE. We see highlights of them facing off on RAW as JBL says the fans realized Booker T was special.

-Booker goes back to the grocery store which was called The Green Frog, but is now a Dollar General. This was shot in Sept of 2023 as Booker says it brings back emotional scars while laughing. He feels this is when he arrived as a sports entertainer.

-We see them meet up with each other on an episode of Most Wanted Treasures and catching up during a WWE video game commercial shoot.

-We jump to WrestleMania XXVII (I was there) where Booker does a spin-a-roni and takes a stunner from Austin for old time’s sake. Booker says he was so looking forward to taking that Stunner. And that’s how we end this.

-Austin and Booker talking about their rivalry was enough to make this entertaining. With that said this was still a weird one and is the first time I wondered if they were running short of feuds to cover with the people they have on hand to talk about it. There are a dozen guys that both men have more history and better rivalries with, but hearing about the Super Market Brawl was fun. Thanks for reading!