Booker T on Changing Perceptions for Fans Who Called Harlem Heat Racist Remarks

– Busted Open Radio recently interviewed WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2019 inductees Stevie Ray and Booker T of Harlem Heat. During the interview, Booker T shared an experience on enduring some racist fans at a show in Dallas, Texas. Below are some highlights (transcript via WrestlingInc.com).

Booker T on his first experience wrestling as Harlem Heat in Dallas: “Our first experience in Dallas was an experience one could never imagine in the wrestling business. It was only about fifty people or so in that arena, they were all 100% Caucasian, and they hated Harlem Heat. We didn’t have any experience there, we were just two guys. I remember vividly, my brother-in-law was taping it on the recorder and they were calling us everything in the building that night, man, all of it, the ‘N’ word and everything. My brother-in-law was taping and at one point in the match, I did the spinaroonie, and then a guy came up to my brother-in-law and told him, ‘You got to cut that off.’ But right before that, I saw the reaction of all the fans. One guy goes, ‘Oh my God! What was that?!'”

Booker T on how they changed fans’ perceptions in Dallas, who later hated to see them leave: “From that moment on, we literally changed the people in that sportatorium. It went from fifty people to that place being sold-out on a weekly basis, and those people were seeing it to have the experience. We were like the Von Erichs in Dallas, and when we left, I remember vividly, we were in my Z28 and we were leaving and heading to Atlanta, GA and all those people that called us those words, they were there crying. They hated to see us go, and I don’t think it has been the same since we left Dallas, Texas.”