Stevie Rey Recalls Harlem Heat Nearly Going To WWE, Why They Stayed at WCW

Harlem Heat never went to WWE as a team, but Stevie Ray recently revealed that it almost happened. The WWE Hall of Fame tag team never worked as a unit in WWE and split up after WCW folded, but Ray talked on Wrestling Then And Now about how they nearly hopped over during their tag team run. You can see highlights below:

On being set to go to WWE: “Actually, we were about to go to WWF at one time. Yeah, a lot of people don’t know that, yeah. We did as much as we could possibly do, that we thought in WCW, you know? We had won the tag team belts a few times and stuff like that. And WWE was talking to us. And we didn’t tell anybody that this was going on, because they were talking to us behind the scenes, because we were still under contract. And so [WWE] was talking to us through a liaison. And then all of a sudden, people started coming up to us and go, ‘Hey man, I hear you guys might be going to WWE.’ [We say] ‘No brother! Look, where you hear that from, man?’ We [were] like, ‘No that’s not true, man. I don’t know where you heard that at.’

“And I swear to God, different people would start asking. And my brother’s looking, and we’d be at the hotel or something. Somebody had got light of what was going on. We would never admit to it, brother. It was like, I’m like OJ bro, you know what I’m saying? ‘No, it wasn’t me, bro! Y’all got the wrong dude. Serious business man, we would never admit to it. Not until like years later, I’m admitting to it now. But even back when I’m still there, I didn’t admit to it. I think the statue of limitation is over now. [laughs]”

On WCW executives finding out: “We just wanted to play our contract out and leave, you know, in good terms. Just business. And when our contracts weren’t even up, I can’t remember how much time we had left on them — maybe eight months, something like that, close to a year… next thing, we got called to the office. And they set us down, it was like, ‘Hey we want to give you guys new contracts.’ And we were like, ‘No that’s okay. We just want to play our contracts out.’ [laughs] It was like, ‘We earned what — this is what we signed to.’ And then once they threw the numbers out there, then it was, ‘Ah, I think these numbers look good.’ And I think me and my brother was like, ‘Okay, we’re gonna go for this.’ So that’s what happened. That’s why we never went to WWE.”

On what he thinks happened: “Once I think back on it, I think my brother might have leaked it. I think Book might have leaked it man, I’m serious. I think he might have leaked it to somebody, either intentionally or unintentionally. But then again, I don’t know. He never admitted to me, but if I know my brother he might have did that on purpose.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Wrestling Then And Now with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.