WWE Hall of Famer Booker T recently spoke on his podcast, “The Hall of Fame,” about a variety of professional wrestling topics including his issues with Ahmed Johnson.
Booker said the following: “Ahmed Johnson, you know, he’s made a lot of claims and I just want to clear them up. He said, you know, when he came into WCW, my brother and I, you know, were having problems was the reason why my brother got him to come in. My brother got him in to help him make some money. That was it.”
“I saw Ahmed Johnson about two months ago at the airport. I was on my way to Florida. I walked up and we made eye contact. He looked at me and he smiled. I turned left and I went to the counter and I proceeded to get on the plane. I didn’t even speak to him. I didn’t even acknowledge him because he’s a lying, a notorious lying, lowdown, piece of you know what, and that’s the reason I didn’t even acknowledge him.”
“If Ahmed Jonson is doing conventions and stuff now, if he wants to say something to me about this, because I’m sure he’s gonna hear about it, I’m not gonna ever acknowledge him because like I said, he’s a lying, lowdown, scum. I’ll never acknowledge him, but if he ever acknowledged me, I would definitely proceed. I just wanted to put that out there.”
“Like I said, he’s a notorious liar. He said he played for the Dallas Cowboys. He said he was in a game. If you played for the Dallas Cowboys, anybody from ’85 to ’95, go look on any scroll, and I’m not gonna even call him Ahmed Johnson anymore because that’s not his name. His name is Tony Norris. That’s what his name is. WWE owns Ahmed Johnson, okay. He’s not Ahmed Johnson. He’s Tony Norris. Like I said, if I ever see him, you know, we’ll deal if he wants to say something to me, but for me, for my part, I’m never going to acknowledge someone like him because I know what kind of person I am and to hear someone like him disparage me.”
“Let me go back one more time. You say that we didn’t get along in the wrestling school that we went to. We both went to Ivan Putski’s wrestling school. I remember one day I did have a kerfluffle with Ahmed Johnson at the wrestling school because we were doing practice. I was doing hip tosses, arm drags, victory rolls, stuff like that, and he wanted to practice power bombs. I said, ‘I don’t practice power bombs’, and he got hot about it. He got a little bit hot about it. I think I checked him that day and told him, ‘Hey man. You got a problem with me, I’ll be outside waiting’, and my brother can attest to this. He pretty much said, you know, ‘We’ll squash it’, whatnot, whatnot, but I never had a problem with Ahmed Johnson. I never disliked Ahmed Johnson, and me personally, I don’t even know where he’s getting half the stuff that he’s saying, but then again, I do because he’s a notorious, lowdown, piece of you know what.”
Booker on if he had heat with him in WCW:
“I had no heat with him in WCW, but he said he tried to sabotage my career in WCW by going out and having a match with me and purposely going out and trying to make the match as bad as you possibly could because he knew WCW was about to give me a push, and I was like, wow, if that ain’t low down, if that ain’t the worst thing you could ever think about what to do is sabotage another man’s push because of your inadequacies and being overweight and your career just didn’t work out. There’s a reason why you got let go by WWE or he said he quit. There’s a reason why you got let go at WCW. I don’t know if he quit or not, but there’s a reason why there’s not a whole lot of people who have a whole lot of good things to say about Tony Norris. There’s a reason why just about every wrestler that you talk to is gonna say almost the exact same thing verbatim. There’s a reason why, and that is not going to happen with me other than when people like, you know, Ahmed Johnson saying negative things about me. That’s why I just don’t get it, you know, why another brother wanted to try to bring another brother down (he laughs). I hate looking at it that way, but that’s normally the way it is.”
Booker went on to say, “When I hear someone say that, you know, the reason that I felt the way I did about him is because he was there for my brother when I was in prison and I wasn’t, that’s a falsehood. That’s a lie. That’s making up something. That means you are formulating the thoughts that’s in my head and the way I feel. There’s no way you could do something like that, especially if you and I haven’t talked about something like that. But for him to try to create beef between my brother and I, that just goes to show that this guy’s a lowdown, notorious lying, piece of you know what. That’s what it is. There’s no way around that.”
On if he feels John Cena would make a good mentor for the younger stars in NXT and WWE:
“I do see John Cena as being one of those generals that could teach these guys so much, but it’s going to be up to these young guys to be open to listen to John and understand what he’s really bringing to these guys as far as knowledge, as far as experience, as far as what it takes to make it to that next level and beyond. John Cena has done that. John Cena was one of the best learners. He was one of the best students of this game that I’ve ever seen. I can say that once, I can say it a thousand times, this kid when I worked with him, all he did was listen and perform. That’s all he did. He picked it up and now he’s in that same position, so yeah, you can be a hell of a mentor.”
You can check out the complete podcast below:
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
