Two-time WWE Hall of Famer Booker T recently appeared on an episode of his “Hall of Fame” podcast, where he discussed a number of topics including his Reality of Wrestling promotiion being part of the WWE ID program.
Booker T said, “Well, I can tell you this right off the bat. I wish I had it, a company willing to help me out financially as well as help me make that journey a little bit more accessible. I’ll know if I’m good enough right off the bat, because they’re going to let me know if I’m good enough right off the bat. I wouldn’t be chosen for a program like this if they didn’t see something in me as well. There again, back in the day when I first got into the wrestling business, I was working a job six days a week. And I had that weekend to go and work in the Global Wrestling Federation. So I can only imagine if I had something like this to help me along my journey. It would have been a whole lot easier for me to be able to go and work a show here, take a day off and go work a show here, take that weekend, go work here, and still be able to get that training and that knowledge without doing what a lot of what these independent guys are doing right now. They got a booking on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in three different places. And they’re just going all over the place. Nobody is seeing them, there are no cameras rolling. There’s not a guy in the back, a veteran OG that could tell him, ‘Hey, man. You might need to work on this. Because a lot of those promoters just don’t know because they have never been there, no disrespect or anything like that. But I think having a program like this, being able to be mentored and guided on a full-time basis — I would think it would only be beneficial to somebody who’s seriously thinking about working at that next level. Now, if they just want to do independent wrestling, if they just want to do backyard wrestling, if they just want to play wrestler, there’s a lot of places to do that. But a program like this, this ID program is going to be for the elite guys and girls out there that want to partake on this journey.”
On talent being able to avoid less reputable promoters and schools:
“I don’t think the WWE is even — that that’s on their radar, looking at guys like that… There’s always going to be haters, man.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
