Chris Van Vliet recently sat down with Booker T for an episode of Insight, and the topic of his WrestleMania 19 WWE World Heavyweight title program with Triple H came up.
Here’s how I described Booker and Hunter’s feud in a 2021 article I wrote on a related subject that Cain reminded me of while I was talking about CVV’s conversation with Booker in the Cageside “offices”:
That storyline is infamous both because of what could only generously be called racial overtones in the way heel champion Triple
H dealt with Booker T throughout, but also because Haitch beat Book clean to the end the feud. Fans who identified with the Black challenger were hurt and angered there was never any payback for Hunter saying things to Booker like, “somebody like you doesn’t get to be a World champion.”
That article Cain reminded me about covered a wrestle web controversy over how Booker T’s episode of A&E’s Biography: WWE Legends. The 2003 ‘Mania program wasn’t scrutinized by the Biography team, which shouldn’t have been surprising since WWE is involved its production. Some social media posts from writer and personality David Dennis were misconstrued and spread across the internet, leading Booker to confirm on his podcast/radio show that Biography was never going to address the racial critique of his feud with Triple H.
In the course of doing so, Book downplayed the notion that he had any issue with how the storyline was written, or his WrestleMania 19 loss (which included Triple H slowly getting to the pin after Pedigree-ing Booker, and still getting an easy 1-2-3). He did so again in a WWE Retrospective posted on WWE Vault last year, saying:
“I’ll tell you what — if I did feel any way about losing, when I got the check all of it went away [laughs]. So that’s the only thing I can say about that [continues laughing].”
But in talking to Van Vliet more recently, Booker had a slightly different take. He now says that match in Seattle’s Safeco Field is the only one in his Hall of Fame career that he’d change the ending of. He also says no one at WWE ever mentioned the possibility of him going over Triple H… which is only going to strengthen those racial critique arguments. Especially because traditional wrestling see have the babyface give the heel his comeuppance on the grandest stage of them all. And while the wrestling community wasn’t quite as connected then as it is now, there were a lot of people who wanted to see him kick The Game’s ass.
In fact, Booker even mentions that to CVV:
“That would be the only match in my career that I could honestly say, maybe if I could change that finish, I would change it. But no, there was never any talk about me winning that match from the beginning. I never went into that match thinking I was winning. But then again, I’ve never gone into any match thinking that. I just never got involved in that side of it. And I know so many people wanted me to win, and I love those people for it.
I always said when I got in the business, man I hope I’m in the main event at WrestleMania one day. I wished I could just be in the main event one day. Then I got in the main event and I didn’t win. I go, man I should’ve wished I would have won too. [laughs]”
It’s interesting to see Booker T publicly navigate an issue he knows important to a lot of Black wrestling fans, and many fans of other ethnicities and racial identities, without adding to the accusations of racism and racial insensitivity from WWE that have continued under TKO. As I said in that 2021 article, everyone can decide for themselves how they think he’s doing… if you care to judge at all.
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