In the latest clip from their Hall of Fame podcast to make its way around the wrestle web, Booker T and co-host Brad Gilmore discussed the much-discussed finish of the WWE Women’s title Triple Threat that
closed SmackDown last Friday (Sept. 26).
Because he was filling in for Corey Graves on the show, Booker had a front row seat for the botched finish of Tiffany Stratton vs. Jade Cargill vs. Nia Jax. That included Cargill being inadvertently busted open, and ended with Stratton pinning Jax… after getting a two count that should have been a three count earlier. Instead, the referee acted as if Jax kicked out after two when she clearly hadn’t.
The two-time WWE Hall of Famer blasted the botch. But when Booker starts to talk about what went wrong, he starts by making Stratton sound like she was just off a gymnastics mat in her home state of Minnesota, and acts as if Cargill just joined WWE a few months ago. Once he got his “with all due respect” comments about AEW in, Book went back to generally calling the finish unacceptable:
“You could tell there was a lot of miscommunication. You’ve got an NIL talent, Tiffany Stratton. You’ve got Jade Cargill who’s pretty much fresh off her AEW run, and just think about that time in AEW for her, she probably didn’t learn a whole lot, because – no disrespect or anything – but she was just put on a wing and she never really got a chance to really wrestle anybody.
“And then you’ve got Nia Jax, who’s been there, of course is gonna feel like, ‘I need to quarterback this thing, I feel like I know more than these girls.’
“It could have been a plethora of things, but you could tell there was a lot of miscommunication. One thing about matches like that – the only thing they’re gonna remember is the finish. You’ve gotta get everybody to that point to where that finish can happen and it goes off without a hitch. And that didn’t happen, that didn’t happen in this match.
“Was it a botch? Heck yeah it was a botch. Was it a miscommunication? Was it a screw up? Whatever term you wanna put on it – yes it was.
“But one thing I do feel about that kind of stuff – that can’t happen on live television.
“If I went to go and see Hamilton, and they were going home, and the guy slipped on his butt and he forgot his lines, I think I would be pretty upset about that too.
“They went out there and it wasn’t a good night. It wasn’t a good night at all.”
Stratton signed with WWE in 2021 (a few months before the NIL program launched). She was quickly on television, but still based out of the WWE Performance Center in Orlando — and presumably being trained there — until 2024 when she was called up to the main roster, where she’s been ever since.
Cargill left AEW and joined WWE two years ago this month. It’s been an up and down run that’s included time off for injury, but she’s definitely had the benefit of WWE coaching at this point.
It’s hard to read Booker’s comments about Jax as a compliment, but he moves on without dealing too much in specific (partly that’s because he seems to realize it would probably lead to even more internet abuse for referee Daphanie LaShaunn). But one of the takeaways is that Booker doesn’t think Stratton and Cargill learned much at the PC.
Or maybe he was just trying to rewrite history to take a shot at AEW? Nah, that couldn’t be it.
He said “no disrespect”.
Check out the entire episode of The Hall of Fame with Booker T and Brad Gilmore that Wrestletalk transcribed that quote from here. The section the above is pulled from starts at approximately the 43 minute mark.
