Shortly after being trained by Polish Power, Ivan Putski, Booker T would debut as GI Bro. Yes, the very same character that he would revive in WCW. Then in front of the smaller audience of Global Wrestling alongside his brother Stevie Ray as The Ebony Experience, it was clear that Booker T was destined for a great career. He and Stevie Ray were behemoths who were able to impose their will against their opponents.
It wasn't long before the team made it to WCW and immediately were part of the main event scene. They teamed up with Sid and Vader to be a part of War Games 1993. The Harlem Heat would go on to become the most decorated tag team in WCW before Booker would go on his own and becoming a TV, US, and course five-time WCW World Champion. He would then become more or less the biggest former WCW guy that WWE invested in on his way to a Hall Of Fame career.
9 "Shut Yo Mouth!" - Shaft Influenced Booker T
The influence of Richard Roundtree's Shaft was immediately spoken about when Booker T was filming, strutting through the streets of New York City. While he would be announced as being from "110th Street" for most of his career, the two-time Hall Of Famer is actually from Houston, Texas. The Booker man briefly discussed how much he loved the film and that he watched it over 100 times. Shaft influenced a lot of Booker T's attitude.
8 Booker's Relationship With His Mother
Growing up the baby of the family, Booker had a unique relationship with his mother and all of his siblings. He would cry for hours on end, but he was working his siblings - they'd pay him to stop. When mom would come up, he'd go cry to her too. Unfortunately, Booker's mom tried to fix a fan in the home and fell through the roof. She would have complications in surgery and pass away at just 49-years-old. He would live with one of his older sisters and, without their mother, the family struggled.
7 Growing Up In Houston
Unfortunately, it's easy to see how Booker Huffman eventually fell in with the wrong crowd and did hard time. Born in Louisiana, Booker's family eventually settled in the South Park area of Houston. Booker T was one of eight kids being raised by a single mom until she passed away at 49
Despite his older brother, Lash (aka Stevie Ray) doing his best to keep Booker out of trouble, he fell in with some ornery Texas outlaws and found himself spending 19 months in prison, pleading guilty to a series of armed robberies of Wendy's restaurants. But even before that, Book had seen plenty of violence that no teenager should ever have to see.
6 Jail Life
For his crimes, Booker was sent to a prison known as Pack 2 and actually spent his days working on a chain gang. But instead of falling farther through the cracks, he used the time to actually atone for his mistake. He would also finish school in prison and get his GED. He would continue to correspond with his sister Bonnie through letters, who would encourage him to stick to his goals. Despite being sentenced to five years, he would be released in 19 months. One of the officers actually had the gall to say to him, "I'll see you when you get back."
5 Stevie Ray Stepped In
After stealing from his sister's boyfriend, a drug dealer, Booker began to turn his life around to get custody of his kid. Stevie Raw also stepped in to get Booker a job as a security guard. But after the company found out about his record, they let him go.
The man who hired him, Bruce Gasarch saw how hard of a worker Booker was and got him another job. It worked well enough to get Booker custody of his son. Shortly after getting custody, Stevie Ray signed onto Ivan Putski's school and Booker followed shortly after. They eventually got the call to head to Eddie Gilbert and GWF where Hot Stuff put them together as The Ebony Experience.
4 The Birth Of The Spinaroonie
Clearly, the skin color of the brothers was going to be an issue in certain demographics. According to Booker, it was legend Ox Baker who warned Booker T and Stevie Ray that they would "come up against a lot of obstacles in this business." The Ebony Experience would deal with a lot of racism until one match, Booker T did the Spinaroonie after getting clotheslined and it actually won even the most ardently racist fans over, now they were cheering for the future Harlem Heat.
3 Winning Over The Bikers
During their legendary run in WCW, Harlem Heat took on The Steiner Brothers at the inaugural Hog Wild event. They might have been the only two black men in Sturgis, South Dakota. According to Booker, even the Steiners were telling them to ease up since there were Hell's Angels in the crowd. The Heat wasn't phased by this one bit and went on to do what they do. This is what they did in Global, win the crowd over who by the end of their match were revving their bikes as a show of respect.
2 Representing Harlem
Despite really being from Texas, thanks to their wrestling promos, they actually had plenty of fans believing that they were from Harlem. They pulled off the gimmick so well that people have come up to him and talked about when they were kids in Harlem. This part of the special led into one of the first-ever huge viral moments - when Booker slipped up during a promo and let out "the n-word" when talking about coming after Hogan. Despite the massive gaffe, it only led to even more realism for the Harlem Heat. The incident didn't harm their career at all and they continued their dominance in the WCW tag team scene. It was, however, the only time that Booker would ever make a mistake like that.
1 The Final WCW World And US Champion
When WCW shuttered its doors, Booker T went down in history as both the final US and World Champion for the promotion. Due to the nature of the guaranteed contracts left over from the AOL-Time Warner merger, plenty of stars stayed home and collected money.
Booker actually was one of those talents. According to Bruce Prichard, WWE wasn't sure they were going to keep Booker T. But the WCW Champion decided that he wanted to work and bet on himself instead. Despite accidentally injuring Austin on his first night, he quickly earned the respect of the WWE locker room.