Booker T talks about his G.I. Bro Character and more

The WWE Hall of Famer and SmackDown General Manager Booker T had an interview with Wrestling Inc earlier this week.

Check out the highlights from the interview below:

On being asked about the use of G.I. Bro character very early in his career:

Actually, when I first got into wrestling, I was working at this warehouse and I was cleaning out one of the storage units and I found this army hat. I liked it and it fit me, and I had it on one night when I went to wrestling school. My trainer, Scott Casey, he saw me with it on and he said, ‘Now, you’re going to be G.I. Bro.’

So, I was like, ‘Alright, I’ll be G.I. Bro.’ I started doing the character and it was actually pretty fun. It was something I did way before I ever got into the big time. Then, I got a chance to do it in WCW which was really cool. A lot of people thought I was crazy at that time, wondering what I was doing and why I was doing it. But, I was just paying homage to my mentor and my trainer.

When asked about his reaction when Booker T and his brother were signed, he said:

Well, I really didn’t know you could make that kind of money doing wrestling to be honest. I was just doing it as a hobby. It was something I was dreaming about, to be in WCW or WWE. At that time, it was an escape for me, out of the norm from being a neighborhood kid. I was getting a chance to do other things and meet other people. So, it was secondary to me.

Then, when I found out you could make money doing this, I was like, ‘Wow.’ My first contract with WCW was like $70,000 a year. I didn’t know you could make that kind of money doing this. I was like, ‘Wow. I think I’m going to stick around for a long time.’ [Laughs.] That’s what I did. I started planning, motivating myself and putting myself in the right positions to go for the long haul.

On being asked whether he had ever thought about jumping over to WWF when he was at WCW, Booker T said:

No, I never thought about making the switch because I never really liked working in cold cities. In WCW, they worked the south all the time. They went to cold cities every now and then but it wasn’t primarily a world-wide company even though we were World Championship Wrestling.

I wasn’t looking forward to going to WWE because I knew they hit every place on the map and I really didn’t know if I was ready for it. Then, if it ever happened, I wanted to be prepared for it.

When asked about whether Booker T was still under contract with WCW when he joined WWF, he said:

Yeah, I was still under contract, I still had like a year left on my contract. I still had a lot of money coming to me, I could have just sat at home and collected money for a whole year and do nothing. But, I chose to take a 50% buy-out just to fly with WWE just so I could get to working. I didn’t want to be out of sight, out of mind.

I had so much momentum going; I was the Heavyweight champion, I was United States champ — I was dual champion, undisputed. So, it was time for me to move on. I thought that sitting out and collecting that money would have been a bad move when I thought that if I just got back into the game, I’d make that money back in no time.

Source: Wrestling Inc