On the latest “Hall of Fame” podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Booker T talked about Zilla Fatu returning to Reality of Wrestling. On Wednesday, Zilla announced that he and Booker worked things out after a falling out last year.
“He’s back. When Zilla was working with me and then he left Reality Wrestling. It’s almost like sometimes, you know, with young people these days, you gotta let them see what things are like on their own. You gotta let them go out there and fly their wings and then they see how it is. For me, I’m like a dad. You always got your room over here son and I left it just like when you left. Most of the time, that’s the way I do things. I’m like a dad at Reality of Wrestling. I’m like a mentor. I’m like a leader. I’m a general. I’m everything in one, but I’m not one to say, I’m never going to say never or anything like that. I’m always going to be forgiving, especially when I’m working with somebody young, especially when I’m working with somebody that has gone through it like I did. He lost his dad early. I lost my dad when I was 10 months old. I lost my mom when I was 14, so I know what it’s like to be rebellious, but I need that out of Zilla. It’s almost like two alphas meeting and we know what we gotta do at the end of the day. Now it’s time to go out there and take the world by storm and show the world what Zilla Fatu could really be. Go out there and make Umaga proud, proud as he ever can be, make his mom even more happy and get her that big house that she deserves. That’s what it’s all about at the end of the day. Not only do I want that for Zilla, I want that for all my students, all of my guys under me. I’m gonna be guiding them to that direction and that direction is hopefully one day you could do the same thing that I did, you know, take this world by storm and go around the world and see it at somebody else’s expense, but understand what it’s about at the same time because it goes boom, quick, and it can even go even quicker if you step on one of those landmines. So for me with Zilla, it’s about obstacles. How do we figure out a way over, around, under? Sometimes we gotta go straight through those obstacles, but right now, it’s time to go to work.”
Booker T talking about wrestling The Rock when he came to WWE:
“It was awesome working with The Rock. I must say that. Coming in from WCW, I must say I was a little bit intimidated. I’m not gonna say I wasn’t because when you come in and you’re working with the top guy in the company, man it’s a pressure, pressure situation. It really is a lot of pressure, and for me to have to go out and perform at my best, at my highest level, I felt like I was auditioning at the same time. I really did. I felt like when I came into WWE, I was auditioning. Everything was a test, everything from the beginning from the first night coming in and dropping Steve Austin. I was thinking about the work. I wasn’t thinking about the history or anything or how I was going to be looked at many, many years later or anything like that. I was just thinking about going out there and performing, and performing at my highest level. To this day, my memory is cloudy, so cloudy as far as the time that I was working with The Rock because I was really, really thinking about going out there and not messing up. I think that’s just the honest truth answer that I can give you to the feud that Rock and I had but he seemed to like it. He seemed to really appreciate my work, so I must have done well.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit The Hall of Fame with Booker T & Brad Gilmore with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription. Quotes were transcribed by Jim for WrestlingNews.co.
