This week on “The Hall Of Fame” podcast, Booker T gives his SummerSlam predictions and his reaction to WWE’s announcement about the ThunderDome, which is set to debut this Friday night on SmackDown. Booker also talked about his theme music and how he was able to keep the same theme in WWE that he used in WCW as part of Harlem Heat.
Here are some highlights:
Booker T was asked if he owned the rights to his theme song because he used it in both WCW and WWE: “I don’t. That’s some music that WCW back in the day found in the archives. When I went to WWE, I really needed that music and they (WWE) purchased the rights to that music. I don’t know if they bought it outright but I definitely could not have gone through my career with any other music than that song. I remember at one point they tried to change my music in WWE and they had me coming out to a rap song. That wasn’t working for me. I said, ‘Vince, I need my old music back, please.’ He said, ‘ok, just roll with it for another 3 weeks to a month and we will get it back.’ I did not feel nowhere near the same Booker T walking out to that music as I did walking out to Harlem Heat music that I had seared in my brain for so many years. That song, when I first heard it, I knew it was the song that I wanted and the song that I needed because that song didn’t stereotype Harlem Heat. When you heard that song, you knew it was Harlem Heat and no matter what color you were, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, you were going to start rocking.”
Booker was asked if there was a difference in the ring entrances that he had in WCW compared to WWE: “My intro came from WCW. It never really changed. It just got bigger when I got to WWE. The only thing they wanted to do was the pyro correlated with me jumping on one leg. Every time I jumped on one leg, boom, that’s when the pyro would go off. WWE wanted to make the pyro bigger than they could possibly imagine. I used to love it when I would be engulfed in the flames for a second when the pyro would go off in the beginning. They really made me look good as far as that goes. I give them a lot of props for that. I think in WWE, it was literally one of the top 5 intros in the company of all time.”
Booker is taking about the time in 2004 when they changed his theme so they could promote the “WWE Originals” album. You can listen to that theme by clicking below.
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
