The legacy one leaves behind when they leave school, a career, or even life itself can easily be affected in a positive or negative way by simple actions. Legacy can even be affected by the words we speak; it’s that sensitive.
Why am I bringing up “legacy” without mentioning the WWE stable mates under that name? Enter Booker T and the events of the past several weeks. Let’s look first at what Booker T has accomplished.
Booker T is probably best known for his tag team championships. Together with his “brother” Stevie Ray as “Harlem Heat,” they held the WCW tag belts 10 times. He also held the WWF/E Tag Team titles three times, once each with Test, Goldust, and Rob Van Dam.
Both in the WCW and in the WWE, he held the World Heavyweight Championship, holding it five times in WCW and once in the WWE. He also held the US Championship in both federations and also the WWE Intercontinental title.
Aside from some other mid-card status belts in both federations, he also won the 2006 King of the Ring and was considered Wrestling Observer’s 2002 “Most Underrated Wrestler”.
Booker’s championships in TNA were the Legends Title and the World Tag Team Titles that he and Scott Steiner lost at Bound for Glory.
The Legends Title was initially an unsanctioned belt that Booker T "awarded" to himself. He held it for 143 days until AJ Styles won it from him at Destination X, at which time the belt became officially sanctioned by TNA.
Simply put, Booker T had great athleticism and could perform at a very high level. He was rewarded for that ability by holding championship gold a number of times.
Over the past couple years, his skills have declined in the ring and he is not the athletic performer he once was, but he still has ability.
But perhaps that’s where the positives start to fade.
According to reports, Booker’s last days at WWE were spent complaining that the travel schedule was too demanding. There was also a link in 2007 to Signature Pharmacy, a company known for selling performance enhancing drugs.
Though Booker denied any use of drugs, he was suspended by the WWE for Wellness Policy violations. Subsequently he asked to be released from his and Sharmell’s contracts and the WWE granted that release.
He arrived in TNA with great enthusiasm and was looking forward to working with the younger talent, wanting to take TNA to a higher level. Since then, we’ve watched him become a member of the Main Event Mafia, a storyline that has played out over the past year.
In recent weeks, a lot of negative stories regarding Booker T and his strained relationship with TNA have surfaced from a variety of sources. Some of these incidents have been discussed at length already; however I will reference them for some context.
There was the "Swedish Riot" incident, where Booker T and Sharmell walked out on a main-event tag match with Kurt Angle and Scott Steiner.
As is established, Steiner tore up the Swiss flag, and the crowd began hurling trash at the ring. As a result, Booker T refused to work the match and Sheik Abdul Bashir took his place.
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