Booker T Takes Aim At Wrestling Media Insiders, Says They’re ‘Killing The Business’
Booker T, a five-time WCW champion and a member of the WWE Hall of Fame twice, is currently furious and won’t take it anymore. Additionally, he has a grudge against wrestling industry insiders, whom he made very serious accusations against on “The Hall of Fame” podcast. These are the websites, according to Booker, that are ruining the industry. “These websites are really the root of today’s industry problems. On this, we may both agree to disagree.
A recent claim that Mustafa Ali was expected to win the “WWE NXT” North American Championship before being released and rumors about the future of the championship after Trick Williams won it at No Mercy were the sources of Booker’s ire. Booker doesn’t know how some of the material leaked, but he has a plan to stop it from happening again.
If any of this is accurate, Booker felt that WWE should forbid men of this caliber from ever again entering one of their locker rooms or attending one of their events. “Because for me, this is equivalent to revealing the film’s ending, ” I’m not sure whether you have intimate knowledge about how the program will pan out, but men like this—men like Meltzer, men like Alvarez, men like the author of this—should never, ever be allowed to work in our industry. And the reason I’m so passionate about it is that these are the individuals who are consistently hurting companies by penning stories like this. Mustafa Ali experienced whatever the hell happened. But in this case is what’s wrong with this industry today, and men like these ought to be barred from entering a location where one of our concerts will be held.
Nothing was more precious in the closed-off world of professional wrestling for the majority of its existence than “protecting the business” by compulsively maintaining kayfabe, or keeping wrestling’s secrets. These days, it’s less of a problem than it ever was. Even though most viewers were aware that wrestling wasn’t fully fair, it wasn’t necessarily shoved in their faces, and enough fans bought into it that heels frequently suffered fan violence. Even while “protecting the business” resulted in heels having to frequently evade attempted stabbings, it was still regarded as a necessary evil that kept the audience more interested and hence more inclined to purchase tickets.
As a result, when there were serious violations, even well past the turn of the newest century if it was really over the line, the offending wrestlers would be punished by the promoters that they worked for. These were often blatant infractions, such as interacting with a detested on-screen foe or acting in any other way that was not in character. Other times, they could act in much stranger ways, such as attempting to provoke the promotion into violating kayfabe, getting into a brawl with a fan, or outright screaming that pro wrestling was fake. So let’s examine some of the most noteworthy examples of these sanctions in wrestling history.
The Iron Sheik and Jim Duggan are arrested together on drug charges while feuding
There are commonplace kayfabe infractions in the history of wrestling, and then there’s the 1987 arrest of “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan and The Iron Sheik in New Jersey.
In his autobiography, Duggan stated, “On May 26, 1987, we flew into Newark, New Jersey, for a show that night in Asbury Park.” “The Iron Sheik approached me as I was waiting for my luggage to arrive on the conveyer belt in the baggage claim area and said, “Eh, Hacksaw, maybe I ride with you? I can’t rent a car since I don’t have a credit card. Despite their on-going TV feud and the fact that they were booked on opposite sides of that night’s main event, Duggan decided to ride with Sheik because he didn’t want to treat the veteran wrestler disrespectfully.
Then, as they drove past a state trooper, they made the mistake of accepting a beer from Sheik and leaving the open container on the dashboard. Duggan admitted to having marijuana in the vehicle when they were pulled down, and a search revealed that Sheik had three grams of cocaine on him, which is a felony quantity.
They were freed in time for the performance, but chaos ensued. The kayfabe violation made the news extremely juicy, and the story gained national attention through the Associated Press. According to Duggan’s memoir, as soon as either man spoke to Vince McMahon, they were both fired on the spot. But Duggan wouldn’t be gone for long: Paul Boesch, a promoter in Houston, invited him to work his August 28 WWF-affiliated retirement show. There, Duggan took a terrible stride while attempting to catch a Ted DiBiase kick and tore his hamstring. Despite this, he persevered, finished the match, and regained his position. Sheik would occasionally return, but his career as a serious con man was over after his incarceration player.
Koji Kitao fired by SWS for saying wrestling is fake after he tried to shoot on John Tenta
Koji Kitao, formerly known as Futahaguro Kji, was a grand champion in sumo. He left the sport in 1987 after being banned for abusive behavior, which, according to a January 1988 New York Times article, included hitting and hurting his stable master’s wife. On February 10, 1990, at the Tokyo Dome, he made his pro wrestling debut for NJPW, although he left the company shortly after. He and booker Riki Choshu allegedly engaged in a “legitimate near fistfight in the dressing room” in July, according to the October 8 Wrestling Observer Newsletter. Kitao is also alleged to have made racial remarks at Choshu, who is of Korean origin, in a 2021 Number piece. He went to the startup promotion SWS, which created a collaboration with the WWF, as a result.
He was booked in SWS to face WWF representative “Earthquake” John Tenta, losing to him at the Tokyo Dome on March 30, 1991, and then again two days later. Tenta wasn’t a particularly skilled sumo, and the Number article mentioned that SWS wrestlers had teased him about it, identifying seasoned Don Arakawa as one among them. Kitao wasn’t happy about this because Tenta wasn’t a particularly competent sumo. Tenta later said to Number’s Gantz Horie that Kitao exerting pressure in a Fujiwara Armbar was the moment he understood he had to stop collaborating himself. As a result, when the match entered the ring, Kitao was uncooperative and appeared to be threatening. After a standoff, Kitao kicked the referee to get him disqualified and then grabbed the trophy the house mic and making comments about pro wrestling being fake. Within days, Kitao was fired.
Bob Orton Jr. and/or Paul Orndorff fired for losing a bar fight
Bill Watts, the promoter of Mid-South Wrestling, stood out from his contemporaries in a few ways. The main event pro wrestler, who had previously excelled in both college football and wrestling, maintained a strict code of conduct and often fined his talent, but it didn’t end there. He said, “I love the tough guys,” during the Eddie Gilbert Memorial Brawl’s gala luncheon in 1997. “And I only had two rules: We didn’t break up fights that broke out in my dressing room. I booked you back against each other to see who could whip whose ass first and if you wanted to try it again.
Second, if you lost a battle in front of others, you were dismissed. How did losing to a non-wrestler protect Kayfabe, after all?
Then he provided an illustration: “Ask Bobby Orton Jr. He had no bruises on his knuckles when I looked at them, so I fired him since I felt he hadn’t used enough punches. He didn’t mention Orton in a different “shoot interview” from 2000, but he claimed that the wrestler’s absence of bloody knuckles showed that he was “a catcher, not a hitter.” It appears that he knew Orton got into a fight and independently determined that Orton must have lost. However, “Hacksaw” remembered that Paul Orndorff was the only wrestler fired under those conditions following a battle in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, albeit in a situation when he was outnumbered, in another “shoot interview” from that era with Jim Duggan.
The question of who was dismissed by Watts for losing a fight—and whether they actually did—appears to be a matter of consensus.
Triple H loses his spot winning King of the Ring over the Kliq Curtain Call
In the spring of 1996, the WWF contracts of Razor Ramon (Scott Hall) and Diesel (Kevin Nash) were set to expire, with both electing to leave for WCW. As was customary, they put over other wrestlers on the way out, with Diesel in particular blowing off his feud with Shawn Michaels. Their last night in was a house show in front of a sellout crowd at Madison Square Garden in New York City, with Razor putting over Triple H on the undercard and Diesel putting over Michaels in a cage match main event. Where this starts to get complicated is that all four of those men, along with the then-injured 1-2-3 Kid (Sean Waltman) were collectively known as “The Kliq,” a group of close knit friends known to wield their collective power. And so they did just that after the main event,
flaunting that power by breaking character and celebrating together, all flashing what would become known as the Wolfpac/”Too Sweet” hand gesture at the fans.
Punishment had to be dealt for the flagrant kayfabe violation, but how? “Who was Vince McMahon going to discipline?” then-WWF creative team member Jim Cornette explained in an interview with Kayfabe Commentaries (transcription h/t Pro Wrestling Stories). “It was Kevin Nash’s last night. It was Scott Hall’s last night. Shawn Michaels was the champion. So Hunter Hearst Helmsley, who was supposed to win the King of the Ring, didn’t win the King of the Ring. Cost him about a hundred to a hundred fifty thousand dollars that year. Probably what he would have made and what he didn’t make. He was punished because he went along with the other three f*****g guys.” Instead, Steve Austin won King of the Ring that year, and the rest was history.
Serena Deeb fired for not living her straight edge gimmick in public
WWE
If you’ve paid close attention to the commentary during Serena Deeb’s matches in AEW, then you may have noticed that her specially named signature moves have a theme to them: The Deebtox (as in “detox”) and the Serenity Lock (as in the Serenity Prayer), both references to substance abuse addiction and recovery. Deeb has been open publicly about being a recovering alcoholic, and clearly takes pride in her the strides she’s made, to the point that she’s worked her history into her in-ring persona. Before she was open about her struggles with alcoholism, though, her addiction cost her a full-time job in pro wrestling under unusual circumstances.
In January 2010, Deeb was called up to WWE’s main roster as a member of CM Punk’s Straight Edge Society stable, which was clearly framed as having cult-like vibes but never explicitly referred to as such. That the character was explicitly an addict appears to be a coincidence, as Dave Meltzer reported in the August 30, 2010 Wrestling Observer Newsletter that she got the role because she “jumped at the chance to get her head shaved in an angle” when other women refused. Regardless, the gimmick was what it was, which meant keeping up appearances in public. Per that same Observer, she was fired on August 20 for “not living the gimmick” of a teetotaler — apparently that she was drinking in front of fans according to Cageside Seats — and a July angle where she was caught drinking on a security camera “was meant as a metaphor and a message about a potential issue.”
In other words, not only was it an egregious kayfabe violation to do it in public in front of fans, but it was seen as a red flag that she didn’t have the self-control to drink somewhere else.
Daniel Puder endures a chopfest for putting Kurt Angle in a legitimate double wristlock
Season 4 of WWE’s “Tough Enough” was a departure, a series of weekly segments on “SmackDown” instead of a standalone reality competition show, but with the same prize: A WWE contract. For the show that aired on November 4, 2004, it got particularly stunt-y, with the contestants having an eating contest filed by the intense exercise of a squat thrust competition … with the winner facing Kurt Angle. In a legitimate wrestling match.
Chris Nawrocki “won” the squat thrust challenge, which, according to the November 15 Wrestling Observer Newsletter, was because the referees were told to get rid of “the blond guy,” not considering that both he and MMA fighter Daniel Puder were blonds. Angle guzzled Nawrocki in seconds, then challenged Puder … who locked him in a double wristlock/Kimura and cranked it until, per the Observer, producer Gerald Brisco told referee Jimmy Korderas to count Puder’s shoulders down. Angle told Puder off after, claiming it was under amateur wrestling rules, but it clearly wasn’t, as Nawrocki got a rope break, they used a three count for pins, and Puder had asked the referees if submission holds were allowed. He made the canonical toughest man in WWE look uniquely mortal, and that was a problem.
By 2004 standards, it went viral, carrying Puder to being crowned the winner of the season. For his trouble, he was entered in the 2005 Royal Rumble, where Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, and Bob Holly all proceeded to chop the hell out of him in some sort of very wrestling-y punishment ritual. “That was a different time and how they treated young talent that they felt maybe shouldn’t be getting a certain push and shouldn’t be paid a certain price and the whole Kurt Angle thing,” former WWE writer Court Bauer told Fightful in 2021. “So, there was a real old school undercurrent to the Smackdown locker room.”
Akira Maeda almost gets sent to North America for shooting on Riki Choshu and trying to force NJPW to break kayfabe
By late 1987, Akira Maeda had already built up a unique legacy in his then nine-year career as a pro wrestler. He went from being groomed as the next big thing in New Japan Pro-Wrestling to walking out on the company, becoming one of the founding roster members of the original Universal Wrestling Federation in 1984, and then things got weird. He had a pair of matches that turned real in back to back years, first against Satoru Sayama in 1985 (where it ended when he legitimately kneed Sayama in the groin) and then a bizarre standoff with Andre the Giant after he returned to NJPW in 1986. So it wasn’t exactly out of character when he hauled off and kicked Riki Choshu in the face full force from his blind spot in a November 19, 1987 trios match. Maeda had to be punished. But how?
“This incident created a major public relations problem for New Japan,” explained Dave Meltzer in the December 21, 1987 issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. “[H]ow can you explain suspending someone for a kick to the face when in every match, wrestlers kick to the face[?]” The best summation of what happened next comes from a Maeda bio in the July 27, 1998 Observer that was written to commemorate his retirement. “New Japan had no choice but to suspend Maeda for the rest of the year but somehow in all of this Maeda came out of it as the hero,” wrote Meltzer. NJPW was willing to bring Maeda back, but only if went on a tour of North America that included doing lucha libre in Mexico, “cruel and unusual punishment for a guy whose reputation was based on realistic wrestling,” and put over Choshu when he returned. Instead, he started the second UWF.
Lana gets taken off TV when her engagement photos leak to TMZ
Here’s a particularly modern example: In October 2015, TMZ broke the exclusive story, complete with photos, that WWE’s Lana and Rusev (AEW’s Miro) had gotten engaged. Citing “sources close to the couple,” TMZ reported that Miro had proposed to C.J. Perry, the real person behind the Lana gimmick, in the swimming pool of their Nashville, Tennessee home. This caused some problems, though, because at the time, their storyline on TV was that they had split up, with Lana pairing off with Dolph Ziggler and Rusev pairing off with Summer Rae. The engagement going public resulted in that storyline being hastily ended via a WWE.com article that quoted “Lana” extensively. That wasn’t the end of the drama, though, because WWE soon pulled her from TV as punishment.
“I didn’t even put up a picture, I just sent it to my friends,” she told Chris Jericho on his “Talk Is Jericho” podcast in July 2021 (transcription h/t WrestleTalk). “And then I guess someone leaked it. I never, ever put it up. TMZ got a hold of it … I got in trouble for that. I wasn’t on television for three months. And I was on television straight for two years. I was made to feel it was all my fault. I had to take the blame. And for years I thought maybe it was my fault. For years. And then we did the Bobby Lashley story and I had given Vince my word that I would not take a picture with someone I am feuding with, or send it to anyone. If I take it it’s not leaving my phone. And I gave him my word that I’m not going to do that anymore. So my word is all that I have.”
