Booker T has been announced as the sixth inductee into the WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2013.
The news was announced last night, March 18, on WWE Monday Night RAW.
Booker T is one of the most decorated pro wrestlers in pro wrestling history. Over the course of his twenty plus year career, Booker has won the World Championship six times, the United States Championship four times, the Intercontinental Championship one time, the Television Championship six times and Tag Team Championships a staggering fifteen times. That doesn’t count the numerous other minor championships and numerous accolades across every major promotion he worked in.
Booker and his older brother Lash (Stevie Ray) cut their teeth in Texas as part of the Global Wrestling Federation. Booker worked as a singles star known as G.I. Bro and as a team with with his brother known as The Ebony Express.
They soon caught the eye of World Championship Wrestling and joined the company in the summer of 1993. Now rechristened Harlem Heat, the brothers tore through the tag team ranks, amassing a staggering 10 reigns as WCW World Tag Team Champions through the decade.
In late 1997, Booker broke out as a singles star and slowly rose the ranks, winning Television Championships and United States Championship before winning finally winning five World Championships.
He joined WWE in 2001 when the company bought out WCW. Booker continued his success in WWE winning Championships along the way and remaining a top card fixture until he left the company in the fall of 2007.
Booker then joined TNA Wrestling and was touted as a huge signing for the growing company. He was treated primarily as a main event talent and was part of The Main Event Mafia alongside top stars like Sting, Kurt Angle, Kevin Nash and Scott Steiner.
He left TNA Wrestling in late 2009 and wrestled across the world throughout 2010 until he made an incredibly surprising return to WWE at Royal Rumble ’11.
Since then he was competed sporadically in the ring but has focused primarily on commentating, working as a trainer for Tough Enough and then serving as the General Manager for the SmackDown brand.
The guy is a textbook example of doing things the right way in the pro wrestling business. Booker worked his way up through the ranks. He dominated the tag team scene and then worked his way up the singles ranks before becoming a main event superstar.
Through his incredible in-ring talent, his charisma, hard work and some good luck and timing, Booker T has become a superstar in the pro wrestling industry. He is more than deserving of this accolade.
Booker will join easily the most stacked Class ever inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. He joins fellow former WWE Champions Bruno Sammartino, Bob Backlund and Mick Foley, former WWE Women’s Champion and fellow Tough Enough trainer Trish Stratus and “celebrity wing inductee” Donald Trump as part of the 2013 Class.
No inductor has been announced for Booker yet, but it is very likely that his brother Stevie Ray or perhaps former partner “Goldust” Dustin Rhodes will do the honors.
This year’s Hall of Fame induction ceremony will be on Saturday, April 6, in New York, New York inside the famed Madison Square Garden the night before WrestleMania XXIX.
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