thelesterlee
Welcome to The Pipe Bomb, where we discuss the latest news and events from the wrestling world, both inside and outside the ring. This week let’s just talk about one singular issue: Booker T vs. Swerve Strickland.
Booker T vs. Swerve Strickland
Professional wrestling is a world that welcomes all. Short, tall, fat, skinny, jacked, emotionally unstable, potential murderer—if you can do the job, wrestling has space for you. But no matter who’s running the promotion, black performers are asked to sacrifice their bodies just as much as their white peers while rarely ever being rewarded with the same main event opportunities as them.
Booker T knows this more than anyone—a man whose biggest storyline in WWE was a program with Triple H for the World Heavyweight Championship in which Triple H and Ric Flair—and even the commentary team— spent the entire build-up to their big Wrestlemania 19 title match presenting Booker as less than because he was black.
“People like you don’t deserve to champion”, followed by Triple H asking Booker to do a “little dance” for him.
This racist storyline ended with Booker T getting pinned clean in the middle of the ring, sort of proving Triple H’s (“character’s”) point that Booker was inferior.
Recently, AEW star Swerve Strickland sat down for a Vlad TV interview—a location typically reserved for Z-list actors and bitter old rappers, all ready to snitch and gossip about the things they’ve witnessed in rooms they had no business ever stepping foot in.
Swerve told a story about wrestling for the Cruiserweight Championship in 2019 after a live Smackdown taping, crushing his opportunity—only to feel disrespected by being sent back down to development to rehearse more arm drags.
“They’re not chanting, ‘This is awesome!’ They’re chanting, ‘Let’s go Swerve!’ They’re actually rooting for me to win this title and I’m losing to Drew Gulak”, Swerve told Vlad, the overcover cop. “Got great praise in the back coming afterward. Charlotte [Flair], Bayley, Kofi [Kingston], Samoa Joe — everybody’s giving me crazy praise”
Swerve didn’t feel like Triple H ever gave him a fair shot and it makes sense considering it’s been 977 days since a black male wrestler last won a singles match on a main roster PPV and it’s been 606 days since a black male wrestler had a singles match on a main roster PPV.
Since taking over the booking of WWE, Triple H, the “Booker of the Year” can’t seem to figure out how to book a black singles star.
The Judgement Day was created and Triple H forgot the Hurt Business existed. Carmelo Hayes was presented as an equal to Bron Brekker in NXT.
Bron Breakker is a 2-time Intercontinental Champion—currently in the midst of a healthy 164-day reign. Carmelo Hayes spent most of the year trading wins back and forth in a meaningless feud with Andrade before becoming the straight man for comedy acts like R-Truth—who’s been in the WWE since 2008 and hasn’t even sniffed a serious main event push.
Montez Ford looks like a movie star and is one of the most captivating performers in the company. Triple H just can’t put together a good idea for his singles run.
Odd.
Booker T is one of the reasons I fell in love with wrestling. I started watching weekly right around the time he and Stone Cold Steve Austin fought in that grocery store. Life-changing shit.
Something as simple as seeing someone who looks like you having a major feud with the biggest star in the company can make you a lifelong fan. Representation isn’t about giving handouts or charity to random undeserving black people to pacify that section of your audience. It literally behooves your business to be inclusive. It adds more eyes to your product who wouldn’t typically care otherwise and potentially inspires a generation of kids aspiring to become the next Booker T, thus extending the talent pool you can pick from.
But Booker T—a man who endured racism his entire career—responded to Swerve, essentially doing damage control for the company that sends direct deposits to his bank account every other week.
Remember when Joe Biden initially floated the idea of canceling college debt and people were against it simply because they were forced to pay their student loans, therefore every future generation must face the same injustice? If a terrible system made life hell for you and you defend that system then you are on the wrong side of history.
Booker T went on his little podcast and said he doesn’t understand the complaint about the lack of black talent on PPVs because he, personally, was on so many, and perhaps the black talent in WWE isn’t good enough and “not on his level” before saying wrestlers should forget about the “black thing” and just focus on being good.
It’s disappointing to see someone you looked up to—someone you believed was authentically themselves and was mistreated because of it—turn around and defend the people mistreating him.
But I can’t even blame Booker T. How does he feed himself or get his children braces or pay his mortgage, if not for those WWE checks? There is no wrestling retirement plan—however, there will always be a running faucet of money to put your face under as long as you are willing to bend reality defending billion-dollar corporations.
Booker is still a victim of the system, desperately dependent on WWE’s teat to the point where he must convince himself that the company run by a rapist whose wife wants to cut spending for public schools (which would overwhelmingly negatively impact predominantly black schools) and their meathead son-in-law—is a benevolent, objective, color blind enterprise with no biases or prejudices despite the PPVs catering room being filled with black male performers who are never given a chance to compete. Guess they all need to pull their pants up and turn down their hippity-hop music.
Meanwhile, Swerve Strickland is one of the most popular wrestling stars in the business—moments away from becoming a 2-time AEW World Champion after he defeats Jon Moxley at Dynasty this year.
I am transferring my disappointment of Booker T into complete admiration for Swerve Strickland—who didn’t cry about WWE wasting his talents, but instead, made the most of every moment of the AEW screen time he was given and turned himself into a star.
It sucks to see some of our heroes get through the door and then shut that door behind them but we know who Booker T is now.
It’s time to look to the future and that’s Swerve Strickland as the face of a wrestling company, something WWE would never allow Booker to become.
When people ask me why I prefer AEW over WWE, this is exhibit A.
And to think, Swerve didn’t even have to do a spin-a-rooni to get over. Booker T’s mind is blown. And so is his back after doing spin-a-roonis on Triple H’s tiny little steroid-deflated dick for the last 20 years.
Nothing but love and respect for Swerve, but, uh, never go on Vlad TV again, my guy.
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