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What's the story?
It was one of the biggest stories in wrestling this year, the "heat" between Booker T and Corey Graves, and now Booker T has opened up about why he took to his radio show to take a shot at Graves and what he believes it all achieved.
It was recently revealed that the heat was not real, but in a recent conversation with Sam Roberts, Booker opened up about how it all started.
In case you didn't know...
WWE Hall of Famer Booker T was recently released from his duties as RAW commentator when he was replaced by the returning Jonathan Coachman.
The five-time WCW World Heavyweight Champion would go back to his previous role within WWE as a pre-show correspondent but blamed Corey Graves for no longer being one of the voices of RAW.
This would avalanche into both men taking shots at each other and everyone wondering if both men really hated each other.
The heart of the matter
Well, on the Sam Roberts Wrestling Podcast, Booker T was a guest this week and spoke all about why he started the beef with Graves.
His explanation? He simply had nothing else to talk about on Heated Conversations, his podcast, which airs on local radio and thus has strict time constraints.
Brad and I, we just had a last segment, 14 minutes, where we had nothing to talk about. Not one thing. We were trying to fill in time so our sponsors and the station won't get mad at us. We filled the time slot and Corey Graves took the brunt of it.
On the impact it had, though, Booker said it all had a point - otherwise, he'd have never opened up about whether it was a work or a shoot. He said it proves that wrestling can still feel real and that some current talent could take some tips from it.
What this proves is wrestling is still alive, the angles are still alive, the storylines could still be valid if one played them properly. People really thought I was mad at Corey Graves to the point that Forbes, USA Today, SB Nation - everybody picked it up.
The Hall of Famer did say he was still hot about Corey's pop at him on RAW, though, but reinforced that it was just two guys joking around.
What's next?
Sam Roberts promised that Corey Graves would be on in the near future to discuss the situation too, but it wasn't possible this week as Graves is the voice of RAW, SmackDown, 205 Live, and has been going to NXT and working with WWE for 2K Games recently too - as well as having a family - but he will appear to give his side of the story too.
Author's take
Well, no matter whether it was a work or a shoot, I think this was genius from Booker. He somehow managed to get the world of mainstream media speaking about wrestling and, at least temporarily, made it all feel real.
I love hearing about how this was all constructed and can't wait to hear Corey's comments!
