What’s the story?
Stevie Ray, former WCW World Tag Team champion of Harlem Heat, along with his WWE Hall of Fame brother, Booker T, was a recent guest on ‘Murder Master Music Show’ and had the following to say about Booker T calling Hulk Hogan the N-word on live pay-per view: (transcript by: WrestlingNewsSource.com)
We were doing a live pay per view and we had cut a promo earlier that day, we are getting to go to the ring and one of the production guys said we had to redo the promo because someone messed it up. We were like, ‘What the f**k man?’ You just don’t do it on a pay-per-view, it leaves a chance for a f*** up. This is live! We were in the corner going over the match with each other and this is the stuff people don’t know about, and now we are talking about Hulk Hogan, and I’m like, ‘We don’t have a damn thing to do with Hulk Hogan.’
So now we are trying to think about what to say during the interview. It went viral years later! I kept a straight face because I was focusing on what I was trying to do, I didn’t pay attention to what he was saying. I didn’t know until afterwards when Booker told me he messed up. He was thinking about two different things at the same time. If that had happened during pre-taping you just cut it out and start over.
In case you didn’t know
When Hulk Hogan was caught on camera using racial slurs, he later stated that Harlem Heat had one time called him the N-word. Here was Stevie Ray’s response:
We hear Hulk during an interview say that Booker and his brother [Stevie Ray] used to call us the N-word all the time. The N-word was thrown around. You just don’t use the N-word around people that are not in the African-American circle. Nobody can ever say in my whole career that they have heard me call them the N-word if they are not black. It is an unwritten law of ethics.
The heart of the matter
In 2015, Hulk Hogan was caught on tape using racial slurs while committing adultery with his friend, Bubba the Love Sponge’s wife. At that time, Vince McMahon had severed times with him because of the incident. Hogan had this response regarding the incident:
Eight years ago I used offensive language during a conversation. It was unacceptable for me to use that offensive language; there is no excuse for it; and I apologize for having done it.
What’s next?
It appears that the rift between Hulk Hogan and the WWE is coming to an end. He is rumoured to be part of Wrestlemania 33, marking the 30th anniversary of his legendary match against Andre the Giant.
Sportskeeda’s Take
This is a touchy subject and one that is hard to talk about. There is hope that this entire fiasco is over and Hulk Hogan can rightfully return to the WWE. Everyone makes mistakes and deserve a second chance. Hulk Hogan has done so much for the industry that it would be hard to pretend he never existed.
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