Booker T Rehashes Dropping the N-word Bomb While Calling Out Hulk Hogan During Infamous 1997 WCW Promo
Two-time WWE Hall of Famer Booker T Huffman has a long history with fellow wrestling legend Hulk Hogan that dates back to the 1990s. Viewers can’t forget the notorious video footage of Booker accidentally dropping an N-bomb while ranting about the Hulkster.
As one-half of the Harlem Heat tag team, in 1997, Booker cut a promo at World Championship Wrestling’s Spring Stampede pay-per-view event, where he called out Hogan during the backstage interview with Gene Okerlund.
“We take what we want and after we take Lex Luger and The Giant, we want the gold, sucka! Hulk Hogan, we’re coming for you, n—–,” Booker screamed into the camera while standing next to his brother Stevie Ray and their on-screen manager Sister Sherri Martel.
The N-word incident was addressed many years later during an episode of his “The Hall of Fame” podcast in 2019.
“That was the worst moment in my life at that point in time. I definitely wanted to stick my head in the sand and never come out,” Booker told his co-host, Brad Gilmore, and Hogan.
He described it as “the worst day of my life,” noting that he “cringed” when the N-word came out of his mouth.
“I literally, like, chills went through my body and I was like, ‘Oh god, what did I just say?’ The thing is, what’s not ironic about it, that’s a word I used to use on a regular basis,” Booker explained. “Like, everyday, in my neighborhood where I grew up. It was common, it was just something that we said. But, in the wrestling business, until that day Hulk, none of my peers had ever heard me use that word.”
The Louisiana-born retired grappler admitted, “I thought that was the end of my career.” Booker then asked Hogan why he chose not to push for his firing from WCW.
“I wasn’t aware of how intense it was. So honestly? I haven’t gone in to lobby to get anyone fired, much less over that word,” the Hulkster said, before later adding, “I don’t remember it being as sensitive as the politically correct environment [is] now.”
At that point in 2019, it seemed both Booker and Hulk did not have any personal issues over the fallout from the N-word promo. The topic has resurfaced in recent days, thanks to an Instagram video that has made the rounds in online wrestling circles.
Booker was reminded of that embarrassing moment from Spring Stampede 1997 while speaking with pro wrestling media figure and Forbes contributor Alfred Konuwa.
“Dating back to one of your most famous promos, are you still coming for Hulk Hogan?” Konwua asked Booker, the five-time WCW champ, who responded, “Nah man, because Hulk Hogan is coming for himself.”
The short clip was shared on Konuwa’s Instagram page, where fans commenters reflected on the unfortunate mishap between Hogan and Booker from 28 years ago.
“I remember sitting there when he did that and I couldn’t believe my ears. You never heard that on TV back then,” one 1990s-era wrestling watcher wrote. A similar comment read, “Omg, I remember seeing this in the 90s on TV!”
Booker caught heat as well. “Yet years ago Booker T said he was afraid he was going to [lose] his job over this. Booker said Hogan told him everything was cool, don’t worry about it. Now he wants to jump on the ‘let’s hate Hogan train.’”
Other people referenced Hogan’s own N-word scandal from 2016 that made the former WCW World Champion a villain in the eyes of many wrestling devotees.
One person commented, “Booker is why Hogan said it he thought he had the pass too.” Another person on the social media platform joked, “What if low-key Booker T is the reason Hulk Hogan thinks he has the N-word pass?? Lol.”
In 2013, Hogan filed an invasion of privacy lawsuit against the now-defunct Gawker website for publishing an edited version of his private sex tape. Three years later, secretly recorded audio of the Tampa native using the N-word from the Gawker court case was leaked.
“I’m a racist to a point,” Hogan confessed in the recording. He also ranted about his daughter, Brooke Hogan, being in a relationship with a Black man, saying, “If we’re gonna f— with n—–, let’s get a rich one.”
Widespread backlash caused WWE to remove Hogan from the promotion’s website and Hall of Fame in 2015. The company reinstated the ex-NWO stable leader three years later after he denied having bigoted views.
“No, I’m not. I’m not a racist. I never should have said what I said. It was wrong. I’m embarrassed by it. But a lot of people need to realize that you inherit things from your environment,” Hogan stated in a 2015 interview with ABC News.
Despite insisting he is not anti-Black, Hogan’s N-word tape has continued to ignite animosity directed at the “Suburban Commando” actor for the past decade.
In January, he was booed out of the building at the Netflix premiere of WWE’s “Monday Night Raw” in Los Angeles. Many fans, like O’Shea Jackson Jr., blamed the Hulkster freely using the racial slur as the reason for the loud jeers.
Booker voiced his thoughts on the Intuit Dome crowd resoundingly rejecting Hogan. The longtime wrestling insider discussed how the audience will even turn on a once-super-popular wrestler like Hogan.
“At the end of the day, they normally respect you for what you’ve done inside the ring unless you’ve turned them off to the point where it’s good heat, then it’s go-away heat. Maybe he’s created a lot of that go-away heat with a lot of people. I don’t know,” Booker stated on his “Hall Of Fame” show, per Yahoo.
Booker said, “With him, he’s put himself in a position where stuff can happen, and it’s a damn shame because I was a Hulkamaniac when I was a kid. I get it, I understand why people feel the way they do. I was one of the guys that was on the bandwagon once upon a time.”
Additionally, Booker has been very vocal about how Hogan impacted his career in WCW. According to the 2006 WWE King of the Ring tournament winner, Hogan tried to “pull his creative control” to block Booker from winning the WCW world title for the first time at Bash at the Beach 2000.
Booker also partly held Hogan responsible for World Championship Wrestling shutting down in 2001 after dramatically losing the so-called “Monday Night War” to Vince McMahon’s WWF (now known as WWE).
WCW executive Eric Bischoff initially dominated the WCW with Hogan at the top of the card but eventually despised creative decisions slowly eroded the promotion’s fan support. The universally panned Fingerpoke of Doom — an angle where WCW World Champion Kevin Nash deliberately lost the title to Hogan by taking a light finger poke to the chest — is a prime example.
“Hulk Hogan put WCW on that grand stage. Like Eric Bischoff said, when he made phone calls people would answer. When it was time to have meetings, take a meeting, and Hulk was going to be there that you know, the meeting was made,” Booker said in July 2024.
He continued, “And I get it, Hulk was a marquee guy. But the Fingerpoke of Doom, the moment with myself [at Bash at the Beach 2000], I really think was something that could have been avoided. It could have been avoided. I think those two things will be stains on WCW forevermore. There’s nothing we could do about it.”
