WWE has announced Harlem Heat will be inducted into this year’s WWE Hall Of Fame Class of 2019.
The news was first credited to USA Today; WWE.com posted the following announcement:
Booker T & Stevie Ray were one of the most dominant tag teams of the 1990s, steamrolling over the competition in WCW to become tag team champions on 10 occasions. Now, the brothers will be immortalized in sports-entertainment history.
Harlem Heat are the latest inductees in the WWE Hall of Fame’s Class of 2019. They’ll enter the fabled hall on the eve of WrestleMania 35, Saturday, April 6, at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. With this induction, Booker T will become a two-time WWE Hall of Fame inductee, joining Ric Flair and fellow 2019 inductee Shawn Michaels of D-Generation X. The news was first reported by USA Today.
Bursting on the scene straight off 110th Street in Harlem, N.Y., Booker T & Stevie Ray arrived in WCW in summer 1993, bringing a streetwise, in-your-face attitude to the squared circle. They stared directly into the camera on their way to the ring, warning fans at home that they were about to bust some heads when they stepped between the ropes. And bust heads they did. Harlem Heat wasted no time in mixing it up with the top stars of WCW at the time, like Sting, Ric Flair and British Bulldog. They even joined forces with Sid and Vader to enter the unforgiving battleground known as WarGames.
It was when the brothers took on the managerial services of 2006 WWE Hall of Fame Inductee Sensational Sherri that their stars began to shine. With “Sister” Sherri in their corner, it wasn’t long before Harlem Heat captured their first WCW Tag Team Championship, defeating Stars & Stripes on WCW Saturday Night. Booker T & Stevie Ray brawled with the likes of The Steiner Brothers, Sting & Lex Luger and The Nasty Boys on their way to seven reigns as WCW Tag Team Champions.
By 1997, the two brothers went their separate ways, Stevie going on to become a trusted member of the infamous nWo, while Booker became a breakout singles star, capturing the WCW Television Title on several occasions.
After nearly two years apart, Booker T & Stevie Ray reunited and returned to a vastly different tag team landscape in WCW. However, Harlem Heat hadn’t lost a step, as they defeated The Jersey Triad to win their eighth WCW Tag Team Titles at Road Wild 1999. Before the turn of the millennium, they added two more reigns as champions to their incredible résumé, setting a WCW record that would not be broken before the company was purchased by WWE in 2001.
Though the brothers never competed as a team inside a WWE ring, there’s no denying their pure dominance of tag-team wrestling during The Monday Night War. That’s why Harlem Heat is being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.
Don’t miss Booker T & Stevie Ray take their place in sports-entertainment history during the 2019 WWE Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony on the eve of WrestleMania 35, Saturday, April 6 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. Tickets are available now, be sure to take part in this historic night!
