That night I went home and started writing our next pay-per-view which was Bash at the Beach. Without blinking an eye, I had Booker T leaving the building that night as the new WCW World Heavyweight Champion after defeating Jeff Jarrett. My decision was simple based on one fact: it was the right thing to do. For years, the locker room politicians had been keeping “Book” down, and nobody was ever going to challenge them in fear of what the consequences might be. I didn’t care. It was just one of those things that you knew in your heart was right, and you would deal with the consequences when they came.
When I arrived at the building that night, that’s when I first found out that Hulk Hogan had a problem with the creative. I calmly asked Hulk what he wanted to do, and after his first sentence he made it clear: he wanted to walk out of that building the new WCW Champion. While Hulk was talking, I was thinking about everybody in that room who felt Booker T deserved that honor. I was thinking of my experience with Booker throughout my short time working at WCW. I thought about Booker’s humbleness, and of course, that smile. At that moment I knew that I didn’t give a rat’s !@#$ what happened to me, I was going to stand-up for what was right, and that belt was going on Booker no matter what I had to do. That is all I cared about.
So, in that trailer that night with Hogan, all I did was sell my !@#$ off. I knew that I had to convince Hulk to buy into my pitch so I could get the belt on Book. After the sales job of my life, Hulk agreed to the story I laid out.
No—I’m not going to go into the details of Bash at the Beach here, that’s not what this is about. This is about me sharing the single most greatest day in my wrestling career with Booker T the same night he celebrated his. At that very point in time, I knew that would be my crowning moment in professional wrestling, because a man who deserved his just due finally got it.
The ratings, the money, nothing meant more to me than what happened that day in Florida, and I was blessed to have shared that moment with a man like Booker T.
