For the one or two of you who aren't sure exactly what Off The Record is, it's a sports talk show hosted by Michael Lansberg on TSN. Generally a roundtable discussion about sports with celebrities, Lansberg has occasionally held one on one interviews with wrestlers including Bill Goldberg, Mick Foley, Bret Hart, and all four of the McMahons. It's the highest rated talk show from Canada and airs 5 times a week.

Bring it on!

Today is a treat for the legions of wrestling fans who e-mail OTR every single day hounding them for more one on one interviews with wrestlers. Lansberg welcomes Booker T to the show, and puts him in the A-list chair.

Booker T starts off by reminding us he's a 5 time WCW World Heavyweight Champion. Lansberg jumps on him right away reminding him this is all shoot. Lansberg tells the viewers this is NOT the Jim Rome show and TSN does respect wrestling.

Lansberg asks Booker to talk about how exactly he got into wrestling and to tell the viewers about his early days in Houston. Booker says he's a street kid who grew up in a house hold of 8 kids. He's the youngest of the bunch. His mother worked hard every single day to keep food on the table, and passed at a really early age of 50. It was a rough childhood, but he wouldn't change it because it helped make him who he is and implemented certain values. His mother taught him to be polite, saying thank you, yes sir, no sir, etc. because a first impression is a lasting impression. As far as wrestling goes, he fell into it. His brother (I'm assuming Stevie Ray) wanted to wrestle and knew a guy who was opening a school, and Booker kind of followed his path and 10 years later wound up in the world of wrestling.

He wasn't a guy who watched wrestling or sports as a kid and wanted to do that like Mick Foley who was jumping off his roof? Booker was a bad kid at school and didn't play football because his grades weren't up to par. He didn't like basketball or track. A security guard named Mr. Gandis got him into band and he became a drum major. He had a lot of fun doing that. It taught him a lot about discipline, and he built on that.

One of the things you hear about athletes is early money is rough to handle. Was it a difficult thing for Booker T to be making a million dollars a year, considering where he came from? Booker knows the value of a dollar coming from a poor household. Every dollar he makes he's invested and puts it towards his future.

Lansberg changes gears and heads towards wrestling. People consider him one of the best wrestlers alive because he can wrestle any style. In WCW he never got his due. Does HE believe it to be racially motivated because he's competing in a sport that's never really allowed a black man at the top? Booker says that his lack of elevation was definitely political, but he doesn't know about racial. It was a good old boy system and WCW didn't want a black man at the top of the company to work because of the way it was built. The fans were the people that forced them to the top.

What about gimmicks? How much control did he have over his gimmicks, from Harlem Heat to G.I. Bro? If it was Lansberg and they told him they wanted to make him G.I. Jew he wouldn't be particularly comfortable with it. As far as Harlem Heat goes, he and Stevie Ray were already the Ebony Experience and they just changed the team name and stayed Booker T and Stevie Ray. A lot of people don't know it, but the first character he ever played was G.I. Bro. Scott Casey, the guy who trained Booker was the one who gave him the name G.I. Bro. He came into practice with a hat on once, while they were trying to find a gimmick for him and Scott told him "You're G.I. Bro". It was cool at the time with the Desert Storm going on, and G.I. Bro was America's Greatest Hero. He used to draw cartoons all the time and he always wanted to be one himself, and he was given the opportunity live on TV. It was a good thing for him, he had fun.

Booker T won his first WCW World Heavyweight Title on the night that Hogan was ousted from the company. That was Bash At The Beach, and a lot of people didn't know what was going down and still aren't sure. Does Booker know what happened there? It was a situation with Hogan and Russo colliding. One guy wanted to do one thing, and the other had creative control and didn't like what was being presented to him. He didn't know where he was going after Bash At The Beach so he told Russo he wanted the belt. That's more or less what happened. Everyone saw what happened on TV, which was indeed a shoot. Booker doesn't think it should have ever made it to television, and the fans saw something they really should not have seen. It was a really bad deal, both for the fans and for him.

Speaking of being cheated, Booker T was starting to get on a roll when the company was sold to Vince McMahon. How did he feel? Booker felt really good about it. Many people were sad about it, but for him it answered a lot of questions. People were wondering could Booker T be in that spot and have the people buy it. The ship was sinking but Booker T was still rising. They closed the show with Booker T as the World and US Champion and for him a great moment.

As they head for commercial Lansberg tells Booker if he's good with G.I. Bro, he's okay with G.I. Jew.

When they return, Lansberg is curious as to what it was like when Booker arrived in the WWF. For some guys, he was the enemy within. What was the vibe that he got? Booker never got a bad vibe. He knew a lot of the guys, and a lot of guys wanted to work with him. For many WCW it was rough because they didn't have the respect.

Lansberg says he was a threat to the WWF wrestlers. Guys lose their jobs because the top is only so big. One thing about the WWF, it's different from the WCW. In the WWF they don't hold you down for being a good wrestler. The WWF is about opportunity and working towards a common goal, and they all pull equally hard.

Is there a fear when he sees Vince who has been saying for years that WCW couldn't cut it in the WWF when he comes over to that company? Does he think he'll never get the true shot with Vince because of the fact he is WCW? One thing about McMahon, he knows talent when he sees it. He told Booker himself, he was given his position on the card because he is good at what he does and deserves what he's getting, and that's more or less the bottom line on that.

First match in the WWF with Buff Bagwell. Some people call it the worst match ever. How did he feel before the first match when he heard the booking, because Booker must know Buff's not a good wrestler. Booker knew he was going to work with him the night before, because they did a house show the previous night. Buff wasn't in shape and not ready to give 110% and Booker told that to Buff. He didn't think it was a good idea. However, he sees it as a test, and he passed while Bagwell failed. There's a reason Booker's where he is now and Buff's in his position.

When he left the ring that night how did he feel? Without a WCW or ECW there really is nowhere left to go so either he'd better cut it now or else. Booker felt his stock had been diminished a little, and he didn't sleep so well that night. However, he knew he still had opportunity, so he came back the following night, worked with DDP and beat eachother up all over the arena. It showed the fans that WCW can cut the mustard and things have snowballed from there.

King Of The Ring was his first night in the WWF. He threw Steve Austin over a table and broke his hand. Was there real heat? There wasn't real heat, but there was a concern. A guy from WCW comes in and his first act was to drop the World Champion on his hand and break it, definitely a concern. He talked to Austin about it, and they both were straight forward with one another. Austin told him what he did wrong, and Booker agreed it was something that needed to be corrected from his stand point.

The Invasion angle should have been one of the biggest money drawing angles in history, but it didn't work. If the WCW and WWF were so even, how come it was such a failure on PPV? Well, Booker doesn't think that was the real WCW that was on WWF television. They didn't have Goldberg, Sting, Kevin Nash or the main players. It was a really watered down version of their group. Do they need those guys back to make the angle back? Yes, they're definitely needed for that particular angle. You can't have WCW vs. WWF without the main players.

All the top WWF guys are people who are displaced from the WCW. Booker agrees a lot of people came from WCW. Lansberg says many people have come back and forth, and we'll talk more after the break.

QUIRKY FACT

Upon entering the WCW Booker T and his brother Stevie Ray were given the names Kane and Kole respectively. After voicing their disapproval, they were given their original names back.

Lansberg asked Booker as the billboards were running if he'd done a lot of these interviews before and Booker told him he'd never really done one, so Lansberg still has a TON of questions he wants to get out.

Does he consider himself an actor or does he think he needs to be because that's the direction the company is taking things? Booker feels his acting is good, and he's been acting his whole life. He's imitated people since his childhood. He also feels like an athlete because you can't be doing this line of work without being in shape.

Does he fear there won't be enough great wrestlers in the future to work with because of the trend? Well right now they have tons of great guys in the fed, not to mention the developmental talent working in the indies right now that we haven't even seen yet.

Pete Sampras needs Andre Agassi as his foil. There are guys on top of the roster whom Booker can't come close to displaying his stuff against. Booker says that's true, but they've got The Rock, Steve Austin, and Kurt Angle, and as long as he can walk to the ring he'll give the fans a great show every single night whether he's wrestling a new guy who's on his way up, or someone on top who's already established.

The WWF has gone through ups and downs. When OTR started in 1997 the WCW was miles ahead and it was on this talk show that Eric Bischoff said they'll NEVER lose a week in the ratings war. He has since lost a lot of weeks. He bet Lansberg 5 bucks, and he's never seen his money. That probably doesn't surprise Booker? Booker just laughs it off. Does he think that the WWF needs to push the envelope again? Booker says that competition is good and without it they don't have the same edge or drive. They don't want to push the envelope like they normally would. Competition is necessary just to be better.

Are skits the answer? Wrestling sells PPV, not skits. The ladder matches with the Hardys and stuff like that are what sell. Rocky vs. Austin is what sells, not skits.

If Booker could book one match what would it be? The one match that shows what he's made of was with Chris Benoit. Booker won the match, but as far man to man they were both winners following that deal.

They still have a ton of questions to get to after the break so stick around.

TODAY'S E-MAIL

Hey Booker,
When Michael's not looking grab him by his designer sweater and Book End him into that cheap table.
T Money

OTR,
I never knew the real story behind Mick, Kurt and so many others until they do your show. I wouldn't trust anyone else.
Steve
Winnipeg

Back with some rumors after the commercial.

On Thursday, Author / Former WWF personality Joanie Laurer.

Kevin Nash and Scott Hall could be joining the WWF in February. Given how they acted in WCW does that thought concern him? It'll be different from WCW. It'll take a lot of change from those two and attitude adjustment. They won't have their own dressing room or be on a private jet every week. They have to be in sync with the boys.

There's only so much roster space, will there be cuts? Oh for sure, after the 1st of January. Booker's not worried about it because he goes out and works hard on a weekly basis.

WCW and WWF dressing room - how are they different? Morale was dead in WCW. People like Goldberg and Nash had their own dressing rooms and didn't really socialize with the rest of the locker room, and then there's people like him who just wanted to be one of the boys.

Tell us about Wrestlemania. It's gonna be Booker's first Wrestlemania, and it'll be totally busy and off the hook. If Lansberg wants tickets how does he get them? Ticket master is the way to go. Get them now, and don't get shut out on this deal!

They shake hands and wrap it up.