When Booker T started sharing his thoughts via The Hall of Fame, it gave fans a glimpse into the mind of one of the more experienced minds in professional wrestling. He told stories about WCW and the glory days of WWE, shot on current topics, and even weighed in on his ever-expanding collection of students from Reality of Wrestling, like Sammy Guevara, Athena, and Kylie Rae. While his “unbiased” approach fell even further by the wayside when he was surprisingly hired by WWE to replace a departing Wade Barrett on NXT commentary, Booker has still shown a willingness to voice his opinion on the developmental brand's performers, even if they are mostly positive anyway.
Fortunately, one performer that Booker will never not want to talk about is Roxanne Perez, his prized former ROW pupil who has since gone on to win the NXT Women's Championship in her first year with the promotion. Granted, Perez has been a fairly consistent topic of discussion on Hall of Fame for some time now, as she has been with most podcasts discussing NXT, but when she won the big one and took the strap off of 413-day Champion Mandy Rose, Booker's reaction was particularly noteworthy and frankly pretty sweet.
“Let’s kick it right off the bat man. I wanna congratulate my girl Roxanne Perez capturing the NXT Women’s Champion[ship]… And what’s cool about that, Reality of Wrestling Champion, ROH Champion – first-ever – and now NXT Women’s Champion,” Booker said h/t Post Wrestling. That’s a h*ll of a lot of accolades for someone so young and I just wanna give her a whole lot of credit for having her head on her shoulders and being able to go out there and represent. Represent O.G. Reality of Wrestling style is such an awesome and amazing thing and when she won MAN, I wanted to jump in the ring, I gotta be honest. I said, I’m jumping in the ring tonight. But I didn’t do it and then, after we went off the air, went and gave her a hug and whatnot and it actually got picked up on social media so it’s pretty cool man, it’s pretty cool to see, you know, someone like my daughter make it so far so quickly. It’s amazing.”
After Booker's co-host Brad Gilmore detailed the path Perez took from riding the bus to Reality of Wrestling at 15 for wrestling school to becoming the first performer to ever hold the NXT Championship and Ring of Honor Championship in the same year, explaining that the former Rok-C will only be 31 in a decade and could theoretically be wrestling for 20-plus years, the two-time Hall of Famer made a bold prediction about her future.
“She’s a future Hall of Famer right now, I think. She stays on this trajectory, she’s gonna be — and I said this, I said, ‘Man, she’s a leader 20 years from now.”
Is Booker correct? Will Perez eventually land in the WWE Hall of Fame after an expansive, effective run in both NXT and on the main roster? Only time will tell, but considering how much she's accomplished in 2022 alone, the sky really is the limit for the 21-year-old star.
Booker T names one NXT star he isn't a ‘big fan of.'
While Booker T may be a huge NXT guy and is largely positive when it comes to his brand's talent, one performer he isn't a huge fan of is Grayson Waller, the lots talking heel who is looking to end Bron Breakker's run in developmental once and for all.
“I'm not a big fan of Grayson Waller, okay, let's just say that, first and foremost,” said Booker h/t Wrestling Inc. “I mean, he has that Colby Covington feel about him, there is just something that you just don't like about him. But he's good. He can actually get in the ring and perform at a high level. He entertains man. He's very entertaining. As far as being confident in one's self, he has got all of that. He's super confident. I was not surprised at one bit of him going out there and winning, but now he has to go on and take on Bron Breakker.”
Okay, technically, that's more of a complementary quote than a criticism of Waller, but hey, considering the “21st Century Success Story” wants nothing more than to be a more heelish The Miz, it's hard to imagine that the Australian-born superstar would take Booker's comments as anything other than a compliment. Considering Waller considers himself one of the “Four Pillars of NXT,” winning over the haters is just part of being a superstar.
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