WWE Legend Suggests AEW Is In Danger Of Becoming WCW

Taking to his podcast, former World Heavyweight Champion Booker T has claimed that All Elite Wrestling (AEW) is in danger of becoming WCW.

On his Hall of Fame podcast, Booker T said that AEW signing talent like Sting, Christian Cage and Paul Wight could hurt them, just as it did for WCW when he was with the company.

“Right now it seems like they’re pulling a revamp of WCW, as far as signing veteran talent, guys well past their better years of their careers. Guys that young guys could take either one of two ways, either these guys are here to help us or these guys are here to take our spot.”

Booker T opened up about his time with WCW, and noted that during his time as a younger wrestler, he was negatively impacted by the promotion signing older talent and giving them the top spots:

“I was one of the young guys on the [WCW] roster back then, I was coming up. I must say, a few of those guys came in, [Curt] Hennig, Bret Hart, I got a chance to work with them and they gave me some good feedback and I felt a lot of energy from a few guys that came over. But, the majority of those guys that came over from the WWF, man they were just coming to get a check, they were coming to get paid.”

During the podcast, Booker T spoke about how it can be hard for younger wrestlers to see older wrestlers like Goldberg and Chris Jericho holding top titles:

“Sting is an anomaly, anybody you’re ever going to deal with in the wrestling business who can keep their equity as long as they have because Sting changed with the times,” Booker said. “As far as having the older guys in the ring performer and the younger generation watching them, I said this and I’ll say it a thousand times, it’s hard for a 21 year old kid to aspire to be 56. It’s just hard. To see a 56 year old with the title, that’s unattainable for that young kid. That young kid goes I gotta wait till I’m 56 years old to get this kind of rub? I got to wait that long to be a part of this game? I’m not willing to wait that long.

“I’m not willing to pay those kinds of dues. I believe in respecting your elders but my new slogan is respect your young people. They are the future, they’re the ones that are going to do the big shows at 30-35 and hopefully they have that knowledge to be in that position and be able to hold that. My thing is, you invest in the young talent, you bring the young guys up and you give the young guys the rub. The ones that figure it out, they get it, the ones that don’t you push them to the side and keep rolling. I’m not tryna build my company from an in-ring perspective with guys that I know can throw a hip, blow out a quad walking to the ring, I’m just not going to do it. That’s my personal opinion.”

That’s not all, as the WWE Hall of Famer spoke about how he thought AEW was going to be different than all the other wrestling companies, but said that the promotion is close to becoming the new WCW:

“I don’t know what’s going on with AEW or anything like that but my thing is this: when AEW first started, I thought we were going to see something new,” Booker mentioned. “I didn’t think we were getting ready to see a revamp of WCW and I’m not knocking them, but I thought we were ready to see The Young Bucks, Kenny Omega and the group of these young guys that felt like they knew a whole lot more about the business than the older guys. They were going to create something that these old guys had never seen before in their life and now we’re seeing everything the old guys have seen for the last 30 years.”

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Thanks to WrestlingInc for the transcription.

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