Eric Bischoff Reveals Process Of Splitting Up Harlem Heat In WCW, Didn’t Want Booker T Sitting Out
The decision to break up Harlem Heat was made due to circumstance.
On the latest episode of his 83 Weeks podcast, Eric Bischoff discussed the tag team run of Booker T and Stevie Ray in WCW. When the conversation reached the period of late 1997/early 1998, the former WCW President was asked if there was ever any intention to split up Harlem Heat, or if Stevie Ray’s ankle injury and Jacqueline Moore’s (their manager at the time) departure to the WWF simply forced their hand. Here is what he said:
“No, that wasn’t the plan at all. I don’t think anybody ever contemplated breaking up Harlem Heat, at least that I can remember. There were no serious conversations about it, it was just, okay, we gotta move forward. 5 months is a long time, what do we do? Especially when you’ve got a hot talent like Booker T was, you can’t afford to let that talent sit around. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and that’s a great tool to use, but you can get to a point where out of sight completely out of mind, and you lose that ability to bring that talent back with more fanfare than he or she may have left with. So it was getting to that point where we had to use Booker, not from a financial point of view because financially in 1997 everything was just fine, and even 98. But from a talent perspective, you don’t want somebody of that level sitting out for that long, so it was a decision that was made but it was made based on the circumstances.”
Harlem Heat are 10-time WCW tag team champions and were inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2019.
Rapper Bad Bunny is set to perform his hit single “Booker T” at WWE Royal Rumble.
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