Since last week’s sudden replacement of Booker T on WWE Raw commentary by a returning Jonathan Coachman, there’s been speculation that Booker’s departure might have something to do with heat between him and fellow commentator Corey Graves.
While it’s true that wrestling announcers yelling at each other has been part of the entertainment since the days of Gorilla Monsoon and Jesse Ventura, the mutual disrespect between Booker and Corey has often seemed a little too real.
On his podcast Heated Conversations, Booker T addressed the matter directly, going as far as to say that WWE took him off of Raw out of concern that he might beat up Corey Graves:
“If I got Corey Graves into a fisticuffs, I would beat him down like he stole something. I would be whooping his ass all day long. My thing is this: I’m a nice guy until you get on my bad side. Corey Graves, right now, I wouldn’t necessarily say he’s on my bad side, but he’s the reason that I’m not on Monday Night Raw right now.
“A lot of people in the company thought I was gonna jump on him, I was gonna do something bad to him, I was gonna drag him, I was gonna take him out to the wood shed, I was gonna beat that man so bad, I was gonna beat him till this man said, ‘Please, please, just don’t beat me anymore.’ That’s how hot I was getting.
“That’s how close I was getting, so they said, ‘Hey Book, we’re gonna step back a second. We’re gonna regroup. We’re gonna press the rewind button, send you back to the kickoff shows, Smackdown and Monday Night Raw Pay-Per-Views, and cool you down for a second. We don’t want you to do anything to Corey Graves, because we know what you could do to him.'”
Booker went on to further disparage Graves, and even directly challenged him to a fight at WrestleMania 34. Not a match … a fight. Based on his Twitter response, Corey Graves seems … unmoved.
“Thus the expert in battle moves the enemy, and is not moved by him.”
-Sun Tzu
(Yes, this is what you think it is)
— Corey Graves (@WWEGraves) February 5, 2018
You can hear section of the podcast involving Corey Graves below, or go listen to the whole thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjYYwJtmOFA
