Booker T Critical Of Ember Moon Mentioning Mandy Rose While Complaining About NXT Meetings
During the latest episode of the Hall Of Fame podcast, Booker T spoke about the recent comments from Athena (fka Ember Moon). The former WWE Superstar recently opened up about a variety of topics, including how WWE wanted women to dress sexier. For Booker T, he preferred to leave those stories behind. But he did put over Athena's ability to come back from injury.
"I don't know, I am one of those type of people that when I leave a company, I try to leave all those stories behind. Try not to think about the negative part or anything like that," he said. "One thing I do know is, Athena was given an opportunity in WWE after trying on several occasions. Didn't make it, didn't make it, and then finally, she had the right stuff, and they brought her in.
"Athena was doing really, really well, and then she tore her Achilles, that right there is a really, really bad injury to come back from. She definitely weathered it, and came back from it, and came back from it seemed like stronger than before."
Athena had claimed that WWE wanted the women to dress more like Mandy Rose. But Booker T didn't know why she mentioned her by name. He pointed out that things discussed in meetings are something that WWE wants to keep that way.
"I just don't know why she made the comments, or for instance throwing Mandy Rose in there," he said. "Or even putting Mandy Rose's name out there. Mandy Rose might like the way she go out and dress, she might like the role that she is playing. It might benefit her very, very well too to play that role. At the end of the day, everybody is going to have a role, okay?
"Whether you want to take your role a little bit further than the next person, that's up for debate, that's up for chance, whatever. I do know that if it's something that the company wants, and it's something that they're talking about inside the company, I don't think that it is something that they wanted anybody outside of that meeting to know about. That right there makes me feel a certain way about it."
Booker T pointed out that people always want to know about his backstage fight with Batista. He has opted to keep that to himself, because there is no reason to tell the world.
"Like I say, I understand wanting to voice your opinion," he said. "But I am not going to throw Mandy Rose under the bus, or anything like that because of the way she's going out there and doing her work. If that's the way the company want the direction to go in, okay, that's the way they want to go in. That's not my choice, I'm not down with it, check me out, I'm not down with it. It's as simple as that, really, as far as I'm concerned.
"There again, I just feel like certain office talk, just like people have come up to me and they say, 'hey man, tell me about the Batista fight?' You know what I say everytime, I've spoke about this once I think publicly. But 99 percent of the time I say, 'testosterone man, it's two men, men get in fights, that's what men do.'
"I say, 'if I saw him today I'd give a hug and say you're doing a hell of a job out there in Hollywood,' and that's the truth. But, it's a juicy story there as well, if I wanted to tell a juicy story for the world. For no reason, for no pay more than anything. That's the bottom line to this."
Booker T then pointed out that WWE did pay for Athena's injury, which he claims won't have been cheap. In his opinion, if there is nothing good to say, then people shouldn't say anything at all.
"For instance, that's one reason I talk about this thing with Athena, because like I say, she's one of my girls. Having an Achilles injury, I am sure she went to the best doctor in the world to get that worked on," he said. "I'm going to tell you right now, just that money alone that it took to repair that, and get her back on her feet. I can't even imagine how much it was, but I bet you it was a boatload of money.
"And I am sure the WWE took care of it. I can almost guarantee you that 100 percent, that WWE took care of that problem, and made her whole again. That's where I say, something like that happens somewhere else, outside of AEW, who's going to fix that? How're you going to repair that problem? That's why sometimes, if you ain't got something good to say, like my momma said, don't say nothing at all. It's that simple."
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit the Hall Of Fame podcast with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.