Booker T Reveals Which Top Superstar Came Up With The "Spinaroonie" Name
While Booker T was one of many Superstars who attended Chris Jericho's Rock N' Rager cruise, he was one of the few currently affiliated with the WWE product. Booker T began his Q&A session by informing the crowd that no one has control over where he shows up.
"A lot of people wonder, how did Book get booked on this ship? How did he make that happen? You know why? Because I'm 6'3", 248 pounds of rope and stomping grave-digging destruction, and I'm a grown a** man, and I do what I want to do," Booker T jokingly stated.
After getting that out of the way, the jokes kept flying, when Booker T was asked about the origin of the spinaroonie and who exactly came up with that name.
"I was a breakdancer back in the day, and I loved, you know, pop-locking it and whatever," Booker T noted. "I was practicing one day at wrestling school, and I did it, and it just kind of stuck as far as me having something different to do in the wrestling ring. Having that as my signature, that was not something that I had foreseen.
"I remember one day when I was doing it, Mark Madden started saying 'spinaroonie , spinaroonie , spinaroonie' and it became the spinaroonie. I was like that sounds pretty cool (for the name). When I was talking to Mark a year ago, I was like 'Mark, man, you came up with the spinaroonie and whatnot,' and he goes 'Actually, I didn't come up with the name.' I was like 'Well, who came up with it?' He goes 'Chris Jericho.' He said he was having a conversation with Jericho one day about me and said how Jericho called it the spinaroonie thing and he (Madden) stoled it from Chris. But yes, it was Jericho who came up with the name."
In addition to his overall character, Booker T talks about how he came up with his name and the importance it had on his family.
"My father's name was Booker T, I'm Booker T Jr.," Booker T began. "I'm just blessed to have a name like that. It came with a lot of costs because when I was a kid for the first 10 years maybe 12, my name to the kids was Booger. When I was 18, I wanted to change my name. When I became a professional wrestler, Booker T just sounded like a powerful name – it had so much strength to it. I must give a lot of credit to 'Hot Stuff' Eddie Gilbert. When my brother and I first became a tag team, he goes your name is going to be Booker T, which I'm so grateful now, and your (brother) is going to be Stevie Ray. That's how Booker T and Stevie Ray came to be."
One fan took a moment to thank Booker T's contributions towards the African American community. Booker T was so touched that he spoke about how his focus in wrestling was to help other African American athletes step out of the box on where they could go in their professional lives.
"Wrestling has never been our way out," Booker T informed. "We've never seen a whole lot of (African Americans) doing it. When I got into wrestling, I definitely wanted to set an example, not just for young black kids, but for everyone, as far as what does it take to get to that next level. Everything that I did, was done by design – having a cool name like Booker T, even to our music.
"My brother and I, we didn't want to come out to just rap music. We wanted to cater to everyone, you know, so we didn't put ourselves in a box over here. When fans saw Harlem Heat, they didn't just see two black guys coming out, they saw Harlem Heat. If I don't leave you guys with a moment where you guys walk away from here feeling a certain way, then, I didn't do my job."
You can listen to Booker T's full interview above. If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Reality Of Wrestling with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.