Six-time world champion and two-time WWE Hall of Famer Booker T is the company’s ultimate jack of all trades. Royal Rumble needs a surprise entrant? He’s down, as he showed earlier this year. NXT needs a commentator? Even though he’s running his own wrestling school and promotion, Reality of Wrestling, he answered the call.
So it should really come as no surprise that when Paul “Triple H” Levesque wanted to be less involved in season 2 of “WWE’s Most Wanted Treasures” on A&E, he reached out to Booker T to take point on the new batch of episodes that kick off April 30.
“To ask me to step into his role has been really, really awesome,” Booker T told Wrestling Junkie via Zoom. “I didn’t see that coming or anything like that, but I’ve always been the utility guy in WWE, you know? No matter what role you give me, I’ll handle it.”
In this case, the role is leading a team that hunts down the actual physical objects used in some of the most memorable and iconic moments throughout WWE history. For season 2, he has a pair of legends to help him in Mick Foley and Lita.
“That’s my right hand and my left,” Booker T said of working with his fellow Hall of Famers. “We couldn’t have done it without doing it together, and we’ve been a great team. … We’ve always had a great camaraderie together.”
They’ll need to be to chase down some of the eyebrow-raising memorabilia on the docket for season 2. The items they’ll be hunting include DX’s Invasion Jeep, Macho Man’s Mega Powers robe, the jacket worn by Goldberg in his WWE debut, and “Rowdy” Roddy Piper’s bagpipes.
All of those pieces instantly bring back memories for longtime WWE fans, and finding them is a way of “preserving history,” as Booker puts it. But they’re just as important, if not more so, to the performers involved in making those moments.
Booker T knows that firsthand. One of the season 1 episodes of “WWE’s Most Wanted Treasures” was focused on finding some of his own memorabilia, with mixed results. Asked if there’s anything left from his wrestling career that he’d still like to locate, he’s quick to name one thing with special significance.
“The one think I think I wish I had in my possession would be the world title, my first world title that I won in WCW,” he said. “The reason I really loved it is because Ric Flair wore that championship. It had a big bend in the top of it; I don’t know where that bend came from. But I felt so honored wearing that championship. I think DDP stole it.”
“I feel like that trophy is mine,” he added. “Because I was the last WCW World Champion, so that title really truly is mine. So whoever got that championship, they should be gracious enough to find it in their heart to donate that championship to the rightful owner.”
That search might have to wait, as season 2 has a stacked lineup of WWE icons for whom Booker T, Foley and Lita helped pursue their own Holy Grails. It starts with an episode devoted to “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, conveniently timed to coincide with the debut of his own new A&E series, “Stone Cold Takes on America.”
Booker T says he doesn’t want to get into any spoilers for the upcoming season, but asked to do one more bit of promotion for it, he happily obliges — exactly as you’d expect from WWE’s most reliable and versatile performers.
“I just want everybody to know, they’re going to get a chance to see some of the most iconic treasures on Earth,” Booker T said. “We’ve got ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin, we’ve got Kurt Angle, we’ve got Goldberg, Bret ‘The Hit Man’ Hart, ‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage. We got ‘Rowdy’ Roddy Piper, we got the Ultimate Warrior, we got Harlem Heat.
“We’ve got a plethora of treasures that will be found, so just get ready to go on a ride, the ride of a lifetime.”
Season 2 of “WWE’s Most Wanted Treasures” debuts on Sunday, April 30 on A&E at 9 p.m. ET/PT, followed by the series premiere of “Stone Cold Takes on America” at 10 p.m. ET/PT.