Booker T Reveals When He Got The Call For Royal Rumble Appearance

Booker T certainly surprised pretty much everyone with his appearance in Saturday’s Royal Rumble match.

Less than an hour before appearing in the #21 spot in the Men’s Royal Rumble match, Booker T found himself on the pre-show panel giving his predictions and opinions about what he thought was going to happen.

Few people, if anyone, thought that Booker would enter the Rumble match himself. And while he didn’t do much – he only lasted 42 seconds before being eliminated by Gunther – his appearance was certainly a much-needed surprise.

But that wasn’t the only surprise regarding Booker T. While discussing this very topic on his Hall of Fame podcast, Booker explained how certain wrestlers’ appearances are planned and confirmed.

It turns out that WWE sends out invitations to non-regular wrestlers by mail. But this year, Booker didn’t get one; instead, he was asked while sitting at the table in front of countless cameras discussing the Rumble on the kickoff show.

“I was sitting at the table, on the Kickoff Show, and I got a text message. It was the invite telling me, ‘Book, you’re in the Rumble.’

Me, I’m old school. I went down in the Winnebago, right, so something told me, ‘Bring your gear. Make sure you’re ready. Just so you don’t have to get ready. Stay ready.’

Boom, there it was. The text message came through, I said okay, here we go.”

Booker T also explained that, because it was all so sudden, he didn’t have enough time to prepare physically.

“Just like when I won my first world title, I had about ten minutes to warm up. So that’s what happened. I wasn’t warmed up, I went to the ring cold. I didn’t have that gloss, I didn’t have the sheen on me. I wasn’t lathered up and ready to go.

I didn’t get a chance to jump rope for 45 minutes to get the heart rate up, get the blood flowing. I didn’t get a chance to do that. I would have won that damn Rumble if I would have been able to prepare properly. That last-minute text message definitely slowed me down a little bit.”

Despite his short time in the ring, Booker went on to say that he was still very happy with the experience and the reaction he got from the crowd.

h/t Fightful for the transcription