Real life brothers Booker and Lash Huffman began their wrestling careers feuding in the Western Wrestling Alliance promotion in the late eighties, with Booker delighting in the name G.I. Bro, and Lash cringing under the monicker Jive Soul Bro. They then tagged as The Ebony Experience in Global Wrestling Federation, and finally moved to WCW as Harlem Heat in 1993. The pair would go on to become historic ten time WCW tag team champions over the coming years, staples of the tag team division as Stevie Ray and Booker T. Sidelined in January 1998 by injury, Stevie Ray would cool his heels while Booker T went single, but Harlem Heat would reunite once again in 1999. However, by the end of that year Harlem Heat had added a new member to their number a female wrestler called Midnight. In a classic pro wrestling teased split, Booker was into the new addition while Stevie Ray most certainly was not. Arguments arose and Stevie Ray challenged his partner to a match only, bizarrely, it was Midnight he wanted to fight, not his brother. The outcome would see who stayed with Booker in Harlem Heat. Sadly for Stevie Ray, hed lose the match after being rolled up into a small package out of nowhere (the de rigueur finish for intergender matches during the Monday Night War/Attitude Era, female wrestlers being treated roughly on a par with midgets only forced to wear bikinis). Ousted from his own tag team due to his own match stipulation, Stevie Ray completed his heel turn on Booker and Midnight by forming rival stable Harlem Heat Inc. with three other African American stars, taking the hefty Big T as his new tag team partner in surprise, surprise Harlem Heat 2000. In a typically WCW storyline, Booker T would be screwed out of his own name when he lost a match to Big T for the right to the Harlem Heat name, and also the use of the letter T. Stevie Ray wouldnt have that many matches left in him, and would have left WCW only a few months later, retiring completely by 2002. In real life, he and Booker would catastrophically fall out over the next few years, and by the time they reconciled in early 2013, had not spoken to each other in around six years. Stevie Ray and his brother would resolve their differences just in time for Lash to induct Booker into the WWE Hall Of Fame.
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
