Booker T is one of the most legendary names in modern wrestling, whether it is for the number of championships he won, his iconic spinarooni or his eccentric comedy, the guy was a Hall of Fame induction waiting to happen. Booker first came to prominence in WCW as one half of the tag team Harlem Heat, with his brother Stevie Ray. Booker is one of the most decorated modern professional wrestlers, but little is known of his brother. Stevie Ray wasn't anywhere near as good as Booker in the ring, but he brought stature and attitude to the team, buckets full of it. I'd be confident in saying that the vast majority of people reading this site don't know 10 things about Stevie Ray full stop, let alone 10 unknown things. What is known is that Harlem Heat won the WCW tag titles on 10 separate occasions. That really is about it. In fact, most of the things the average wrestling fan knows about Stevie Ray are actually the slightly more obscure things they know about Booker T. So it is time to let the big man shine. Here are 10 facts about Stevie Ray, ranging from the interesting to the not so interesting to the straw clutching.
10. His First Wrestling Name Was 'Super Collider'
Stevie Ray (above, left) entered the world of professional wrestling in 1989, after being trained by World Wrestling Federation legend, Scott Casey. The 1980s were coming to a close but they weren't through with ridiculousness, and the names of wrestlers followed this madness. Stevie Ray (real name Lash Rushay Huffman) went by the name of Super Collider. No, this wasn't a homage to the initials of his mentor and trainer. The name came from a superconducting super collider that was being built at the time in Waxahachie, Texas. The structure was also referred to as 'Desertron', which is a much, much cooler name. The super collider was to have a circumference of 54miles, and was all set to be the largest and most energetic construct of its kind on the planet before the project stopped in 1993. To put its size into context, this would have made it three times bigger than the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva (Switzerland). It was stopped due to budget issues, not due to fear of repercussion via Lash Huffman. It was actually officially stopped on October 31st (Hallowe'en), meaning that there is ample room for a fictional return. All wrestling fans will have deliberated vociferously over what their in-ring name would be, and I dare say a fair number will have chosen Super Collider as theirs. I do wish he'd gone with Desertron though, because obviously.
Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.
