10 Wrestlers Who Made Drastic Late Career Changes

9. Booker T

Booker T was already a well-established name by the time he joined WWE from WCW in 2001. Unlike some of his peers coming over from the dead promotion with him (DDP and Buff Bagwell, to name a few), Booker managed to slot smoothly into WWE life and eventually became World Champion.

He wasn't content to stop there. Booker, like any wrestler keen on legendary status, wanted to become wrestling royalty, and that's meant in the most literal sense. In 2006, after winning SmackDown's King Of The Ring tournament at Judgment Day, the WCW favourite morphed into 'King' Booker (or 'King' Bookah, if you like).

A full 17 years after his debut in 1989 and occurring a good eight years after he had successfully launched himself as a singles star in WCW, the change definitely prolonged Booker's run near the top of WWE's card. Somewhere, Vince Russo was probably wishing he'd thought of the gimmick.

At least WWE didn't try to rehash GI Bro, bro.