The One WCW Gimmick Too Offensive For Eric Bischoff

Thank the lord for Eric Bischoff's moment of lucidity. This thing would have surely tanked Booker and Ray's early prospects had it hit television, no matter what the booking committee's original intentions were.

Both Harlem Heat members would be pushed down similarly offensive directions later in their career.

For Booker, that meant the needless revival of his old G.I. Bro character, Triple H telling him that "people like you don't get to be champion," and Kurt Angle calling his wife a "gutter sl*t" with whom he wanted to have "beastiality sex." Ray, meanwhile, filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against the group formerly known as World Championship Wrestling in 2002. This all came following the horrendous Harlem Heat 2000 storyline that saw them paired with a Jamaican-American valet named Midnight before splitting, after which Ray was made to cut promos in a "hood" populated solely by the homeless.

Let's not forget that WCW once had Buff Bagwell don full blackface to mock Ernest 'The Cat' Miller for a Nitro segment in 1999. Their programming played host to plenty of gross, repulsive stuff.

At least Bischoff, in the case of Booker T and Stevie Ray, had clarity.