On his Hall of Fame podcast, former WWE superstar Booker T opens up about what he believes the current pro-wrestling product is missing: Organic characters.

I think we just got to go back to what wrestling was. What wrestling was, is characters like ‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage. That is organically made, you can’t create that, you can’t learn that in a school. Mr. Perfect Curt Hennig, you can’t manufacture something that is organic. Guys like Bret Hart, Sting, Ric Flair, those guys built their careers going around the world and getting worldly talent. They went all over learning their craft.

The hall of famer explains that going back to basics, and letting wrestlers just air their grievances on camera is the simple, but most effective way to tell stories.

What wrestling was back in the day was you put a camera in front of the guy, they have an issue and they voiced the issues. They did it in an articulate fashion when you go, ‘man, I like those guys, or I don’t.’ Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts, you think you can give him a script and ask him to follow this script and say these words verbatim? That’s not going to happen.

Booker continues…

On the other hand, you got to have guys like Jake that can go out there and pull that promo off, make it believable as well. A lot of guys in the wrestling business have never been in a real fight, so they don’t know how to react in these promos. Guys are really young guys. Guys back in the day had a lot of worldly experiences, they know what it’s like to have someone say something stupid and fight breaks out, the relied on real experiences.

Check out the full Hall of Fame podcast here. 

(H/T and transcribed by Wrestling Inc.)