Booker T accused of lying amid heated public spat with AEW's Swerve Strickland

The worlds of AEW and WWE continue to collide this week as Booker T and Swerve Strickland fuel their back-and-forth debacle. A famous name is now getting involved and has made a major accusation against the WWE NXT commentator. The allegation comes after Booker made controversial remarks of his own.

The New Flavor recently spoke with DJ Vlad on VladTV to discuss a variety of topics, including race in wrestling and the controversial WWE segment that saw Vince McMahon drop the N-word in front of Booker T and John Cena. This led to Booker T issuing a fiery response to the former AEW World Champion.

The former World Heavyweight Champion later took to his Hall of Fame podcast to reveal that he confronted Swerve Strickland at a weekend convention. In the same conversation, Booker ripped VladTV and claimed he turned down an interview a few years back as he did not want to be exploited by the popular media brand with more than 6 million YouTube subscribers.

Amid some advice to Swerve Strickland and a few adversarial remarks, the two-time WWE Hall of Famer also made several comments on DJ Vlad's platform.

"I had an offer to be on VladTV before as well and I turned it down. They called me back and they offered me money to go on VladTV and I turned it down because I was not going to go on VladTV and be exploited. I wasn’t going to go on VladTV and have him make me look like a fool in front of the world, I was not going to do that. I wasn’t going to go on VladTV and say anything negative towards any black man that’s ever been in this business because I know how hard it is for all of us. ... I’m upset because more importantly I’m disappointed in Swerve Strickland because what I told him — I’ll repeat it just like I repeated it to him, you got played. You got played bro," Booker T said. [H/T to Fightful]

Booker T continued:

"You got played. You let that man play you and pitch you against me and me against you. I don’t know how many stories you’ve ever heard about that on VladTV, but there’s many of them. There’s many stories out there about the black man against the black man because Vlad is pitting them against each other. I don’t know how many people you know that have been locked up from the federal perspective by going on VladTV. I don’t know what the hell you’re doing on VladTV first of all. What have you done to be on VladTV? That’s just my opinion on that," Booker T said. [H/T to Fightful]

Vlad took to X today to accuse Booker of being a liar. The 50-year-old Ukrainian-American shared a screenshot of their direct messages, showing Booker was excited to do the interview in 2020. Vlad claimed Booker came to his studio, but the interview never happened because he was running late.

"Booker T is lying. Booker was excited to do VladTV and was at the studio with our cameraman. I ran late that day, which is why the interview never happened. Here is the DM of the conversation in 2020," DJ Vlad wrote with the screenshot below.

Booker T and Swerve Strickland have not responded to Vlad as of this writing. Some of Vlad's wrestling interviews include Mark Henry, Ken Shamrock, Maven, New Jack, and Jake Roberts.

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Booker T reveals Swerve Strickland's in-person response

The public debacle between Swerve Strickland and Booker T continues to play out over social media and on podcasts. While addressing the recent in-person confrontation he had with Strickland, Booker revealed on his Hall of Fame podcast how the AEW star responded to the aforementioned criticism.

"I can tell you this, [during Swerve's in-person response to me] he never said that he didn’t get played. He never said that and that right there spoke volumes to me. It’s not really about what he said, I just wanted to let him know how disappointed I was in him. I just wanted to let him know how disappointed I was in him for going out there," Booker T said. [H/T to Fightful]

After addressing Swerve Strickland, Booker defended his record when it comes to dealing with racism. He reiterated how he does not see the controversial segment with Vince McMahon and John Cena as being a racial issue.