Jerry Lawler is joined on today’s show by his co-host, Glenn Moore.
Lawler informs that after his work was done as part of the Survivor Series kickoff show this past Sunday, he went backstage and watched the PPV with The Undertaker and Kane, who were backstage at the event. He says that John Cena walked past the room at one point, backed up, looked in and said, “That’s cool”, and walked away again. Lawler agrees that it was pretty cool to sit and watch the show with those two guys.
Moore asks Lawler if he thinks we’ll see The Undertaker return to the ring, and Lawler informs that Undertaker looked really good this past Sunday. After last year’s WrestleMania Lawler thought we had seen the last of Undertaker, but after seeing how good he looked on Sunday, Lawler thinks we’ll see ‘Taker return to the ring at some point.
Lawler speaks about the attitude of some fans who are unhappy with WWE spotlighting older talents like Triple H and Kurt Angle. He says the wrestling business relies on older talents to usher in the new wave of Superstars. It’s important that well known names like Angle and Triple H are kept strong so that when it comes time for them to put over a young, budding star, the torch being passed will mean even more.
Lawler says that wins and losses don’t matter at all in professional wrestling. He believes the characters and the stories they’re involved in are what draws people into the building. If everything revolved around wins and holding Championships, there’d be a limit on how many successful talents each roster could have. The key is to make fans care about the wrestlers whether they win or not.
Moore asks Lawler if Vince McMahon and WWE used to script an entire year of programming, starting at WrestleMania and working their way backwards. Lawler informs that he has heard those rumours, but he never saw anything like that during his time in the company. He believes it’s hard to make that type of a plan because you can base the entire thing around a certain performer, only for him to get injured and then everything would be ruined.
Speaking about working as a commentator in WWE, Lawler says that it has become normal now for the commentators to go live for RAW and Smackdown Live without their run sheets. There are so many last minute changes happening that most of the time the commentators are working on the fly. Lawler adds that he had no idea that John Cena was going to propose to Nikki Bella at last year’s WrestleMania, and that’s just one example of the commentators not knowing everything that’s going to happen.
With Survivor Series occurring this past weekend, Moore asks Lawler about Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart’s current relationship status. Lawler thinks Hart has put a lot of the past drama behind him and has let bygones be bygones, but he doesn’t think they speak regularly and they’re probably not best friends by any stretch of the imagination.
Speaking about the 5-man booth at this past weekend’s Survivor Series, Lawler says he thought those 5 men handled that difficult situation pretty well. Having 5 separate people struggling to find time to talk could lead to some sticky situations, but he thought those 5 men managed to keep the broadcast fairly clean.
In Lawler’s opinion, today’s commentators seem to lack passion in their voice while calling the action. If you listen to old broadcasts featuring Jim Ross, there’s a noticeable excitement and passion in his voice and he thinks today’s commentators are simply afraid to take risks. Some people say that WWE is PG now but he thinks they’ve gone even further, entering into PC territory (politically correct).
Like most other companies, WWE is terrified of saying or doing something that might offend someone. He looks at the women’s division in specific, and he informs that commentators can’t call the female talents beautiful or sexy anymore. They’re told to empower the women by calling them strong which is obviously great, but Lawler thinks not being able to call them sexy or beautiful is a double standard because the women continue to dress in skimpy, tight close with their breasts half exposed.
Lawler suspects that WWE Network’s International subscriber numbers are going to increase in the coming months. If that does indeed happen, he thinks WWE could eventually become self sufficient, airing RAW and Smackdown Live on the Network. He does point out that WWE needs to launch a marketing campaign for the Network, getting it in front of as many people as possible.
That sums up this week’s episode of Dinner With the King. You can listen to the show yourself anytime here, and I’ll catch ya next week for another recap!
