Steve Carrier on January 25, 2018
Lawler is joined on today’s show by his co-host, Glenn Moore.
When Lawler first walked back into The Manhattan Center last Monday, he quickly realized how far WWE has come in terms of what buildings they host their shows in. The building was smaller than he remembered, but that’s probably because he’s been accustomed to working in arenas for the last several years.
He had an amazing time paying tribute to the history of RAW on this show, and it was also great seeing so many of his old friends. He points out that the WWE Universe tuned in to see a lot of the legends of days gone by, and the ratings for this show did a great number for WWE. He likes to think that he and Jim Ross reuniting had at least a small part in those fans tuning into the show.
He’s pretty sure that Triple H made a call on the fly to get some of the talents from Barclay’s Center to jump in a car and make their way to Manhattan Center, because he felt like those fans needed to get more for their money. By the end of the night, Lawler thinks the fans there were pleased and satisfied with the show.
Lawler thinks the crowd would have been happier if they weren’t even shown what was happening at Barclay’s Center. He thinks the crowd there would have been happier with constant action, and the 205 Live matches certainly didn’t give the crowd what they wanted. After RAW went off the air, Seth Rollins, The Miz and Ric Flair all showed up at The Manhattan Center, and the fans got to see those stars up close and in person.
Lawler thought he and Jim Ross performed well under tough circumstances. They didn’t have a lot of preparation time prior to the event going live on air, and their monitors were much smaller than usual. He wished they would have been able to do more, but he thought the show went off fine. He informs that Ross felt somewhat uncomfortable, but he thought Ross was great.
He absolutely denies that he and Ross fell asleep during the broadcast. He informs that the now infamous picture that’s been floating around online was taken just as he leaned back to stretch out his back during a commercial break, and as Ross was texting.
Lawler admits that some things on the show felt rushed because WWE tried to squeeze all that nostalgia into the go-home episode of RAW for the Royal Rumble. If it was possible, he thinks WWE should have had the 25th anniversary of RAW next week, as to avoid having that happen on the same night as the go-home show for a major PPV.
The one thing that really bothered him about the show was the fact that there were no former Divas or female talents live at Manhattan Center. He was really hoping to see a lot of those women after all these years, and unfortunately he wasn’t able to see any of them.
He informs that he had to sneak in his ‘puppies’ line early on in the broadcast and he didn’t ask permission before hand. He points out that shortly after he said that line someone came in his ear and told him to not say anything about puppies as the show progressed.
Lawler informs that he’s going to be at the Royal Rumble on Sunday, and the plan right now is for him to work the Kickoff show and call the Men’s Rumble match. He adds that he’ll be brining his ring gear just in case, because you just never know when they’ll play your music and expect you to jump into the match.
Moore asks Lawler how much planning goes into the execution of the Royal Rumble match. Lawler informs that when you’re in one of those matches it’s impossible to remember the order of every competitor. He would just try to remember who he had to enter after, and who he had to get eliminated after. Other than that, it was basically anything goes in the ring.
Lawler talks about the announcement made by Vince McMahon today, that the XFL will be returning in 2020. He believes that the original XFL would have been a success if NBC wasn’t McMahon’s partner. He believes that NBC screwed up that league at the time, and he thinks McMahon re-launching that league on his own gives it a much greater chance to succeed.
That sums up today’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!
January 25, 2018 7:23 pm
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