Steve Carrier on February 9, 2019
Lawler is joined on today’s show by Glenn Moore.
Lawler notes that while he may have won hundreds of Championships during his career, if he won that much that means he lost that many times as well. Back in those days he would often work with the same person all week, like Eddie Gilbert for example, and the Title would switch hands multiple times. They would be booking those shows right up until the minute they started, because often times they wouldn’t know if certain performers were going to show up.
Lawler informs that he’ll be appearing at Starrcast 2 in the coming months. He had a lot of fun at the first Starrcast but the live episode of Dinner With the King didn’t work out as planned because their announced guest, Terry Funk, didn’t show up.
Moore notes that The Undertaker will start to accept bookings this summer for private events and he’s charging $25,000 for one hour of his time. Moore thinks that might be too expensive, but Lawler isn’t so sure about that. Entertainment prices are through the roof nowadays, and Lawler recently paid the classic rock band, Starship, $35,000 to play at his bar.
Lawler says his appearance rate is a lot lower than Undertakers, and he’s available for birthdays or special events. He jokes that he’ll show up at the opening of an envelope if the price is right.
Moore asks Lawler what happens when a promotion wants to book a talent as a heel, but the crowd starts cheering for them. Lawler says that started in wrestling many years ago, and he thinks The Road Warriors were the first heels to get cheered. With their ferocious in-ring style and their awesome ring gear, they were simply too cool to boo.
In pop culture, Lawler thinks this mindset started with Muhammed Ali. Ali was so cocky and arrogant which are usually heel characteristics, but he won all of his fights so it became hard to cheer against him. At a certain point, all his cocky mic work became cool.
As the attitude era began in WWE, “cool heels” became very common. DX, NWO, Shawn Michaels and even Steve Austin were all heels that fans gravitated to. Once the locker room saw this, a lot of the heels started looking for those reactions, but this angered a lot of the babyfaces.
Lawler notes that if you’re truly doing your job as a heel you’ll find a way to get booed. At live events in particular, heels who are getting cheered can easily grab a mic and try to turn the audience.
Lawler informs that he recently wrestled a match against James Ellsworth in Ellsworth’s home town. Ellsworth was receiving some cheers there which was no surprise in his hometown, but Lawler was still getting cheers as well due to his lengthy career and the fact that he’s been on WWE television for decades. Lawler quickly grabbed the mic and began insulting the audience and quickly turned everyone against him, making Ellsworth the overwhelming babyface.
Lawler says he always loved working as a heel, and enjoying what you’re doing helped to make up for a lack of merchandise sales. Babyfaces obviously make more money through merchandise sales than heels because everyone wants to align themselves with promotion’s popular stars.
Steve Austin in particular was too cool to boo during the attitude era. WWE quickly realized this and flipped him babyface and entered him into a feud with Vince McMahon, spawning one of the more memorable feuds in wrestling history.
Lawler recalls McMahon wanting to blur the lines between babyface and heel during that time. At one point, a heel always had to cheat to win but McMahon wanted to change that.
Strictly from appearances, at one point you could tell a babyface and heel apart. Nowadays, most all performers look alike and it’s impossible to tell who’s a bad guy and who’s a good guy.
With the rise of social media, there are a lot of things that heels can’t say anymore. Years ago heels would do or say whatever it took to get the live audience to hate them, and they wanted the audience to be furious with them. Fans don’t ever really get angry at heels anymore.
Lawler recalls working a show one time, and there was a woman in the front row with a baby in her arms. Lawler said, “Shut your mouth, and when I come back out here next time I’ll bring a banana for that monkey!” She was furious, but you could say things like that to get heat back then.
Lawler thinks there’ll be history in the making at WrestleMania this year, with women main-eventing the show for the first time. Lawler thinks now is the time, and he thinks it’ll be cool. Moore notes with some big stars out of action, Roman Reigns in particular, this might be the year we see women in the main event.
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!
February 9, 2019 10:18 am
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