Jerry Lawler says his controversial remark was meant to poke fun at himself and being racist was the furthest thing from his mind.
On the latest episode of his podcast, Lawler addressed his use of the line “ramen noodle moonsault” during RAW two weeks ago and explained why he made the remark. Lawler’s barb was featured on the April 13 episode of RAW but it was later edited out of the replay broadcast. Lawler made the comment during a match between Akira Tozawa and Austin Theory; he called a somersault senton off of the steps by Tozawa a “ramen noodle moonsault” and many people thought Lawler was out of line in using a racial stereotype as a gag.
“Are we not going to talk about the elephant in the room there from last week? I said the word ‘ramen noodles’ on RAW, and next thing you know, the internet blows up and I’m a big racist. Let me go back and explain what I was doing and why being racist was the furthest thing from my mind.”
Lawler wanted to provide some context and recalled working with Mauro Ranallo in WWE in 2016, and praised Ranallo’s superior knowledge of wrestling moves and the vernacular. Lawler says he initially thought some of the names Ranallo mentioned were made up, so he wrote a list of crazy names and would work them in as ‘devil’s advocate’ to Ranallo. He added that his past commentary partners had chemistry with him and would know to tell him he didn’t know what he’s talking about, and it’s going to take time to develop that with the new commentary team.
“With Byron [Saxton] and Tom [Phillips], we don’t have that [chemistry] yet, we’ve only been working together a short time. So when I said that, they didn’t even acknowledge it. It just went out there and they just kept talking, I didn’t think anything about it either.
That’s where me, Bobby Heenan, Jesse Ventura, and all of the heel commentators, you do that sort of stuff and the joke is on yourself. The people out there say, ‘look at that idiot, he doesn’t even know what he’s talking about and he thinks he does.’ That’s where the joke was.”
