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Joshua Caudill of CraveOnline.com recently interviewed WWE Hall of Famer Jerry “The King” Lawler, and below are a few interview highlights. You can check out the entire interview at this link.
CraveOnline: You guys did so many crazy and innovative storylines back in Memphis, like the Austin Idol and Tommy Rich head-shaving match. In your opinion, what was the craziest angle you went through with or remember being pitched?
Jerry Lawler: That was one of the reasons, why in the early 90s when ECW came along and sort of invaded the WWE, and I made the comment that ECW stood for Extremely Crappy Wrestling.
To me, it was like these guys just came along and watched all of our old Memphis tapes and went out and did what we did and then called it extreme. We were doing extreme wrestling matches in the Memphis territory before most of these guys were even born — things like the Terry Funk empty arena match or the concession stand battle in Tupelo, Mississippi.
I got ran over in the parking lot by Eddie Gilbert, but back in that day, you were under the pressure of having to put on a live event and not only a live television show every Saturday morning but had to follow it up with a live event every single Monday night in Memphis so there was a lot of pressure to try and come up with something bigger and better every single week.
CraveOnline: You have been in the business for over 40 years. Was there one guy you liked working with more than the others?
Jerry Lawler: That’s really tough to say. The cool thing about my career is that I started in 1971 and that was at a time when I was just getting started. A lot of the huge names that went back as far as the 40s, 50s, and 60s were just kind of winding up their careers. Guys like Lou Thesz, Pat O’Connor, Dick the Bruiser, the original Sheik, BoBo Brazil…all of these guys I got to wrestle.
I had a tag team match against Lou Thesz and Pat O’Connor with the world heavyweight champion ex-boxer as the special referee. I got to wrestle everybody from those names all the way up through Terry Funk, Dory Funk, Harley Race, and all of the NWA champions, Ric Flair, and then moving on up to guys like Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, and then John Cena, Randy Orton, CM Punk, and all these guys until I had a match the night before he started in NXT, I wrestled Kevin Owens in a piledriver match up in New York in a 20 minute long match and the next day he started in NXT.
Nick was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and lived there until the age of 18, when he decided to pack his flack jacket and move to New York City.
