JERRY LAWLER TALKS ABOUT QUITTING, VINCE, HEYMAN, TAZZ AND MORE

by BJ Bethel 3/30/2001

Jerry Lawler was a guest on Chairshots Radio, hosted by "Hot" Rod Siciliano and "Babyface" Brent Fusaro. Chairshots can be heard every week on Thursday night between 6 and 7:30 PM on 88.1 WBLQ F.M. and is archived in its entirety on their website Chairshots.com. 

Jerry Lawler

-They talk about how RAW feels different without him out there. He says he doesn't mind Paul Heyman at all. Paul says he even knows its a struggle coming in and having to fill his shoes after J.R. and himself have been together almost 9 years.

-Still has nothing bad to say about Vince, but doesn't know him as well as he thought. Says he's a ruthless businessman and is bottom-line oriented on everything he does.

-He doesn't believe the reason that was given to him for Stacey being fired. 

-Says that J.R. told him that he went to to Vince and said that the RTC/Stacey angle had gone as far as it should and that the writers felt that if she was given anymore TV. time that she would become impossible to deal with. He then told J.R. to release her.

-Believes someone should've warned her before hand or something. Says there has never been problems with Stacey and her attitude before and no mention of it has ever been made. He says that Stacey has went above and beyond for the WWF and has done things on television that other girls have sued them over. 

-He says it isn't fair at all to compare Stacey to Rena Mero.

-One of the straws that broke the camel's back was when Lawler made his statement on his website and he put up the e-mail addresses for the creative team and the number for the WWF in Stamford. Some of the people in the WWF told him that they were trying to bring him back in but it was a lost cause because of him putting their addresses on his website. He said he was getting all this e-mail asking questions as to why he was released, and that he felt that the writers were the ones that could best answer the questions so he put their e-mail addys up. He then said that the phone number was the same phone number that you could get from information if you were to call and ask for it.

-He still has no clue as to the actual reason why Stacey was fired but has some theories on it.

-Thinks that Chyna was getting upset over Stacey being involved in the angle that she was in prior to her neck injury (RTC Angle). He knows that Stacey was pulled from an angle involving Eddie Guerrero due to Chyna.

-They talk about "Man on the Moon" and his infamous matches with Andy Kaufman. He says that wrestling Andy Kaufman was the highlight of his career. He can't believe that people still talk about it 15 years later and that wrestling a 150 pound guy would be the most notable thing he's ever done.

-He says that Andy was so good at what he did because he never let anyone in on the joke. He said that the only people that knew how good of friends him and Kaufman were was Andy and himself. He says that was never truly revealed until the movie was released.

-Doesn't know why the WWF yanked the developmental talent from Power Pro. The deal was for a $7.50 a week. They told Randy Hales that if they put Lawler on TV they were yanking all of the developmental guys from the fed and Hales told them he had to due to ratings. They informed him that they were pulling all the developmental guys out on Friday night before they were scheduled to have a live show Saturday morning. The only people he had left to use at that time was Lawler and Stacey.

-Rod reads a bit from a news column from the Torch. It talks about Brian Christopher slamming Stacey in the face with food during the Thanksgiving food fight vignette. Stacey preceded to slap Brian, who retaliated, who then kicked Brian between the legs. Lawler says the story was true. He says that even J.R. felt the whole thing was a bad idea and felt it was stupid for them to sit around for four hours waiting to shoot this thing and have everyone's clothes get ruined. 

-He says that Brian actually threw a plate of spaghetti at Stacey and it hit her square in the face. It hit her so hard that it knocked her feet out from under her. This was after she asked him not to dump food on her because she didn't want her clothes screwed up and didn't want her hair messed up.

-Brian Christopher was told by WWF management that he was being treated as a separate entity from Lawler and Stacey. He said Brian asked Shane McMahon about the situation and Shane said he didn't know enough about what happened to give him an answer on anything.

-He talks about what got him into announcing. He says he never asked to do it at all because he always enjoyed wrestling more. He says they came to him and asked him to take Randy Savage's spot due to an emergency, because Savage had just struck a deal with WCW and was leaving town.

-Says that he hasn't watched any XFL games since quitting WWFE and that he didn't even watch any of the games while he was announcing, which gets a good laugh. He says NBC will be pulling the plug on everything if they don't raise ratings dramatically because they are dragging down their total ratings for the week. 

-He says that the XFL hasn't worked the way Vince had planned it. He wanted to present pro football in the same manner that he presented Wrestlemania. NBC got cold feet quick and wanted him to be more straight up football, which kind of hung the league up in the middle making it not football enough for the football fans and not flashy enough for the wrestling fans.

-He says that Tazz does OK as an announcer. He says Tazz wishes he was wrestling badly and he considers this a demotion even though the WWF thinks its a great opportunity for him, to be on TV more and a bigger part of the show. 

-He believes Shawn Michaels could still be a draw and that more people remember him then people on the net think. He talks about HBK always having an "attitude" and it never affected how the WWF treated him. He then says something about the WWF supposedly having "attitude."

-Thinks that Vince will realize that competition is healthy and that no competition isn't healthy. He believes that is why he is doing the angle with Shane owning WCW, to create a bigger sense of competition. He says it won't work because there are too many people who read things on the internet and know the truth. He says that the business needs a strong number 2 promotion badly. 

-He's going to be doing appearances all over the country, including a big indy show at Westerly, Rhode Island High school with the MWA on April 21st. The show is for charity and will feature Mikey Whipwreck among others. There are some other ECW guys scheduled as well as some big name indy talent like Nick Richards and Fred Curry Jr. so check it out.