Jerry Lawler Happy for Hulk Hogan’s Return
On a recent edition of his Dinner With the King podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Jerry Lawler and cohost Glenn Moore discussed Hulk Hogan returning to WWE at last week’s Crown Jewel event. Below are some highlights and audio from the show discussing the event and Hulk Hogan (transcript via Michael McClead).
Lawler on being glad about Hulk Hogan’s return: “I was really glad to see that phase of Hulk Hogan’s life come full circle and be brought back into the WWE and restored into the Hall of Fame and all that stuff because that was just a shame that that all happened to begin with. I’ve known Terry since the beginning of his career and the things that were said about him were just, they were just not true. He’s a good guy. He’s always been a good guy….he was the face of this business for a long long time and still to be, so I was glad to see Hulk coming back and it looks like he’ll be doing some stuff at WrestleMania and being a part of the WWE family once again.”
Lawler’s thoughts on Crown Jewel: “[Talking to Glenn Moore] You were right when you led off with this that Crown Jewel received a lot of backlash and once again, just oh my gosh, it’s political correctness gone wild and what we’ve talked about so many times is everybody has the voice now with so much social media out there and everybody wants to have their voice heard. The show itself was apparently a good show. … So anyway, anything you do is gonna offend somebody and they’ve got a voice now [social media] to sorta be heard.”
Lawler on WWE doing business in Saudi Arabia: “That’s the way things have been since the beginning of time. Everybody thinks that everybody else should think the way they think and it’s not that way. The people in Saudi Arabia – it’s a different culture, it’s a different lifestyle. Everything is different from the way we are, but we think all of a sudden, if we have any deals with them that they should think and do like we do. It’s not gonna happen, but by the same token, I think the WWE working in Saudi Arabia and taking some of our Western Values, I think it can really make a major difference and I’m not just talking about entertainment or wrestling. I’m talking about a major difference in the way the Saudis treat women and females. I think that the fact that Renee Young getting to go over there is something that years ago would have been unheard of.”
Lawler on why he thinks what happened in the show and Renee Young doing commentary is a great start: “I do too and the very unfortunate thing that happened with the reporter from Saudi Arabia being killed at the Consulate, very very unfortunate, but that’s one of the things again that their way of life is totally different from ours. You’re talking about a country over there that in the past, if you stole something they cut your hand off. If you looked at somebody else’s wife, BOOM, it’s like the death penalty. We think that it’s totally wrong and things need to change and I think that working with them, if you just shy away from them and never have any interaction with them, nothing’s gonna change, they’re gonna always stay that way. If we could bring our values into play over there, I think it can’t do anything, but help. I don’t think there should be any backlash on that thing. It’s all good.”
