Jerry Lawler Reflects on Busting Open Duke “The Dumpster” Droese

Jerry Lawler discussed moments from his career on the latest episode of his Dinner With the King podcast. Highlights are below, per WZ:

On having to give a public apology after busting open Duke “The Dumpster” Droese: “I really opened things up up there when I first got there. I was the first guy to have blood, got a bloody nose. First time anybody saw blood on WWE and I had to actually publicly apologize because I had hit this guy. I had just started and coming up from Memphis, we would hit everybody with everything including the kitchen sink and all of a sudden I get up there and I see this guy I’m wrestling and he’s got a trash can out the ring and I just wrestled The Moon Dogs and we’d buy ten trash cans before every match to hit each other with. That was just my first natural reaction. I see the guys trash can. I go over, grab it, and hit him over the head with it. Oh my gosh, they went crazy. It was like, ‘You literally have to go out there and publicly apologize for that kind of violence on TV.”

On seeing Vince McMahon cry: “I can’t tell you how many years ago it’s been. I don’t know where I got the idea from, but anyway I did a portrait, a big nice portrait for Vince. It was like a triple portrait, a portrait where Vince was in the middle, on the left of Vince was his son Shane and on the right of Vince was his father Vince, Sr. and so I did this portrait, worked on it a long time. It really turned out great. I had it all framed up and I took it to one of the Monday Night RAWs and I had it all wrapped up and anyway I saw Stephanie and I unwrapped it and she saw it and said, ‘Oh my gosh, Vince is gonna cry,’ and I went, ‘What?’ She said, ‘I’m telling you, he’s gonna cry when he sees that.’ I said, ‘No, no way.’ She said, ‘Mark my words.’ Anyway she went out and a little bit later I saw Vince and I said, ‘Vince, I’ve got something I want to give to you, if you’ve got a minute.’ So I had him come into my room there and I opened the portrait up and he immediately looked at it and his hand came up and covered his mouth and he turned away like immediately. His hand came up. He turned away and walked over into a corner and he just stood there for maybe a couple of minutes and then he like slowly came back and looked at the picture again. I think it brought tears to his eyes. I was shocked and then he hugged me and said how much it meant to him and all that sort of stuff. That was like the one moment that I ever really saw from Vince that kind of emotion. I think it’s still hanging in his office.”