Dinner With the King Recap – Shooting Down Graves/Booker T Heat, Origin of WWE’s “Zeb Colter”, Relationship with The Honky Tonk Man, More!

Lawler is joined on today’s show by his co-host Glenn Moore.

Moore mentions that Booker T and Corey Graves had some “heat” which each other last week, even though he didn’t believe it at all. Lawler shoots down these rumours, mentioning that he never believed there was any heat between those two men for a second. He points out that there was similar rumours regarding him and Graves when Graves made his transition to the main roster, and there simply was no truth to those rumours.

Lawler points out that it can be very difficult to call matches in a 3-man booth, not to mention the occasional 4-man booth. It’s very easy to talk over one another, creating friction at the table when the focus should be on calling the action in the ring. He adds that Michael Cole is great at “directing traffic”, making sure that all the other commentators at the table can get their thoughts in without everyone jumping all over each other.

Moore likes the job Graves has done since coming up to the main roster, but he still feels that all the commentators need to show more personality like Lawler and Jim Ross did back in the day. Lawler admits that when he watches old shows with him and Ross on commentary, he’s blown away by Ross’ enthusiasm and the way he delivers his words.

A listener writes into the show and asks Lawler about his relationship with The Honky Tonk Man, his first cousin. They saw each other a lot as children, but they were never really close since they lived in different parts of Tennessee. Once Honky Tonk Man got into the wrestling business they saw each other even less. Eventually Lawler started to read some bad things that Honky Tonk Man was saying about him, and that made him believe that their relationship had deteriorated for some reason.

After a while, Honky Tonk Man contacted him and told him that he was saying those things to start an angle, where they’d be able to claim there was family drama and they’d eventually pay it off with a big match where they’d both make some money. Lawler still isn’t really sure if that’s true or not, but he recently saw him at a convention and they talked, so things appear to be going okay between them right now.

Another listener writes into the show and asks Lawler about working with “Dirty” Dutch Mantel. Lawler says he has lots of stories from his time working with Mantel, but he’ll never forget the time he shaved the state of Texas into Mantel’s back hair. He says that Mantel has to be the hairiest wrestler he’s ever seen.

Lawler adds that Mantel arrived in WWE as Zeb Colter a few years ago, and Lawler was actually in the creative meeting when the “Zeb Colter” name came about. Ann Coulter was a polarizing political figure at the time, and Lawler thought since Zeb’s role in WWE was a political one, the Colter name would be good. WWE officials agreed and that name stuck.

Another listener writes in the show and asks Lawler about some of the riots that would take place in Memphis due to Memphis Wrestling shows. He recalls one night when the riots after the show almost got them kicked out of Memphis altogether. He talked Jerry Jarrett into booking him in a hair versus hair match against Handsome Jimmy Valiant, who was despised by the Memphis crowd.

The crowd thought they were going to see Valiant’s head shaved that night, but when his music hit he walked out on crutches holding a doctor’s note. The crowd roared in displeasure and as Lawler turned around, Valiant struck Lawler with his crutch and began cutting his hair with scissors. The crowd went insane and began kicking out the glass doors of the Coliseum. Other fans began lighting the chairs on fire. This riot made the local news and almost got them kicked out of their contract at the Colesium.

James Ellsworth calls into the show to promote this Friday’s match between him and Lawler. Lawler goes into full attitude era-heel mode, making fun of Ellsworth and guaranteeing that he’ll be victorious on Friday night. Ellsworth says he has a lot of respect for Lawler, but any man with two hands has a fighting chance.

That sums up today’s episode of Dinner With the King. You can listen to the show yourself anytime here, and I’ll catch ya next week for another recap!