Dinner With the King Recap – Lawler’s Secret for Staying Young, Addressing Top 10 Lists, Lawler’s Impact on RAW’s History, More!

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

Moore mentions that he’ll be turning 35 years old next week. Lawler wishes him an early happy birthday and jokes that getting old sucks. He notes that in order to combat getting old you need to continue to do the things that make you happy. He adds, “you don’t stop playing because you get old, you get old because you stop playing.”

Lawler mentioned that he ran into a couple of his old friends at a Comic-Con this past weekend, William Shatner and Lou Ferrigno. He still can’t believe how fantastic Shatner looks at 87 years of age. He recalls Shatner getting booed by WWE fans when Shatner inducted him into the WWE Hall of Fame years ago. Shatner was forced to read a lengthy speech written for him by WWE, and Lawler wishes WWE would have just let him improvise on the stage that night.

Lawler mentions that his ex-girlfriend, Lauren accompanied him to the show this past weekend. He notes that it’s a complicated situation at the moment and they’re trying to work out their differences. He ensures there’s no hate between them whatsoever.

Lawler informs that he stumbled on an interesting book recently called the “WWE Book of Top 10s”. This book presents multiple top 10 lists across several categories and Lawler found some of them quite interesting. He decides to touch on a few of them, starting with the Top 10 announcers which were listed as follows:

1. Jim Ross
2. Gordon Solie
3. Bobby Heenan
4. “Mean” Gene Okerlund
5. Jerry “The King” Lawler
6. Michael Cole
7. Gorilla Monsoon
8. Joey Styles
9. Howard Finkle
10. Lillian Garcia

Lawler notes that he has recently heard that Howard Finkle’s health is not good, adding that he might have had a stroke but he can’t confirm that.

The book went on to list the Top 10 venues. Madison Square Garden topped the list and the ECW Arena came in at number 2. Full Sail University made the Top 10 as well but the Midsouth Coliseum wasn’t in the top 10 at all which really bothered Lawler.

The Top 10 Ring Gear Accessories included Razor Ramon’s toothpick, Lawler’s crown and Charlotte Flair’s robe. Somehow Ric Flair’s robes didn’t make the list, but The Road Warriors’ shoulder pads came in at #1. Lawler jokes that he should have filled all 10 spots in the “Top 10 Insults” category, but he had just one listing which he can’t even remember saying. The #1 spot in this category went to Vince McMahon for his insult to Shane which was, “I’ll never forgive your mother for giving birth to you.”

There was a “Top 10 Dominant Champions” category in the book. The two obvious choices in this category, Brock Lesnar and Goldberg, came in at #5 and #6 respectively. Lawler even made the list at #4 ahead of both Lesnar and Goldberg for his multiple Championship wins prior to joining WWE. John Cena came in at #2 and in a somewhat surprising turn of events, Edge came in at #1.

The last Top 10 category that Lawler speaks about is the Top 10 Wrestling Royalty. He notes that several memorable characters were listed here such as King Mable, King Harley Race, Owen The King of Harts, Stephanie McMahon the “Billion Dollar Princess”, King Booker, and Macho King Randy Savage. However, not surprisingly Lawler himself was listed at #1.

Lawler also mentions that WWE’s RAW 25 book is a great read. After flipping through the book he couldn’t believe how prominently he was featured in the first 25 years of RAW. There’s no denying that Lawler was a prominent character over the first 25 years of RAW, specifically his feud with Bret Hart and his memorable commentary during the attitude era.

That sums up this week’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!