Two-time WWE Hall of Famer Booker T recently took to an episode of his “Hall Of Fame” podcast, where he talked about a number of topics including being surprised the company didn’t renew fellow WWE Hall of Famer Jerry “The King” Lawler’s broadcasting deal.
Booker T said, “I didn’t see that coming. I didn’t see waking up this morning and opening up the phone, and the first thing I see is ‘Jerry Lawler no longer a part of WWE.’ Just because he’s been a part of the fabric of WWE for so long, man. And that’s just evolution, I think that’s just chang. And that’s something that’s going to happen for just about all of us, of course.”
“But I just feel like, probably with the change of the guard, it probably happened a little bit sooner than it probably would have happened. You know, just because Jerry has been a part of this family for so long. But you know, there again man, Jerry is a survivor. I don’t think you’ll have to worry about Jerry at all. Probably got so much money stacked up in some safe somewhere. The rumor with Jerry that always had an exit strategy, you know. Definitely, like I said, we’ll miss him. And I’m sure I see Jerry down a lot.”
On WWE needing to capitalize on Jey Uso’s momentum by making him a champion:
“I don’t think that’s the way you run your promotion. I just don’t. You know, You don’t do what the people want all the time. I’m just saying, that it’s just me. Should he be a champion? Perhaps. I’m not gonna say he shouldn’t be a champion or anything like that, but I’m not talking about Jey in general at all. I’m just talking about, you know, overall. You’re gonna get a lot of guys that’s gonna be hot. If you got an indie promotion, you say, ‘Yeah, let’s put the rocket on him.’ You know, if it’s Reality of Wrestling, you say, ‘Let’s put the rocket on him,’ because we trying to think about our crowd and whatnot.”
“But when you got a company like that, you got so many guys that are hot. You know, you just can’t think about putting the title on a guy when he’s hot. It’s Jake “The Snake.” Jake The Snake was always hot. And I don’t think you need to title him for him to still be hot. So, I think that’s something you know, one could say, ‘Yeah.’ One could say, ‘Let’s wait,’ one could say ‘No.’ it’s just one of those types of things. You gotta do it when it’s the right time.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)