Ask 411 Wrestling: How Much Of Jerry Lawler’s WWE Character Was Authentic?

Welcome guys, gals, and gender non-binary pals . . . through Hel Stryer and brimstone, it’s Ask 411 Wrestling!

I am your party host, Ryan Byers, and I am here to answer some of your burning inquiries about professional wrestling. If you have one of those queries searing a hole in your brain, feel free to send it along to me at [email protected]. Don’t be shy about shooting those over – the more, the merrier.

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Ned is earning his stripes:

Which WWE/WWF wrestlers ‘made’ the most main event guys/champions? Mick Foley obviously made HHH. The Rock gets credit for Kurt Angle, Brock Lesnar, and Y2J. I’ll leave it up to you on your definition.

I was a bit surprised by this answer, but when I started looking through the history of the company, I landed on . . .

John Cena.

Though this is somewhat subjective, I would argue that the Doctor of Thuganomics “made” four wrestlers in WWE, those being:

Edge
Sheamus
Daniel Bryan
Kevin Owens

Admittedly, Edge already had somewhat of a name from his long-time tag team with Christian, but it was his Money in the Bank cash-in and subsequent rivalry with Cena that turned him into a main event star. Sheamus had a rocket strapped to his ass almost as soon as he debuted, and it was Cena who was his first conquest at the top of the card. Owens is the most clear-cut case, as he came straight out of NXT into a feud with the future Never Seen 17. Also, I can see some protesting the inclusion of Daniel Bryan’s name on this list because he had an extensive career prior to working with Cena, but I truly do believe that the Champ’s willingness to work with Bryan and treat him like an equal is what put Danielson over the top as a WWE main eventer, regardless of what he had previously done elsewhere.

I’d also like to say that Mick Foley deserves a bit more credit than the question gave him. In addition to him making Triple H, I would also give him credit for the Rock, owing to their 1998/1999 feud, as well as Randy Orton for obvious reasons.

James doesn’t want you to try this at home:

Can you elaborate on what protocols are normally in place a wrestler may go through if he/she becomes injured while performing in an arena with a larger promotion such as WWE, TNA or AEW? Will larger companies like those have a doctor or paramedic on site to assist if a performer receives a potential concussion, or have a private ambulance staged to transport a performer to a local hospital in case? Also while on the topic, have any performers ever elaborated on how difficult it may be trying to use an in-network insurance provider since they are constantly traveling throughout the country/countries?

Yes, the major wrestling promotions keep medical professionals on staff who tour with the company. Examples of this would include Dr. Chris Amann, who became infamous for his civil lawsuit against CM Punk, and Francois Petit, a chiropractor and physical therapist who was a fixture in the Attitude Era and also played Sub-Zero in the first-ever Mortal Kombat movie owing to his life experience as a marital artist.

Ambulances are also present at major wrestling shows, which in some instances is mandated by state law where regulations regarding pro wrestling are still on the books.

Regarding health insurance, any half-decent policy is going to provide emergency coverage for folks who are injured or who have an acute illness while traveling out of state. For that reason, wrestlers more often than not would not have issues with providers who see them for injuries being out of network. Those sorts of problems arise more frequently with routine, non-emergency medical care.

And, when we’re talking about international travel, most developed countries have significantly better access to healthcare than the United States, so it’s a non-issue.

Keith is donning the stripes:

Is Charles Robinson the longest active referee in the business?

As far as major promotions in the United States are concerned, the answer to the question is “yes.” Charles Robinson first started refereeing in 1995 for the Pro Wrestling Federation, an indy group based in the Carolinas and run by George South and Gary “The Italian Stallion” Sabaugh.

Interestingly, Lil Naitch has only got about one year of seniority over fellow Smackdown ref Dan Engler, who started reffing in the USWA in 1996 before first gaining fame on a national stage in TNA, where he adopted the name Rudy Charles.

However, if we take things international, there are officials who have as much as if not a fair amount more experience than Robinson and Engler.

Tying Charles Robinson is New Japan Pro Wrestling referee Marty Asami, who also officiated his first match in 1995, though he began with IWA Japan, the deathmatch group that gave us the infamous Terry Funk versus Cactus Jack bouts.

Pro Wrestling NOAH referee Shuichi Nishigana first stepped into the ring in 1990 as part of the All Japan Pro Wrestling roster. Of course, he transitioned to NOAH when that company was first formed in the early 2000s.

Clocking in with two years more experience than Nishigana is current NJPW ref Hiroyuki “Red Shoes” Unno. Like Nishigana, Unno first served as a referee in All Japan, leaving in 1990 for the upstart Super World of Sports group and then bouncing around between several promotions before landing in New Japan in 2001. He’s also seen one of his sons become a wrestler for the promotion, that being Shota Umino.

Even Unno is not the most experienced referee still in the game. That distinction goes to . . .

Kyohei Wada.

Wada’s first involvement in wrestling was driving a truck that delivered the ring to All Japan shows, at which time he was noticed by promotion owner Giant Baba and recruited into refereeing, which he began doing all the way back in 1974. He did stick with AJPW when most of the rest of the company split off to form NOAH, though he eventually left in 2011 due to his distaste for a situation in which wrestler Nobukazu Hirai was legitimately jumped by wrestler TARU, leading Hirai to suffer a stroke that ultimately ended his career. Wada was a freelancer for two years after this, reffing anywhere that would have him. Two years later, he did return to AJPW when the management in charge during the Hirai/TARU incident departed. He’s continued with the promotion ever since, participating in matches while headed towards his 72nd birthday later this year.

Charles supports his local humane society:

How much of Jerry Lawler’s shtick (Puppies! HLA! Etc.) in the 90s was authentic or from him as the creative force and how much do you think was forced on him from creative making him be a character? There were all those rumors about him with younger girls and there were the obviously ones we know happened like with the Kat, so how come he has been relatively unscathed from any really sort of consequence all these years later?

As many people, including Mick Foley, have said, the most successful characters in wrestling are the real person turned up to eleven. As a result, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn at all that Jerry Lawler likes looking at attractive women (as virtually all heterosexual men do) and commenting on them. I’m sure he exaggerated that for television, just like Steve Austin wasn’t as miserable of an SOB as he portrayed and just as the Rock wasn’t as smug of an asshole as he played on TV.

Regarding rumors about him and younger women/girls, he was charged with statutory rape in 1993 in Kentucky (which is why he missed that year’s Survivor Series). He denied any wrongdoing and the charges were ultimately dismissed, though the King pled guilty to harassing a witness in connection with the case. In recent years, even the allegation might have sunk a public figure’s career even absent the lack of a conviction, but this was a different time and things like this were more likely to be swept under the rug.

Aside from that, there is no credible allegation against Lawler that I’m aware of. There were some significant age gaps in his relationships, but there is a world of difference between dating a fully adult woman a couple of decades your junior and pursuing children.

After this answer, Bryan will know his meme:

We all know the greatest promo of all time was when Jumpin’ Jeff Farmer threatened to go “FULL FORCE “ on Motley Cruz. What I want to know is what fed was that from? Because I followed the Apter Mags and never heard of him. And how did only recently get YouTube views?

First, in the off chance there is anybody reading this column who has no idea what Bryan is talking about, let’s show you the promo he is referring to:

I am guessing that if you are enough of a prowres nerd to read Ask 411, you are enough of a prowres nerd to have seen this multiple times by now but, if not, just know that in certain corners of the IWC it has been a heavily referenced meme for quite a while.

The promo in question is being cut by a fellow named Jumpin’ Jeff Farmer while standing next to announcer Buddy Lee.

(To be clear, this is not the same Jeff Farmer who had a variety gimmicks in WCW in the 1990s, the most notable of which was nWo Sting.)

“Where does the promo come from?” asks Bryan.

The answer is International Pro Wrestling. There are several groups who have had that name or some variation on it over the years, but to narrow things down further, this IPW was an indy group that ran shows in Arkansas in the 1980s and was owned and promoted by “Wild” Bill Ash. Ash was a journeyman wrestler going back as far as the 1960s.

The reason that the Jeff Farmer promo from IPW managed to circulate among wrestling fans on the internet is that the promotion scored a local television show, several episodes of which survived on VHS and eventually found their way on to YouTube through channels like Honeydew Wilkins, where Farmer’s video as over 1.4 million views . . . and that’s not the only place that it’s been uploaded. Most likely, the clip has been able to persist because it’s either not clear who owns the rights to the video these days or the people who own it don’t care about enforcing those rights.

Interestingly, Jumpin’ Jeff went so viral that, in 2023, independent wrestler Gregory Iron tracked him down and interviewed him for an episode of his podcast. In the episode, Farmer drops an interesting tidbit when he says that, though the IPW shows online are mostly labeled as being from 1990, his involvement with the company was in the mid-to-late 1980s. This means that the footage would have been held back for quite some time before airing. Farmer was asked why this was the case, and he had no idea.

Night Wolf the Wise is a personality hire:

Who are some of the most famous wrestlers who were not that good at wrestling but thanks to their charisma, they became huge stars?

We could probably go on for days with this one, but here are a few quick thoughts off the top of my head . . .

The Ultimate Warrior: Granted, his physique and push also had a ton to do with him getting over, but his weird charisma was much more a factor than his in-ring ability.

Sid: Name a good Sid match against somebody other than Shawn Michaels, Bret Hart, or Chris Benoit. Exactly. You can’t do it. Yet, people were drawn in by the man’s intensity.

Michael Hayes: Hayes wasn’t an embarrassment in the ring, but he was definitely a step behind a lot of his territorial brethren and hid it with his character work.

How do you like Tyler from Winnipeg now?

Higher or lower: Did Hardcore Holly gross $3 million in his wrestling career?

I don’t know that there’s any way to verify this, but if I had to make an educated guess, I would say that he did. Raven’s WWF contract from the year 2000 is freely available online due to its being disclosed in legal proceedings, and during the later years of that contract, his downside guarantee was $200,000.00. My understanding is that typically wrestlers made more than their downsides during that period thanks to factors such as merchandising and licensing. Even if you didn’t have a hot t-shirt, you still got good money from things like action figures and video games.

Holly was typically on at least the same level of the company as Raven, and though he was with the promotion during its lean years in the mid-1990s, he was also there during the boom period and afterwards. He also had a fifteen-year run with the promotion all told.

To make $3 million, he would have to have averaged $200,000.00 in annual income over that decade-and-a-half in WWF/WWE, which seems reasonable.

That does it for this week. We’ll return in seven-ish days, and, as always, you can contribute your questions by emailing [email protected]. You can also leave questions in the comments below, but please note that I do not monitor the comments as closely as I do the email account, so emailing is the better way to get things answered.