The Honky Tonk Man On Why He Doesn’t Watch WWE Raw & Reveals Who Came Up With His Guitar Gimmick

The Honky Tonk Man recently spoke with wrestlinginc.com, and spoke about hitting people with his guitar and why he doesn’t watch Raw…

On never hurting anyone with the guitar shot: “I’m very proud of the fact that I never injured anyone,” Honky said. “No matter what Jake Roberts says, I know Mick Foley wrote in his book that I injured Jake Roberts and that’s the one time that I picked the phone up and called another wrestler and said, ‘Why did you ever say something that negative about me without ever asking me?’… He didn’t check with me, he checked with Jake. Jake probably doesn’t even remember doing the interview, he might not even remember getting hit with the guitar. But I took pride in never injuring anyone with that.”

On not liking to hit people with his guitar: “I didn’t particularly like doing it, I don’t do them anymore,” he said. “Everywhere I go promoters want me to do it and it’s part of, ‘No, if you want to hit somebody or be hit with something, let one of your guys do it. I’m just here as an observer, because when I get on a plane and head back to Phoenix, I don’t need to be coming back from some kind of legal problem because someone got injured or some kid out there [got hit with a splinter].'”

On who came up with his guitar gimmick: “WWE didn’t give me that [gimmick] hitting people with the guitar. I was down in Southeastern Wrestling in Birmingham, Pensacola and Mobile working for the Fuller family, Robert and Ron Fuller,” Honky explained. “When they saw me with the jumpsuit, Robert said, ‘Man, do you know how to play a guitar?’ I said, ‘No, not really.’ He said, ‘I’m gonna bring one next week for TV and you hit Bob Armstrong with the guitar and we’ll be off and running.’ He brought this old guitar that he found somewhere, I hit Bob Armstrong and away we went, hitting people with the guitar. That’s how it all started, it was never my idea.”

When asked about Elias & revealing why he doesn’t watch Raw: “I’ve not really seen a lot of this Elijah (Elias) thing because I’ll be perfectly honest with you, I don’t sit through three hours of anything,” he said. “I get all my information from Wrestling Inc., and people like that, websites I’ll read every day and check the news.”