William Shatner Speaks About His 1995 WWE Appearance With Jerry Lawler
William Shatner was a guest on this week’s edition of the WWE Network show, The Bump. He was there to promote his new album, The Blues, but also got talking about his previous appearances on WWE programming. When asked about performing spoken word versions of WWE themes in his hilarious 2010 appearance, he claimed to have forgotten about it, jokingly saying, “Well, I’ve gone on to better things now”.
However, he had better memories of working with WWE Hall of Famer Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler when he was the guest on a ‘King’s Court’ segment in a 1995 episode of Raw. During the encounter, he took Lawler down with a monkey flip. When Evan T. Mack suggested he was taught the move, he said:
“No, see these hands, these are dangerous. I have to register these hands as instruments of death!”
He went on to say he was disappointed they didn’t show him throwing ‘The King’ out of the ring:
“Did you see that move I laid on Jerry Lawler? Incredible. You didn’t go to the part where I threw him out of the ring.” he speculated that, “Jerry’s got a reputation to hold on to, he can’t be seen to be thrown out of the ring by a mere actor.”
The former Star Trek actor was played a video message from ‘The King’, who was full of praise for the appearance:
“I just wanted to come along here and say something I haven’t had the opportunity to say in a long time. It was the greatest honour of maybe my entire career when I had you on the King’s Court talking about Tech Wars and you gave me the Captain Kirk Alien Monkey Flip!”
He also recalled the Boston Legal star inducting him into the WWE Hall of Fame:
“In 2007 you came all the way to Dearborn, Michigan and you inducted me into the Hall of Fame, and that’s where my WWE Hall of Fame ring, thanks to you, William Shatner, Captain Kirk. After all this time, I just wanted to come along and say I love you man, and I really appreciate it.”
Shatner responded by complimenting Lawler on how great he looks, saying he doesn’t know why he’s not back in the ring, but politely declined when host Kayla Braxton suggested he should get back in the ring with Lawler himself.
You can view the full interview above and the King’s Court segment on WWE.com. This week’s episode of The Bump also includes discussions with Rey Mysterio, Michelle McCool, and Shotzi Blackheart.
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