Jerry Lawler received a ton of heat this week and not for the usual wrestling reasons. After Fastlane, Lawler appeared on the RAW Talk show and dropped what many felt was a fat joke at Nia Jax’s expense.
Lawler said about Nia: “She got hit by a car the other day and it took three surgeons to remove it.” Many believed this was a fat shaming comment towards the female superstar and they blasted the Hall of Famer for it on Twitter.
Videos by PopCulture.com
Speaking on the debut episode of his podcast, Dinner With The King, The King defended the remark and told offended fans to “get a life.”
He said, according to Cageside Seats: “Well, you know what, they need to get a life or get over it or whatever. First of all, you can’t please everybody on social media. Now with Twitter and all the social media everybody has a voice. Everybody has got a way to be heard now and anything that anybody says is going to offend somebody.
“We were talking about… Sasha Banks and Bayley came on and they were our guests, me and Renee Young, and then I was talking about the fact that Sasha Banks had gotten a victory over Nia Jax. Even Sasha Banks said something about ‘I was really fortunate considering the size difference.’ You know me, I’m a guy that I like to add a little humor to the wrestling.
“That’s been the thing that I’ve been known for over the years. It’s not brain surgery out there, it’s not life or death, it’s entertainment. So any chance I get to add a… I don’t care if it’s an old dad joke or whatever it is, a joke from the 80s, I’ll throw a joke in there.
“I was talking about the fact that Nia Jax is a big girl, I don’t know any other way to say it. She’s big, she’s like Big Show big compared to the other females on the roster. And I just said ‘you know, Nia Jax is big. She’s so big she got hit by a car the other day and it took three surgeons to remove it.’ That’s an old Rodney Dangerfield joke. It wasn’t anything meant that was saying she was fat.
“Some people came on Twitter and said ‘oh, King making fat jokes about Nia Jax.’ Well, I never said the word ‘fat.’ I don’t think she’s fat. She is big, and if you don’t think she’s big go stand next to her. So people are upset saying I was making fat jokes. Anybody who uses the word ‘fat’ that’s on them, because I didn’t.
“That’s the thing with Twitter, that’s the thing with social media: You’re not going to be able to please everybody and everybody’s got a way now to whine and complain if they say something that they even think they don’t agree with. I take that with a grain of salt and then I block ’em.”
To be fair, this was hardly the most offensive thing Lawler has ever said. Watch any of the matches he called from the Attitude Era and you’ll hear much worse. However, in the new PG, “be a star” era of the WWE, these kinds of jokes get noticed.
The King will apparently be doing commentary for at least one match at WrestleMania 33 later on this year. Don’t hold your breath for him to change his tune anytime soon.
Listen to Comicbook.com’s Over The Ropes podcast:
MORE WWE:
Related Posts
-
Alkaio Thiele as Roman, Taylor Cora as Winter, and Janice LeAnn Brown as Billie on 'Wizards Beyond Waverly Place.' Credit: Disney/Eric McCandless
