Jerry Lawler returned to WWE Television on tonight’s Smackdown Live broadcast in a King’s Court segment with Dolph Ziggler. After the show Jerry Lawler appeared on Talking Smack and it was revealed that he will be calling the 30 man Royal Rumble match on January 29th.
.@ReneeYoungWWE announces @JerryLawler will CALL the #RoyalRumble Match Jan. 29 with @MichaelCole & @WWEGraves. #TalkingSmack pic.twitter.com/kwZBhc80dW
— WWE Network (@WWENetwork) January 18, 2017
From the get go there was a feeling surrounding Jerry’s encounter with Dolph where it felt like Jerry was going to get a beatdown by the end of it.
Not only did Lawler make several quips in Dolph’s direction, but The King was also in his hometown of Memphis, and WWE is notorious for giving superstars beatdowns in their hometown. Jerry played the footage for Dolph depicting his beatdown on Kalisto, and asked Dolph what he thought about the clip, but Dolph had no response. He remained solemn and quiet.
Dolph instead turned to walk out of the ring, but Jerry made a joke about how interviewing an oil painting would be more exciting than this, and that’s when Dolph unhooked his leg from the middle rope and walked back in the ring. Dolph played his own clip of from 2012 when Ziggler gave Lawler repeated elbow drops to the chest. Dolph said that this happened a mere hours before Lawler’s infamous heart attack.
The segment ended with Dolph superkicking Lawler, which is better than a full-fledged beatdown for sure. As Jerry collected himself, JBL tumbled in the ring to check on his fallen comrade. As Dolph walked up the ramp his face looked like there was a real internal struggle and a great deal of frustration going on in the Show-Off’s head.
Two things can be concluded from this segment, Dolph is experiencing some conflict about becoming a full heel and it’s good to see Jerry Lawler back on television.
