Jerry “The King” Lawler recently joined Chris Jericho’s Talk In Jericho podcast to discuss his lengthy career. Lawler says he recognized that The Rock would be a star right away, but didn’t have such high expectations for Hulk Hogan. He shared a story about Hulk breaking into the wrestling business, revealing that even back then Hogan would try to get jobs for his friends. Lawler also touched base on something that came up in Hogan’s trial: A car that Jerry Jarrett had supposedly bought him.
“Hulk Hogan, he came right there and started with us. He had been playing bass guitar in a band down in Florida. Jerry Jarrett and I co-signed for his first car that he ever had when he was right there,” Lawler recalled. “He was nowhere near a polished worker yet and the thing that really held him back, I think the reason we kind of had to let him go, was because he was bound and determined for us to use this kid that he brought with him. He called him Dizzy Hogan, which I think may have turned out to be, I don’t know if it was Brutus Beefcake. And he was horrible! But that was the deal. If we used Hulk, we had to use this other kid, his best friend.”
Lawler was also there to see Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson break into the business. He said they could see his star potential right off the bat.
“The Rock, Flex Kavana, yeah, that was his name. He had a haircut [and] it looked like a pineapple. It was crazy. But, yeah, we knew that he had tremendous potential, simply because he was the son of Rocky Johnson and we had Rocky here. Rocky was a huge star in our territory down here in Memphis. But the funny thing was we didn’t play on that. We didn’t play that up. He was Flex Kavana. We didn’t even mention that he was Rocky Johnson’s son at that time. They didn’t do that until he got into WWE.”
You can listen to Jericho’s entire podcast featuring “The King” here.
