The First Time Pro Wrestling Took Over Late Night
Mayhem broke out on the set of Jimmy Kimmel Live! last night, as guest host Jelly Roll sat down with pro wrestler Randy Orton. The two hefty men were enjoying a perfectly adult conversation when heels Drew McIntyre and Logan Paul made an “unexpected” appearance to call them out. BRING THE CHAOS!
Honestly, if SummerSlam could promise me more footage of Jelly Roll slamming Paul through wooden furniture, I’d sign up for Peacock today.
The fights made for an entertaining talk show segment, harkening back to the days when Andy Kaufman was making late-night noise with his foray into wrestling. In the first year of Late Night with David Letterman, Kaufman’s fighting led to that season's most newsworthy episode.
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Kaufman made several appearances with Letterman in that first year, talking up his rivalry with beefy Jerry Lawler, the brawler from Tennessee. After the comedian took a break from wrestling women to take on Lawler, he returned to Letterman with a brace on his neck. Lawler came along for the ride.
Kaufman’s neck brace may not have been a bit. When the two fought in Memphis, Lawler hit Kaufman with two piledrivers — a move that pro wrestlers know how to brace themselves for. Kaufman did not. His manager, George Shapiro, remembers an ambulance taking the comic to a hospital, where he was diagnosed with compressed vertebrae and a severe muscle strain in his neck, according to Lost in the Funhouse: The Life and Mind of Andy Kaufman. (Of course, Kaufman being Kaufman, it’s hard to know if Shapiro’s memory was just another scripted part of the narrative.)
“To me, you’d have to be nuts to want to get into the ring with this guy,” Letterman told Kaufman about Lawler. “He appears to be maybe twice your weight, and he’s better looking.”
Kaufman confessed that perhaps he’d grown overconfident after pinning so many women. “I started really believing that I was a good wrestler.”
But just because Lawler whipped Kaufman in the ring didn’t mean the animosity was over. “I don’t want to sit out here and pretend that I’m friends with this guy,” the wrestler growled, “because I think he’s a wimp.”
It wasn’t difficult to see where this was going. Kaufman demanded an apology for his neck injury, while Lawler got heated over the comedian turning his sport into a big joke. Finally, as Letterman called for a commercial break, Lawler stood and smacked Kaufman out of his chair. Soon after, Kaufman returned from the wings and threw Letterman’s coffee in Lawler’s face.
One reason the fight felt so real (as opposed to Jelly Roll's theatrics)? A visibly shaken Letterman had no idea it was going to happen, according to Letterman: The Last Giant of Late Night. The next night, he apologized to his audience and America for the violence. Lawler later confessed that he and Kaufman planned the pandemonium in advance, but they never let Letterman in on the joke.
Either way, Letterman told the audience, he wasn’t going to be the guy to break up a wrestling match that featured Jerry Lawler. “Under this eight-dollar suit beats the heart of a wimp, ladies and gentlemen.”
