Jerry Lawler Wants Andy Kaufman in WWE Hall of Fame Celebrity Wing

Miami Herald that he has pushed for the late Andy Kaufman to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame's Celebrity Wing. Lawler said;

€œI€™ve pushed for him to be there... The match I had with him, and that whole scenario I think opened the door and changed the face of wrestling to what it is today. There was the Hollywood involvement, the showbiz aspect, but especially the Hollywood involvement. When Andy came along and he and I had those matches, all of a sudden we were on national television on David Letterman, Saturday Night Live and these sorts of things. Our industry got the big Hollywood rub from Andy Kaufman.€œThen Mr. McMahon just took that ball and ran with it. Next thing you know you have Cyndi Lauper out there, Mr. T, Hulk Hogan in the Rocky movie. It just snowballed to what we have today. We have so much Hollywood involvement. Every time you look around Hollywood stars want to be on Monday Night Raw or involved in WWE. I think it all started with Andy Kaufman. I think he really deserves to be in there.€

The WWE's Celebrity Wing currently consists of Drew Carey, William the Refrigerator Perry, Pete Rose and Bob Uecker. It goes without saying that if Pete Rose and Drew Carey are in the Hall of Fame then clearly Andy Kaufman deserves a place! In fact there are few other celebrities in the history of wrestling who are more deserving of a place. Mr. T for sure, Cyndi Lauper yeah, Mike Tyson for what he did in helping spark interest in the early days of the Attitude Eara. But Kaufman's achievements must surely eclipse those as he put wrestling on the map in the 80's in a way no celebrity had before. He preceded those WrestleMania paydays above and was part of the most famous celebrity/wrestling angle of all time, in fact even coming up with the idea for the program. The others were just on instructions from Vince McMahon. Inducting Kaufman for the Hall of Fame would also be a nod to Jerry Lawler, who would no doubt induct him, and would clearly mean a lot to him. I am really surprised they haven't gone ahead with it yet. Lawler also hopes for legendary announcer Lance Russell to be inducted one day;

€œLance Russell would be a personal favorite of mine... Basically I grew up with Lance Russell as our play-by-play announcer in our Memphis and Mid-South Wrestling area, territory. To me, there has never been anyone better, and I€™ve heard them all. From Gordon Solie to J.R. and everybody, he was my personal favorite because he was the guy I grew up on and listened to every week. It€™s indelible in my mind when I think of a play-by-play guy, I think of Lance Russell. However, Lance is a guy not known on a national level, probably not as well as he would need to be to get inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. He certainly deserves to be there.€

You can read the whole interview with Lawler HERE.