WWE Hall Of Famer Teaches Becky Lynch How To Throw A Punch
WWE Hall of Famer Jerry "The King" Lawler was a guest commentator for last Sunday's men's Royal Rumble match. According to Lawler on his Dinner With The King podcast, he also had a memorable backstage moment with the winner of the 2019 women's Royal Rumble, Becky Lynch.
Apparently, Lynch caught Lawler's attention backstage to let him know that she'd been binge watching his classic matches on YouTube. Lynch explained that Vince McMahon specifically wanted her to become more physical inside the ring, and to do so, she wanted to emulate the punches of "The King".
"All of a sudden, Becky Lynch come running up to me and she says, 'I've been binge watching The King for the last two weeks on YouTube!'" Lawler imitated. "It is a great compliment, sure. But I'm thinking, and I asked her, 'You've been binge watching me on YouTube? For what?' And [Lynch] says, 'Because actually, Vince McMahon told me not long ago that he wanted me to be more physical, and I just thought, who throws the best punch in the business? And that's, The King. So I've been watching you – been watching your matches for the last two weeks, over and over. How do you do it?'"
Lawler explained that his answer was hard to come by, simply because he had never put thought in to the way he performed pro wrestling style punches. Nevertheless, Lawler tried his best to put his method in to words.
"That's a tough question, because it's not something that I ever really thought about how I did it, I just did it," Lawler said. "I told her, 'Gosh Becky, I don't know, that's just the way I threw a punch from the time I started back in 1971. That's just – I don't know – it's hard to tell somebody how to throw a punch. And that's all you can do basically, is watch somebody else and you see one that you like, and that's exactly what she was saying. She liked the way I threw a punch and she wanted to try to emulate that. And I told her...I would try to throw a punch sort of in the same way if you were in a real fight, where you would hit somebody. I would throw a punch right at somebody's nose, right at their jaw or something like that, their mouth or whatever. And I don't know, I would try to make my fist not be so rigid and hard, as if I were gonna try to knock somebody out. I would always make my fist in to, like, a shock-absorber. And then I would throw that punch right where I wanted to."
A couple of nights later on WWE SmackDown, Becky Lynch would come face to face with longtime archrival, Charlotte Flair. Lynch put Lawler's advice to good use and connected with a swift punch right beneath the jaw of Flair, knocking her down to one knee.
"Yeah, Becky tweeted that [punch] out, and what did I say? I tweeted her back and I said, 'That's a Jerry Lawler punch if I've ever seen one.' It was beautiful and it was just a perfect bam! Straight in shot and it looked like she knocked her lights out."
Becky Lynch responded to Lawler's tweet, saying, "All the way from Memphis via Dublin, Ireland." You can read their full tweets below:
That's a Jerry Lawler punch if I've ever seen one! Beautiful! https://t.co/vdgj1GyMpw
? Jerry Lawler (@JerryLawler) January 30, 2019
All the way from Memphis via Dublin, Ireland
— The Man (@BeckyLynchWWE) January 30, 2019
You can listen to this sample of Dinner With The King above. If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Dinner With The King with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.