On the latest edition of Jerry “The King” Lawler’s Dinner With The King podcast, co-hosts Jerry Lawler and Glenn Moore discuss the possible reasons why WWE decided to scale back on Talking Smack and only feature it as a PPV post-show.

When told about a rumor involving Vince McMahon not being happy with The New Day being on the show before debuting on Smackdown, The King shot that down. He also shed some light in Vince’s role with the show behind the scenes.

“As far as anything, like Vince’s decisions, who really knows other than Vince? I would highly doubt — just me personally and knowing Vince and knowing the situation — that the story you just said has any accuracy to it whatsoever.

I’m sure the guests on Talking Smack, all of that is probably run by Vince before the show goes on. Because I know the fact that I was going to be on Talking Smack was run by Vince before I was allowed to be on there.”


As far as the possible real reason why the show was cut down?

“It might have been logistics. When you’re talking these guys have been there all day long, and the crew has been there two days. And to ask them to stay an extra hour or two when everything else is being broke down and when all the other superstars have left getting back to their hotel or going on to the next city; it’s tough. It is hard. I’m sure there were some complaints from people not too happy about staying to do that. As opposed to the one after the pay-per-view; that’s easy.”

When talking about Battleground, he reveals most people backstage did not know The Great Khali was in the building.

“It’s so funny how things like that happen. People in the company, like myself and Renee Young and people doing the show, we had no idea that The Great Khali was in the arena.”