I am NOT the Father!

[bxbigshow]

If anyone can help me on this I will appreciate it.

Attitude Era WWE, Brian Christopher was in the light-heavyweight division and Jim Ross would always rib Jerry Lawler about him being Christopher's father. And King would keep denying it.

Is there any reason why this was an issue. I mean it is clear they are related. But was this leading to a storyline that wasn't really resolved? Maybe a pairing of the two? A split?

Watching the WWE Network and I'm noticing this for the first time in a while...

 

[The Butcher]

I've always taken it as a running inside joke for the boys and fans who were clued in. It possibly really did irk Jerry to a degree as well, as he's reportedly sensitive about his age. Telling the audience that he's got a son old enough to wrestle is telling them that he's an old man.

 

[Catacomb]

lawler made the joke because his sons name was brian christopher not brian lawler. it was simply a gag, although wwe did bring in the son of polish power ivan putsky but his son got injured relatively soon. i think wwe was planning ivan and son against jerry and "son"

 

[AJ1981]

I was as the The Butcher said, Lawler simply didn't want to admit on TV that he had a son old enough to wrestle. The King has always had issues with his age hence the hair dye, loud clothes and going out with women far younger than himself. Lawler however did use his influence backstage to get Brian Christopher employed and famously intervened to put an end to a gay marriage angle the WWF had planned for Christopher and Scotty Too Hotty just prior to St Valentines Day Massacre 1999

 

[THTRobtaylor]

Jerry and Brian always had a mixed relationship over the years with Brian notoriously claiming Jerry an overly harsh and distant father. Jerry and Honky Tonk legit feuded for several years before burying the hatchet.

Jerry didn't want to come across as old and WWE didn't want to portray him as such as he was still regularly used in the ring. So that side of things also came into play.

It was a dull angle in a dull time that did nothing for anyone involved in reality...

 

[Pedigree1]

I do remember this,and knew that Grandmaster Sexay was jerry's kid legit.. Jerry back then would try to play the young gut not old enough to have a kid let alone a kid old enough to wrestle.. I knew that His and Brian's relationship was strained,that Jerry was sorta of a absent father..

Maybe it was supposed to be a joke a running joke inside the locker room,kinda to rib Jerry in a way! Fact is,Jerry was an old man when he first came into the WWE

 

[matt_hud]

No long answer just a simple explanation...

Maybe he WWE wanted Brain Christopher to become his own entity... Maybe they wanted to keep the relationship low profile so he didn't end up in Jerry's shadow trying to "live up" and "surpass" his fathers legendary career...

So maybe the only reason Ross then would elude to it so often was to keep a potential door open if BC's career did stall they could then jump start it by using his family lineage

 

[JJ15776]

It was an inside joke between the commentators and the fans who know their real relationship. It's nothing more than when JBL and Lawler would talk about how they can tell the difference between the Bella twins because one is bigger. They make little mentions like that every once in awhile.

As for why it was never officially acknowledged that they were father and son, it's probably as simple as they had no plans to run any storylines around that relationship so acknowledging it didn't benefit them. Just like they don't acknowledge Bray Wyatt and Bo Dallas are brothers or that IRS is their father, for example. Or Goldust being the son of Dusty Rhodes and Cody Rhodes being Goldust's brother for the longest time. Hell, basically every Samoan that's ever been in the WWE are related but only a select few are ever mentioned officially. So that's why Lawler would deny it, I guess.

I'm sure they had ideas in the back of their minds about storylines they could run with Lawler and Christopher being revealed as father and son, if the timing was right, but they probably have tons of ideas that never come to fruition. I really doubt the tongue-in-cheek mentions and Lawler's denials were ever intended to lead directly into anything.

 

[justtxyank]

I doubt that it had anything to do with Lawler trying to deny his age on tv when he and his son were "out" in Memphis without an issue. They did have Lawler and son team up at one point on Raw or somewhere along the line. I think it was more about not complicating things on tv when the commentator was the father. Keep things simple for the rather dumb tv audience is how Vince probably saw it.

 

[daddyJ_t]

It had nothing to do with Jerrys age..... I ran into Brian and asked him straight up at a club after a raw show one night years ago. He told me it was basically as Matt_Hud said. so he could become his own person and not receive any type of favortism for being the kings son. Case closed. This was from his mouth no bs. as soon as I mentioned Jerry Lawlers name, I was cut off with "Yeah, he's my dad."

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

I've read in numerous articles/books that it was down to King not really wanting to admit that he had a son old enough to be a wrestler in the WWE, as he was concerned about his own age. Lawler has always done as much as he can to appear younger than he is. It was an ego thing.

Many people knew that Brian was Jerry's son, as they openly appeared as Father/Son in Memphis wrestling, but on national TV Lawler always denied it, the fact JR would bring it up was simply banter between the announcers and a friendly dig at the King. Plus, it gave WWE to do some kind of Father/Son storyline in the future had they decided to go down that route.