Andy Kaufman died without ever fully admitting the slap was fake. Was the greatest performance of his life the one he never broke — or the one where we convinced ourselves to believe it?

This is one of, if not the greatest works in wrestling history.

edit: I can confirm that the question about its authenticity lasted a long time. I remember people in the late 80s and into the 90s talking about it this way. Some were kids like me, but plenty were much older than I was.

I thought the feud was real until the Man on the Moon press tour when King said it was a work. The slap would've made any pimp jealous

The only heels that had more heat on them than Andy Kaufman were Ole Anderson after he turned on Dusty in the cage at the Omni,  Hulk Hogan being revealed as the third member of the NWO and the Freebirds in World Class in 82 during their feud with the Von Erich boys.

I swear, the background music in these videos feels like a mix between Touch of Grey by The Grateful Dead and Playing with the Boys by Kenny Loggins (from the Top Gun soundtrack)

edit: Which came out around a year apart btw.

The feeling was that this was one of the reasons Vince McMahon Jr wanted to buy out his father, he was furious that Vince Sr. let the biggest wrestling angle go to the competition. When Lawler appeared on the Letterman show he saw it as an invasion since New York City was seen as the WWWF homebase. Once he got his father out of the way he made sure his rebranded WWF would be the only promotion that was in the pop culture zeitgeist.

Jerry Lawler was no stranger to celebrities. He had an infamous promo segment with Adam West in his Batman mask. And although the Presley camp usually denies it Jerry Lawler is said to have approached Vernon Presley at a party and proposed a wrestling match between himself and Elvis Presley to determine once and for all who the real king was. Vernon, probably thinking Lawler was drunk told him "Call the office in the morning, we'll talk then." Well Lawler called Vernon Presley in the morning and Vernon realized Lawler was serious. Vernon Presley came up with the quick lie that Elvis was too busy preparing for another tour and didn't have time to do anything of that nature. Lawler still considers it the greatest missed opportunity ever.

Thanks for the video

Anybody ever seen the documentary Jim & Andy? It’s about the making of Man on the Moon. Jim Carrey went a little overboard on the method acting. Especially when it came with Jerry Lawler since it seems Jim didn’t get the memo that Jerry & Andy never hated each other. They were friends.

"In professional wrestling, hatred is the fuel that makes the engine run"
I've never understood this.  If I don't like somebody, if I can't stand them, I'm not going to pay to watch them [maybe] get theirs.  I'm going to not come back until they've left the territory.

Andy did a good job. Alot of outsiders would and have destroyed the wrestling psychology.. Andy knew what to do and didn't plug anything. He genuinely loved and respected the business

I hate the “he wasn’t a comedian he was a performance artist” mentality.  It’s so pretentious.  He made people laugh.  Therefore he was a comedian

One of the few real celebrity vs wrestler feuds not involving wwf or wcw.

WWE, WWF back then really dropped the ball with Kaufman. Andy was a huge tv star & Vince McMahon Sr. thought that bringing in Kaufman to wrestle women at Madison Square Garden was ridiculous & wouldn't draw a crowd. Jr. watched this & had other ideas.
When Jerry "The King" Lawler heard Kaufman wanted to do this he immediately jumped at this opportunity & it was HUGE business for Mid-South Wrestling. Imagine if Vince Jr. owned WWE back in '83? That could have been the start of the 1st ever WrestleMania. Hell, Kaufman could have wrestled Cyndi Lauper instead of Foxy Jackson in the South & Hogan could have interacted during that match & could have been the main event for WrestleMania 1. Hogan vs. Kaufman . After buying the business from his father, two years later Vince Jr. took the same idea slightly different concept & tv star Mr.T & the rest is history. But if you honestly look back at the 1st WrestleMania, if the main event was a disaster then WWE would have folded because the matches on the card, you could have watched any Saturday morning on the U.S.A. network. Mania 1 wasn't that good, just look at the 1st Starrcade & compare, who had the better ideas, product, matches & wrestlers. WWE is so lucky the N.W.A. didn't get a hold of this!

Brilliant. Lawler might not have been Andy’s first choice for the angle, but he was perfect. I honestly don’t think anyone could have carried it off better

"Here I come
to save the DAAY"

The first crossover.

Andy Kaufman and Jerry Lawler sure pulled off the hoax very well on Late Night With David Letterman back in 1982. I thought the verbal exchanges, the slap, the profanity and the coffee throwing incident were real. I was shocked when I first saw the episode back then. David Letterman looked like he wanted to take a break for the rest of the week and continue his talk show the following Monday after seeing what he saw. "One guest hitting another guest, " he said.

i wonder if Lawler went to Kaufman's funeral ?

Happy wwf didn't get their crappie hands on this.

I don't care what anyone says , they really hated each other , and that's the truth. The only ones fooled are the suckers who think this was a work.