On tonight’s edition Monday Night RAW, Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb from
The Today Show will appear to support Susan G. Komen and National Breast Cancer
Awareness Month. Gifford has interviewed several wrestlers over the years while
a co-host of Live! With Regis and Kathie Lee, but according to the following
excerpt from her 1992 book “I Can’t Believe I Said That,”, it appears that she
was not a fan…
“Then there was the “animal” known as Ravishing
Rick Rude. Now, I have a problem with Reege’s wrestling thing. We aren’t exactly
McNeil-Lehrer out there, but I think the wrestlers’ shtick lowers the quality of
the show a notch or two. Some of them are pretty sleazy. Rick Rude was about as
low as the get, right down there with the Bushwhackers. If there was a gold
championship belt for the most horrible disgusting-smelling people, the
Bushwhackers would have been wearing it the day they came on. They tried to hold
me and kiss me. First of all, I’m sorry, but don’t touch me, and second of all,
I don’t kiss people I don’t want to kiss. And Cody (her then-infant son) was
there with me that day. They chased me all over the set and I ran off, locked
myself in my dressing room-nursery with Cody, and refused to come out. I was
afraid they’d come right in there after me to bushwhack Cody.
“But the
absolute low point was a year or so before when Ravishing Rick Rude came out,
bragging about his “Rude Awakening” at wrestling arenas. Young women are
hand-picked to go into the ring with him, where this muscle-bound baboon
embraces and kisses them until they just pretend to faint dead away with ardor
as he stands over his latest conquest. It’s a pathetic spectacle, so of course
Gelman booked him.
“This guy comes out in his “Simply Ravishing” sequined
robe, kisses my hand ever so gently,and sits there giving me the eye like he’d
been behind bars for a decade. Nonstop. It’s not like we ask them tough
questions – like, “Duhh, howdja get dose muscles?” We let them pretty much do
their thing – which, cartoonish and entertaining as it is to some people, has
its place in the world. But not this kind of stuff. I was so flustered I crossed
my legs and one shoe dropped off my foot.
“Gracious host that I am, I
humored him (“Rick, you’re sweet talking me”) while Reege sucked up to him by
mooning over his title belt. (Rude was the WWF IC Champ at the time. -D) “This
guy,” he said, “is the best built of all the wrestlers. He’s got a tremendous
physique and great sex appeal.”
With an ego to match. He asked me how
tall I was and I told him “really short, I got stumps for legs.” He leered at me
and said, “Those don’t look like no stubs I’ve ever seen before.”
“Reege
egged him on. “Honest to God, I sense something going on here! Frank is out of
town, isn’t he?” Yeah, I said. Rick’s manager is now on. (Bobby Heenan) “This
guy is looking her over and making her very nervous,” Reege tells him. “The
woman is coming unglued.” “Kathie Lee needs a Rude Awakening,” the manager says.
“Kathie Lee,” I say, “has had a few rude awakenings.” “Not this rude, not this
rude.” “Over the airways, ” Rick says, staring at my body, “I could see that
Kathie Lee was the most beautiful woman on television. Now, as I draw closer and
closer, I just can’t believe it.”
“Rick gave a woman in the audience an
“awakening” to stripper music and then dropped his robe in front of me. I was
standing off now to the side. I didn’t believe what I saw. This was absolutely
unscripted.
“On his clingy nothing-left-to -the-imagination Lycra tights,
he had painted my face over his crotch. He stood there, hands behind his head,
thrusting and flexing, half naked. It was so gross I didn’t know what to do or
where to go. I put my hands over my face and ran up the stairs at the rear of
the set.
“Meanwhile, he turned his butt to the camera and, of course,
there was Reege’s face painted on his, Rick’s, quivering, gyrating glutes. Talk
about “back end participation!” This got my vote for the worst breach of taste
in the history of the show. Then Rick ran up the stairs after me and I came
down, skipped over the couches and dashed off the set, amazed that I didn’t wipe
out and hurt myself.”
