This Sunday, April 3rd, at WrestleMania XXVII in Atlanta Georgia, WWE Hall of Famer -- the man who's won more wrestling championships than anyone else in history (164!) -- Jerry " The King " Lawler will face off against his fellow broadcast partner and "voice of the WWE" Michael Cole in a grudge match that's been months in the making. The iconic " Stone Cold" Steve Austin will act as the special guest referee for the match, marking his return to WrestleMania along with other "Attitude Era" stars such as The Rock and Trish Stratus. Also on the card? Triple H will attempt to end The Undertaker's 18-0 'Mania winning streak, Edge will defend the World Heavyweight Title against Alberto Del Rio and John Cena will challenge The Miz for the WWE Championship.

IGN had the chance to speak with Lawler about his first ever WrestleMania match, feuding with Andy Kaufman, the dangers of hitting Michael Cole with a piledriver and about mixing one's personal life in with wrestling storylines!

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: Well of course the whole world was talking about the first WrestleMania and how it was a huge risk on the part of Vince McMahon . And there were a lot of people at the time that had local promotions, like myself and Jerry Jarrett who were partners in Mid-South in Memphis, Tennessee. We were hoping to see it flop. We were hoping that it wouldn't catch on and wouldn't be a success. But as we all know, it did catch on and it did become a success and it's the crown jewel of WWE pay per view events each and every year. It's the biggest thing in the sports entertainment world now. But personally, my old personal self-interests at the time, we were worried that if the first WrestleMania went over big then it would spell the end of the local and regional territories. And we were pretty much right. And Vince was right too, in the respect that he thought this thing had legs and would grow and it has. And it's just become phenomenal.: You know, I feel like I was one of the forerunners of bringing in Hollywood celebrities into the fold, so to speak. Truth be told, and I wrote as much back in my autobiography in 2000, Andy Kaufman actually approached Vince Sr. first with the idea with the idea of him competing against women at some of the WWE shows at that time. Fortunately for me, Vince Sr. had legitimate concerns and told Andy, "You know, we have enough skeptics out there about our business and I'm just afraid that if I involve quote unquote actors in our business that the people will think we're all actors and that sort of thing." So he said, "Andy, I'm just hesitant to do that." And fortunately for me, a friend of mine named Bill Apter, who was a wrestling magazine editor at the time, overheard the conversation and spoke with Andy afterwards and told him, "Hey, I've got a friend down in Memphis who has a wrestling promotion and I bet he'd be interested in doing this."So then Andy contacted me, told me what he had in mind and at first it was just about Andy wrestling women. He just wanted to wrestle in front of a crowd who came to see wrestling. I thought it would be great and we brought him down and the rest was history. I just had Vince McMahon tell me, not that long ago, he said, "Man, you can't imagine. I've never told anyone this but I was actually jealous of the fact that you got to do what you did with Andy Kaufman because I knew that we had the opportunity to do it first and we turned it down. And then all of a sudden you guys were on TV and in New York. You got to be on David Letterman and Saturday Night Live. It just blew up."And then it wasn't very long after that where you saw Cyndi Lauper and Mr. T and all the others get involved. When you're involved, if you're the WWE or someone else, with someone in Hollywood or someone that people realize is a big celebrity – any kind of association you can get with them just puts you in the same light as them. And that was my intention was when I talked to Andy about having a match with me. I wanted to get the rub off the big Hollywood superstar. And it certainly worked. But I think that nowadays, the WWE has gotten to a point where we're so big that Hollywood celebrities want to be involved with us to get the rub off us. When you've got people like Snooki wanting to be in a WrestleMania match. When you've got all the people that came and hosted for us when we had them hosting RAW , it's just them wanting to be a part of this huge thing that the WWE has become: Would I have preferred for it to be a wrestler? Maybe at first. But now, looking back on the way this has all unfolded and the way it's going to be now, I couldn't have had a better opponent. Especially now that it's so reminiscent of the actual Andy Kaufman feud. I mean here, just like Andy, I'm going in the ring against a guy who's never competed. Not only at WrestleMania, but anywhere. So the curiosity factor of what will be going through Michael Cole's mind, other than my fist, makes this the perfect match up here. The people want to see Michael Cole get completely destroyed. They know without the help of Jack Swagger he's going to be helpless and they know that with "Stone Cold" Steve Austin being in the match as the referee, they know he's not going to put up with interference and foolishness. So it'll just come down to me and Cole once that bell rings. So, to me, that's perfect. Because if I can't put a major league whooping on Michael Cole, after all the years I've been in the business, then something's wrong.

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