Jerry Lawler says he was removed from WWE pre-shows to save money

When WWE split its brands earlier this year, shaking up the roster, they also shook up the commentary teams. That included moving Jerry Lawler from his role as color commentator on SmackDown to act as a “key analyst” on studio shows, most notably pre-shows.

He was recently removed from said pre-shows, as well as Lita, and, in an interview with the Cerrito Live podcast, explained that it’s because WWE wanted to save money:

"Well, I got a call last week from (Kevin Dunn) ... he's one of the guys that makes the decisions when it comes to TV. He is the guy that is in charge of WWE TV and has been for years. ... I got a call from him and basically -- I don't want to say anything talking out of school or anything like that -- when you're a publicly traded company everything comes down to dollars and cents. Apparently once they moved my job over to the pre-shows and the pre-shows had to absorb my salary and my pay, it made it a very expensive show to produce every week. I guess, as Kevin explained to me, they decided to cut back on the pre-show because it was costing them too much money at the time."

He’s not leaving the company, however, and may actually sign a new deal in January that allows for him to do more, albeit for less money:

"That's their decision. I'm still under contract with WWE until the middle of January. What we're going to do then is probably go in and renegotiate something else where I won't be probably making as much money as I have been in the past because I, quite frankly, and I'm not bragging or anything, but I make a lot of money for a one day a week job.

"So that's the situation. The pre-shows were just stopped because of a cost saving thing. It's not that I'm gone from WWE or anything like that. On the contrary, Vince (McMahon) called me in the next day and said "you know, King, I hope you don't think this is goodbye or anything like that. We may have you busier than ever in the future now.' I think we may work something different contract wise, as opposed to a television contract, maybe a talent contract, where I'm available for everything and thus might have to wind up working more than ever as Vince said before. So, anyway, yeah, it's just one of those things that times they are changing and there's nothing sure in life but change. It's no big deal."

He would also say he’s been told he has a job with WWE for life.