Hank Williams Jr., ESPN Reunite: 'Rowdy Friends' Are Back On Monday Night

NASHVILLE, TN — Hank Williams Jr. and ESPN are rowdy friends once again. Six years after the network pulled Bocephus' iconic "All My Rowdy Friends Are Here For Monday Night" from its broadcasts of "Monday Night Football" following Williams' controversial comments about a round of golf shared by President Barack Obama and Speaker of the House John Boehner, The Tennessean reports Williams spent Sunday shooting a video for a new version of the song to debut before the Sept. 11 game between the New Orleans Saints and Minnesota Vikings.

The song and its opening line — "Are you ready for some football?" — were part of the American cultural landscape from the debut in 1989 for the 20th anniversary of "Monday Night Football" until 2011, when ESPN dropped the tune and Williams from its weekly broadcast. (For more updates on this story and free news alerts for your neighborhood, sign up for your local Middle Tennessee Patch morning newsletter.)

The abrupt divorce came after an appearance on "Fox & Friends" during which Williams not only expressed his discontent with the crop of Republican presidential nominees but also said Boehner playing golf with Obama was “like Hitler playing golf with Netanyahu.”

ESPN quickly pulled the song and issued a statement saying the network was "extremely disappointed" in Williams. For his part, the singer claimed he was misunderstood and that he was not comparing the president to Hitler but was noting that Obama and Boehner were "polar opposites" and that "I was simply trying to explain how stupid it seemed to me — how ludicrous that pairing was.”

All that, though, seems to be water under the bridge now.

“I think it’s a return to our past in that it’s such an iconic song associated with football,” Stephanie Druley, ESPN’s senior vice president of events and studio production, told The Tennessean. “It was the original. It belongs to Monday Night Football. It really is about returning to what fans know. It’s a Monday night party and that’s what we’re all hoping to get back to.”

Williams told the newspaper he hadn't said "Are you ready for some football?" on stage in six years but that the phrase would return to his act. Before Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final Saturday, Williams fired up the Bridgestone Arena crowd by saying "Are you ready for the Predators?"

“I hope there will be some happy people on Monday night again,” he told the newspaper. “It feels natural, fulfilling and satisfying at this point when you’ve kind of done it all.”

Image via Flickr user Andrea Klein, used under Creative Commons