[1993-11-27-USWA-TV] Interview: Tom Nunnery / Music Video: Jerry Lawler / Interview: Jerry Lawler

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Damage control is on!

 

Tom Nunnery shows up to demonstrate all the charity work Lawler does and how good of a samaritan he is. They show a video of him leading a group of mentally challenged people in singing "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town", which VERY CLEARLY proves his innocence.

 

We then transition to a Lawler music video of Lawler hugging children in slow motion to "Thank God For Kids"!

 

Finally, Lawler comes out for an interview and mentions that the girl has recused her story and he hopes things get back to normal soon.

 

This gives the Vince stuff earlier in the year a run for its money in its shamelessness.

[goodhelmet]

One of the scummiest moments in wrestling history. Everyone who bought this set needs to watch this ASAP!

[ajtroma]

Who didn't see this and think "Thank God For Kids??!?!? Wow, bad choice, dude."

 

Its getting deep here...

[Kevin Ridge]

Um, yeah. Interesting choice of song for video. Lawler uses TV time to defend himself.

[PeteF3]

Tom Nunnery comes out, presumably unsolicited with timing that can only be described as "fortuitous," to bloviate about all the charity work Jerry Lawler has done! I can only assume he'll be up for a Michael Landon Award in 1994. THE STORY'S MADE UP, SO LET'S MOVE ON. LET'S HEAR IT FOR THE KING! Jesus, this wasn't desperate or anything--at least the WWF was able to layer some subtlety over their pandering (not much, but more than there is here).

 

And then this gets WORSE. This could only get creepier if we saw footage of Jerry Lawler hanging out at the Penn State campus, and I'm not just saying this to mine for tasteless humor.

 

OK, so what was the final story with this? Lawler did it but got off basically scot free? A Ben Roethlisberger situation, where Lawler & co. paid the girl to go away? A Mike Tyson/Desiree Washington situation, where Lawler may have actually been truly innocent in this particular case but was guilty of enough other similar (or worse) shit that things stayed karmically aligned?

[garretta]

"Thank God For Kids" wasnl't the best choice for a music video, I'll grant you that. But as long as Lawler owned part of the promotion and wasn't going to do what may have been the smart thing and lay low for a couple of weeks, they handled this about as well as they possibly could. They needed to show the good old Kingfish being warm and unthreatening, and that's what they did here. Sure they had to lay it on thick, but I'm sure the accusers were hardly being subtle either, so from Lawler's perspective, it was almost a case of fighting fire with fire, so to speak.

 

I'd also like to know the final resolution to this case. WMC must have been satisfied that Lawler was ultimately innocent, or else they'd have told the USWA to hit the bricks and taken their chances in court if need be.

 

This piece certainly wasn't the time for it, but I wonder if by the end of the year we'll start hearing interviews from Lawler about how the WWF prejudged him and kicked him off of their TV and pay-per-views. I haven't seen any of this material at all yet, so I don't know how he actually ended up handling that small part of the situation once the heat was off of him.

 

On a lighter note, ​Reggie B. Fine ​as a jobber? He could barely manage the last time we saw him, let alone wrestle.

[soup23]

My goodness, there is trying to put a spin on something and then there is this. Between Lawler singing Santa Clause is Coming to Town to him literally hugging kids, this was a PR machine that has to be seen to be believed at how deep they were willing to go to "prove" Lawler's innocence. Truly one of the most repulsive things in the 1990's in wrestling.