[1992-05-16-USWA-TV] Contract Signing: Eddie Gilbert vs Jerry Lawler

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Oh my GOD. Is this the best non-wrestling segment of the year? Both Lawler and Gilbert are tremendous. Lawler, as usual, does a great promo, but this one is better than even his usual standards. He recaps the history of challenging champions from other groups in the past and beating Kerry Von Erich. He then switches his focus to Gilbert, saying this has been a long time coming. He says Gilbert has always wanted to be Lawler, which would be flattering if it was just imitation, like when Race and Savage called themselves kings. But Gilbert wants to wear Jerry's crown and take his belt and assume his identity. He says he's just not going to get a chance to do it. Gilbert has this dumbfounded look on his face the whole time. They ask Gilbert if he'd like to retaliate and he says he would, then psychotically grabs Lawler by the neck and starts choking him and screaming, "I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL KILL YOU!" It kinda freaked me out because (a) it could absolutely never happen in wrestling today and ( there was a really intense vibe going on. Insane stuff.

[Tim Evans]

Was it just me or did Lawler come off kind of heelish here? Pretty good segment though.

[shoe]

Lawler did come across as full of himself. This is awesome, and if I had a time machine I would buy a ticket.

[BackToBionic]

God, Gilbert was good here.

[Kevin Ridge]

Lawler was pretty harsh on Gilbert here. I liked Eddie's face like he was in agreement of what Lawler was saying. Then as it looks like he is going to respond he attacks Lawler. Really intense segment.

[WingedEagle]

Contract signing for a title unification match. Lawler delivers a great promo about previous world champions, saying that Gilbert doesn't just want to be like Lawler, but actually wants to be him. Gilbert snaps, straightens his tie and chokes Lawler. Awesome. Great point above though that Lawler's delivery heel really fit a heel more than a face -- he came across as a bullying older brother.

[PeteF3]

Lawler recites his standard company-champions historical piece in relation to this big GWF vs. USWA title match with Eddie Gilbert. Lawler has a tendency to repeat his promos, because he's also cut plenty of them regarding Eddie Gilbert wanting to be him, but they're always compelling. Lawler draws the distinction between guys like Harley Race and Randy Savage wanting to imitate him and Gilbert wanting to be him. Gilbert is given the chance to respond and calmly stands up, then fucking SNAPS, choking out Lawler and screaming about how he's going to kill him, before Dave Brown hastily tells them to go to commercial.

 

Incredible segment that has that Memphis chaos while also putting over the title vs. title match as a Big Deal. I don't think it eclipses the all-time great Memphis segments (Snowman debut, the Jarrett/Gilbert brawl, and maybe Eric Embry attacking Paul Neighbors and Michael St. John) but it was an incredible piece of business, and also remarkably efficient. Gilbert doesn't ramble on the mic or get into a back-and-forth with Lawler, he just loses it.

[MikeCampbell]

It was an awesome segment, I legit jumped when Gilbert attacked Lawler. All things considered though, you can't say Lawler didn't have it coming.

[garretta]

I don't think Lawler came across as a heel, he came across as someone who, as he himself says, has had enough of Eddie and wants him out of his life for good. There's no more fooling around to be done; this is the last chance for Eddie to achieve what he says his dream is: to become the King of Memphis.

 

Eddie simply attacking Lawler is a nice touch; each man has gone back and forth with the other literally hundreds of times over the years, so what else is there to be said? I think it would have been more dramatic if Eddie had pulled brass knucks out of his pocket and laid Lawler out cold, which seldom happened in the WMC studios, but the surprise factor of him simply snapping without a word would have been lost.

 

It's a shame that Global chose not to participate formally, but given Lawler's complete disdain for working in Dallas, it probably worked out best for them. I'm not sure what it would have done for Memphis at this time either; the Dogs/Lawler-Jeff feud was still so hot that even with Lawler back as Unified champion, the belt was clearly secondary. At least Lawler/Gilbert was still enough of a program that it could co-main event with the inevitable tag match featuring the Dogs.

 

Good move keeping Eddie and the Dogs separate; it reinforces the notion of Eddie being an outsider now, even if he technically wasn't (at least officially).

 

Was Eddie still recognized by Global as North American champion, or was he stripped of the title for this and just decided to take the belt with him, a la Flair in the WWF?

[ajtroma]

Eddie got sideways with Max Andrews at Global and split with their belt. GWF continued to bill Gilbert as the champion, even going so far as to advertise him to defend against the always lame Johnny Mantel, knowing full-well Eddie wouldn't show. That night, they gave some complete bullshit about Eddie missing his flight from Atlanta and Bill Irwin took his place. They would officially suspend/strip Gilbert a week or two after.
The real GWF people got wind of this angle and forced USWA to remove and desist all GWF references. Mike Samples and Bert Prentice just became regular schmuck managers who just happened to want to take over the USWA and run it their way.
Later that year, Bert Prentice was running another Dallas promotion and booked Eddie to appear. Eddie got a call from Max Andrews or some other GWF rep telling him that if he said foot in Dallas, armed Texas marshals would be there to bust him for theft of that belt. Obviously, Eddie no-showed that night in the Big D.

[garretta]

Interesting story, Thanks, AJ!

[dawho5]

Great story!  Man, I hope Eddie Gilbert remembered never to go back to Texas.

This was an awesome segment.  I thought Lawler came off as a guy who was sick of Eddie Gilbert's shit.  It's hard to deny it might be heelish if it were Dundee.  But Gilbert had it coming and basically admitted it was true with the temper tantrum.