[1992-12-07-WWF-Primetime Wrestling] Jerry Lawler debuts

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Hillbilly Jim and Sgt. Slaughter are singing a little ditty in the Prime Time studio while Heenan seems exasperated. Heenan has a seat covered which he says he'll explain in a moment. He finally introduces Jerry Lawler to the WWF! Quite the shocker at the time, considering how much Lawler had always despised the WWF. Lawler is an immediate cartoon character, sadly.

[PeteF3]

There are people ready to graduate college who have no personal recollection of Lawler before he was in the WWF, much less how incredible this development really was at the time.

[flyonthewall2983]

I'd started reading the Apter mags a few months before this, had a little sense of who he was, but this was the first time I'd seen him on television.

[WingedEagle]

Heenan introduces Jerry "the King" Lawler with a throne. I know it was a heavy character, but they pushed him pretty hard for a territorial star. All I knew about him at this point was what I'd read in PWI, and they actually had me thinking he was just a washed up announcer by the time the Hart feud got going.

[garretta]

Lawler was actually very understated here, especially compared to the goon he'd become later on. A Heenan-Lawler partnership with Hogan or Savage as the target a few years earlier might have been something to see. Unfortunately, we'll only get to see them interact on Prime Time, which will only be on the air three more weeks. I guess you could say that this was the last important thing to happen on the show, and it's not the worst way to go out, truth be told.

 

I liked that Vince at least seemed to have a clue who Lawler was, unlike so many other times when new WWF "superstars" came in with no past whatsoever, even if they'd been with the WWF before.

 

Hilbilly and Sarge pickin' and grinnin' I could have lived without. I realize that Sarge was destined to be a face no matter what since the Iraqi sympathizer run, but this is a little too far toward soft in the head territory for my tastes. Heenan's disgust at seeing this was gold.

 

I noticed that Lawler used the same cape and crown that everyone who'd previously been the WWF's King had with the exception of Savage. Fortunately, they'd create a new outfit for him soon, as that particular ensemble was probably dry-cleaned and burned, as Gino had requested quite a few times over the years.