[1990-02-03-USWA-Memphis TV] Dr Lawler

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Lawler, decked out in scrubs, laments changes in wrestling in the past few years. He points out that guys like Jeff Jarrett and Kerry Von Erich come along that weigh 137 lbs soaking wet, so they go out and find something called steroids. He talked about the health risks and benefits of steroids, and that wresters pump themselves full of steroids and think that's what makes them wrestlers. He name drops Hogan, Sting, the Road Warriors and the Ultimate Warrior, and points out that the steroids don't make them any better in the ring, they just kill their grey matter. He blames fans for thinking that's the standard, and he would actually respect them if they spent the gym. Uh, wow.

 

He has somehow procured urine samples of Jeff Jarrett and Kerry Von Erich ("I have my sources") and assures the girls in the audience that this is not a taste test. He performs tests on both of them and confirms that they tested positive for steroids. He wants to lead by example, so he's going to take a steroid test on live television.

 

Completely and totally surreal.

[PeteF3]

"Don't get excited, ladies, this is not a taste test!" Holy shit. After saying all that it's kind of weird that Lawler skirts around the effects of steroids on another part of the body.

 

I have the feeling that at least a little bit of what Lawler is saying is coming from a real place.

[soup23]

I don't know what I liked best about this segment: Lawler being in scrubs, him name dropping Hogan, Sting, etc, or this is not a taste test line. Regardless, this was another long Lawler 1990 segment and really was surreal to watch.

[Kevin Ridge]

Great stuff. It is something else to see a wrestler rant about steroids on TV with them being such a part of the business. Lawler seems to have his own drug test machine which gets super fast results! Taste test line was pretty hilarious.

[Cox]

Is Lawler trying to imply that Jarrett and Von Erich take steroids and then magically grow muscles without having to go to the gym? It sure sounds that way based on his convoluted explanation. Regardless, this was a pretty great segment. It had some degree of notoriety around 10-15 years ago, but this is the first time I got a chance to see it and it's pretty great. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when Lawler told Jerry Jarrett that he was going to accuse his son of being a steroid user on live television. "Nobody will believe me, Jerry - I'm a heel! Heels are supposed to lie!"

[JerryvonKramer]

The sequencing of this after the Hogan - Warrior madness couldn't be better.

 

"Do you know what this is Dave? I understand that you stayed up all night once studying for a urine test, is that true?" Ha ha ha

[Johnny Sorrow]

This is so fucking awesome. The steroid tester has a Star Trek sound effect.

[Laney]

This was great. It seemed to me that Lawler's ran about steroids was how he truly felt. More great promo work from Lawler here and another awesome segment from Memphis. This was surreal and just a joy to watch.

[ajtroma]

Yeah, I have a very good feeling that the King was venting. I dont blame him.

By this time, the USWA/CWA area had done such a substantial drop in attendence and public opinion. The glory days were gone. Stars came and went. We'd lost Lance. Towns were killed for various reasons. The Wrestling show, at this point in time, was a post-produced Half/Memphis Half/Dallas deal. It had started off 1990 as all Dallas. We hated that. It went from Wrestling on Channel 7 in Evansville being the top non-news, non-network show and "appointment viewing", to being seen as a cheap, knockoff WWF, which really pissed me off. I used to have to defend myself to my friends and the other guys in school for liking our kinda-sorta hometown promotion to the WWF. Fwiw, all the WWF Ive seen up to now on this 1990 yearbook has been utter sewage in my eyes. Plus, in fairness, the WCW stuff at this time is head and shoulders above USWA in quality. Not saying USWA isnt without its charm.

Dale Mann's outlaw promotion ran my hometown a few times and was lamer each and every time. All non-WWF was painted with the same brush.

USWA was called the "cheap shit", "local yokels", "Big Lots wrestling", "that really fake shit", "that Channel 7 crap" etc.

NO ONE gave a shit about Travis or Dundee or Jarrett or the Southern Rockers or Fuller of whoever else. Lawler "sucked" and "Tim Horner could beat him" (that was an actual quote). Yet, guys like the Ultimate Warrior, Sid, Beefcake and all those other guys were considered "awesome".

So, I gotta feel the King on this one. Even though his steroid tester looks like it was ripped off a medium sized appliance and had the afore-mentioned Star Trek noise.

[garretta]

Nice mixture of semi-shoot and comedy shtick by Lawler, and he's about the only one who can pull off such a combination well. Wacky tester aside, you could tell he was serious about opposing steroids, and for that I seriously applaud him. Of course, he ties it all in to his feud with Kerry and Jarrett, which is the point. Great stuff, although Jarrett still doesn't look like a user at this time.

 

Bonus clip as they were going to break showing the King piledriving a jobber, which allowed another jobber to get the win. That's what Dave was grumbling about at the beginning of the segment, in case anyone was wondering.

[drew wardlaw]

Man..... Jerry Lawler in scrubs with urine, dropping a really deviant line about ladies getting excited for a taste test or something. The machine he uses is so funny too, just that stupid chirping noise when steroids are present in the urine. This is too much.

[GSR]

Jerry Lawler says that when he entered the sport of professional wrestling he gave his life to it, he gave everything he had because he was proud to be a professional wrestler. He’s sad to see that over the years his profession has changed quite a bit. There used to be athletes in this profession, like himself, who prided themselves on hard work, blood, sweat and tears, and whenever they got in that ring, no matter who they were against, they did their best. All of a sudden, over the last few years, you get some of these jerks like Jeff Jarrett and Kerry Von Erich come along who weigh about 137lbs soaking wet, but what they do is go and find themselves some steroids. Lawler explains that steroids affect your brain, your liver and your heart, but the other thing they do is make your muscles swell up real big. Guys like Kerry Von Erich pump themselves up with steroids and they think that makes them wrestlers. It’s just a short cut though. It doesn’t give you any ability, all it does is take away some grey matter. You can look at guys like the Road Warriors, Sting, the Ultimate Warrior and Hulk Hogan and you can tell that they are full of them.

 

Lawler says that he’s going to prove that Jeff Jarrett is on steroids as everyone can remember when he weighed 110lbs. Yet he starts wrestling in Texas around Kerry Von Erich and you start to see all those little bulges in his arms, his shoulders and all those big muscles everywhere. Dave Brown says that it’s because he’s been working out in the gym, but Lawler refutes that, ‘he doesn’t work out in a gym and neither does Kerry Von Erich’, they take a short cut and he doesn’t like people who take short cuts. When someone from the audience catcalls him, he tells them to save their breath as they’ll need it to blow up their date later! Lawler has a machine with him that he claims is a steroid tester, as well as some samples from Jarrett and Von Erich. When some girls in the audience get excited on hearing their names he tells them to calm down as it’s not a urine test! Dave Brown is completely exasperated at this point, not helped by Lawler saying how Dave stayed up all night studying for a urine test once! Lawler tests the samples and they both indicate that they are on steroids. Dave doesn’t believe the test is valid, but does get in that he’s opposed to anybody using steroids. Lawler says that he’s going to make personal examples out of them and show that there is no place in wrestling for people on steroids. He will put Jeff Jarrett and Kerry Von Erich out of wrestling where they belong.

 

WOW! I thought it was something when Lawler accused Steve Austin of being on steroids, but having a whole segment devoted to steroids and not only accusing two of the top faces in the company of being on them, but the top names in the NWA and WWF too! It also wasn’t lost on me that this appeared on the Yearbook right after that juiced up Hogan and Warrior interview. Lawler comes off legit in this promo in that he is genuinely pissed off at his sport being tarnished by the steroid users and people taking short cuts to get to the top. I like how Dave doesn’t entertain that Jarrett could be on steroids in the slightest, but quickly gets in that he is against steroid users too! MUST SEE SEGMENT and The King in his medical scrubs is a nice added touch.

[dawho5]

Nice mostly-shoot stuff from Lawler. One very funny part of this to me is how it plays when you think about how a lot of wrestlers looked at Lawler in the 80s. He was a guy who barely wrestled and relied on punches, something they hated. I'm sure there were guys who would have thrown the "he can't wrestle" thing his way like Triple H did to Cena if there had been such a thing as social media. So Lawler being up in arms about roided up guys is pretty funny in that way. Also, Lawler (given his character at the time) complaining about guys taking shortcuts is hilarious.

 

Great segment though in a very Memphis way. I am a big USWA fan just a month into the yearbook.

[Badlittlekitten]

"Let me set it for steroids, okay?"

Lawler is tremendous here as usual. You feel he could riff off Dave and the studio audience all day. Weird, bold, funny stuff and hilariously sequenced after Hogan and Warrior ranting and raving to their gods.

[Badlittlekitten]

These USWA beatdowns angles are tremendous by the way. Stiff punches, violent stomps, chains, the sharp edges of a broken guitar neck. . . It's wild, man.