[1990-03-31-TWA-Spring Spectacular] Jerry Lawler vs Kerry Von Erich

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

I wish I could hear the Lawler fan insults, because the crowd is rolling every time he does one. I like that Kerry tricks Lawler into going back to the house mic so he can sneak up on him and attempt a pin. That's quality Jerry Lawler scouting. This is a nothing match with Lawler just cutting a promo the whole time, and the more I see of Lawler matches like this, the more it keeps him out of GOAT conversations. We do get some fire throwing though.

[PeteF3]

Lawler comes out to "Rockin' in the Free World," which I don't quite get on any level. Lawler goes into his "not a company championship" spiel and almost turns himself babyface by lighting into Hulk Hogan, but quickly rights himself by going after Flair as well. Lawler tells a black fan to sit down or he'll "wet his lips and stick you to that wall over there." Loong stall job revolving around a storyline I don't quite get with Lawler believing that the clawhold is outlawed. More hide-the-chain, which Lawler is a master at, but nothing we haven't seen before. Finish comes out of nowhere but makes for a nice surprise "gotcha!" moment. If only Kerry had sold it like it was something more than an eye rake.

[soup23]

I kind of have a different perception from Loss in that a match like this actually increases Lawler view in my eyes for GOAT contention. This is not a classic match but the crowd is with Lawler and the match every step of the way and it is matches like these that can still be entertaining without being too damaging on the body that allowed Lawler to have great matches in his late 50's with the Miz. The fireball was so unexpected to and was a nice ending.

[shoe]

I'm always a mark for the fire.

[Kevin Ridge]

Stalling to start with Lawler insulting the fans. Kerry is having none of it and rolls up Lawler from behind while he is on the mic. Ahh, I can’t make out what Lawler said to Hat Guy but it gets a good rise out of the crowd and seemed to put Hat Guy in his place. Looks like Lawler dropped his foreign object by mistake. Lawler uses a fireball to get out of the Claw. Creative. Match wasn’t much though.

[Cox]

I liked this. I thought there was a story here, that Lawler was afraid of Von Erich, so first he resorts to stalling to stay as far away from him as possible, then he resorts to using the chain, then when he loses the chain and is trapped in the clawhold about to lose the title, he uses the one trick he has left, throwing fire, to get DQ'd and keep the title. It wasn't anything out of this world, but it was a fun house show match for two guys working outside of their territory that sets up a rematch if TWA wants to run one down the line.

[TravJ1979]

Racist Lawler in Philly. The King has balls. He and brain damage have there usual indy match.

[garretta]

Of the three worst matches so far on this set, Lawler's been in two of them. When he's motivated to work hard and be nasty, there are few better, but when he's in the mood to take the night off, no one's worse.

 

I agree with Loss that these matches make it hard to take Lawler seriously as a candidate for Greatest of All Time; we were debating Bret Hart in a similar vein earlier tonight, and he said the same thing about Bret's match with Rick Martel. But at least Bret did something, even if it wasn't top-of-the-line something. Lawler's done nothing in two matches on the set so far, and he was outbullshot (or whatever the plural of bullshit is) by Jimmy Valiant in another. His best bouts were the squashes of Ben Jordan and Ken Raper when he was Hurricane Kingfish for those two shows on WMC and destroyed everyone but Dave Brown. Otherwise, he's been total garbage in the ring. Kerry wasn't good in this match either, but he at least tried.

 

This supports my theory that Lawler simply didn't care to perform much outside of the Memphis loop, which begs the question of why he even bothered to travel at all. I've heard for years that he wasn't very good in the WWF either, and he was old hat in the booth back in the late nineties when I used to turn Raw on every once in a while. He may be the ultimate "horse for a course", so to speak. I plan to get the 90s yearbooks through 1995, so we'll see if he keeps proving me right as the years roll on.

[drew wardlaw]

Kind of like the Jimmy Valiant vs. Billy Travis in that it's a nothing match but the crowd loves it, so who really cares how good the match is? Garretta brings up an interesting point about that Bret Hart match. That was a better match, but Bret did just enough to get by. So at the end of the day, what's more important?

[dawho5]

Lawler had to do something to make this dog work. I did like Kerry not coming off as a complete musclehead.