[2002-10-19-3PW-A Night For The Flyboy] Jerry Lawler vs Curt Hennig

[Matt D]

Someone's posted a ton of 3PW in the last day. I won't link to the whole show but this is out there, currently, as part of the "A Night for the Flyboy" show. Keep that in mind. This was a Ted Petty tribute show, immediately following Jasmin St. Claire turning on Blue Meanie and going with Tod Gordon and preceding Saby vs Pitbull Gary Wolfe. So you can imagine the sort of crowd here.

 

The match itself was very cool for what it was. Hennig was bloated, absolutely, as this was just a few months before his death, but it fit the way he was working, and was very appropriate for this match. Past a couple of big bumps (a 360 off a punch and one over the top onto the announcer's table) and the neck flip, he was mainly bruising. It was almost like he was slowly turning into his father and I feel like we were robbed from years of cool indy Curt "the Axe" Hennig senior tour matches.

 

Lawler, on the other hand, wrestled this as if it was his first big babyface appearance in the Northeast in twenty years (which I'm sure wasn't the case). He came out to the theme from Rocky but this could have been 1981 with him coming out to Star Wars after recovering from the leg injury. There was that same serious, no-nonsense vibe to him, playing off Hennig's cocky, grumpy heel performance.

 

They never really got out of second gear, but they never had to, able to achieve everything they set out to do by mainly brawling and working a TV style main event match. I had a lot of fun watching it. It provided some level of closure with Hennig too. After jawing with the crowd post-match, when he's almost back to the end of the ramp, he raises his hands to let some of the rising applause sink in. That's as good as a farewell moment we'll get for him.

[JKWebb]

This was cool to see. When the match started, and the Rocky music hit for Lawler, I really wanted to be there. The match started off slowly with some traded body slams, but it gets going with a punch that sends Hennig over the top rope. Lawler pulls out a stunner, but ultimately Hennig cheats to win. They restart the match after Lawler argues with the ref, and Lawler pulls off the roll-up win. As Matt stated, it never gets out of second gear, but it's still fun to watch. I read the review before I watched the match, so I was looking for him to raise his hands and saw it as a good farewell moment as well.