When the King's Beside Me, I Don't Worry, When the King's Beside Me All I Know

Jerry Lawler vs. Kerry Von Erich WCCW 11/25/88 - GREAT

This is in the midst of the Lawler v. Von Erich real world title feud and is a Sportitorium cage match. The Dallas crowd is seething with hate for Lawler as he has played them like a fiddle, and this match is another example of that. There are a couple of nice back and forth exchanges early, but most of this match is Lawler playing hide and seek with the chain. He cracks Kerry and hides it in his trunks, when Lubich searches his puts it in his mouth (Lawler may have never done drugs, but I imagine sticking a chain covered in Kerry's cocaine saturated blood in his mouth must have given him quite the contact high). There is this amazing camera shot of a smirking Lawler with the chain dribbling out of his mouth. Finally Kerry pops him in the gut, gets the chain himself and goes to work much to the crowds delight. Lawler gets the chain back and we get another great Lawler beat down section, but it ends rather abruptly with a roll up. With another five or ten minutes of action this is at the level of your true Lawler classics, but I did feel this was abridged in a way that left me unsatisfied.

Jerry Lawler v. Tito Santana WWF 3/21/93 - GREAT

Lawler debuts in MSG and immediately gets the crowd riled up hardcore. He starts shit talking the rotten apple, and offers to let Sanatana out of the match if he kisses his feet. First part of the match has Tito bumping Lawler around, while Jerry cheap shots stalls and talks shit to the crowd. It is really great to see an old pro break out some classic tricks on a new stage and get folks screaming for his scalp like that. The match really kicks into gear when Lawler gets the advantage and hits his beautiful piledriver. He then grabs the house mike and tries to start a "wetback" chant, I am surprised a young Fat Joe didn't jump the rail and stab him in the ribs. He goes to crotch Tito on the ringpost, but Santana pulls his legs back causing Lawler to smash his face into the ringpost as only Jerry can. The have a heated bit of brawling before Santana tries a sunset flip, which Lawler sits down and grab the ropes for the pin. They then keep brawling and end up spilling into the crowd exchanging shots among the fans. The last five minutes of this were off the charts, and if that section was longer I could see rating this Epic. The first was fun mid card MSG, the second part was main event MSC.

Jerry Lawler v. Bill Dundee SAW 1/28/11 - GREAT

PAS: This is what we came to see and it didn't disappoint. Both guys seem totally jazzed up by the huge crowd and Dundee was especially frisky. Early in the match Mantell forces clean breaks in the corner, but he eventually gives up and lets them fight. Dundee gets an advantage and lays in a nasty looking beating on Lawler. His punches are as good as ever, and Lawler takes a couple of his signature eating of posts. The whole thing was violent enough that I thought Lawler was going to end up calling the Royal Rumble with a pressure bandage We of course get the strap drop and big time Lawler comeback and it always great to see, although Dundee fires back and doesn't go down easy. I have to rewatch this and the other, but this feels like the best of the 21st century Dundee v. Lawler matches.

TKG: All three guys get face pops coming out so Dundee makes sure to heel himself by doing a Zbysco stall to back and getting into it with some ringside fan. Lawler puts Dundee over on the mic but wants to make quick work of him so he won’t come into Rumble damaged, and hilariously warns Mantell to watch for Dundee’s closed fist. Dundee is in his late 60s and takes a lucha style rolling back bump, but will take big back drops and goes full force into all of his other bumps. This includes taking a superfast and nasty looking Flair flop off a comedy spot (Lawler uses a closed fist-Mantell gets upset and Dundee raises his hand for the DQ win only to have Mantell shove arm down with such force that Dundee does a face splat). I think this had a longer Dundee eats stuff opening then the Ward family show and the Lawler eats stuff section was a more vicious Dundee then the kind of less vicious more dickish Dundee that we saw in Waynesboro. Both guys take big ring to floor bumps and there is a lot more weapons based brawling then there was in the Ward family show. Dundee is first to throw chair into ring only to get hit by it. And Dundee just wails on Lawler with chair on the floor. They do a Mantell in ring bump which allows the Superstar to get a hold of Shoo Baby and whip Lawler’s back. But it still comes down to two men trading punches and the big piledriver in the end.

PAS: Post match Lawler puts over the fans and promoters, and Dundee gets on the mike and buries Jeff Jarrett, talking about screwing Dixie Carter and how they only drew 600 people. I almost expected him to book himself in a challenge against Jeff with 1500 dollars going to Cerebral Palsy kids if he loses. Just a great show and a really fun road trip.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE KING