Lawler's Eyes Are Almost Dead, Can't Get Out of Bed

Jerry Lawler vs. Curt Hennig, 3PW 10/19/02 - GREAT

ER: This was right after Curt's improbable WWE run where he was having good matches with Tommy Dreamer and RVD. Here he's awesome as the bloated, smug, super tan heel. Hennig can still bump and Lawler is really great at working in and around guys' signature offense/bumps, and here he finds smart ways to let Curt work them all in. He does the cool Goldust off-the-ropes uppercut to let Hennig do a flip bump, throws a big haymaker in the corner so Curt can take an awesome mammoth bump over the top onto a table, and starts working over Curt's knee at some point so it made sense later on when he kicked out Curt's leg and he did his rope flip onto his head. They both kinda play up and subtly mirror the strengths of the other, with Lawler matching Hennig with some big bumps (Lawler is always a big bumper but here he seems to ramp up some height on things like backdrops) and Hennig tightens up his strikes a lot (which you really should do when working opposite Lawler's punches) and even breaks out a Lawler style piledriver (showing how awesome Lawler can make a piledriver look when on the receiving end, too). Curt threw some bombs in the corner that made me cringe, and the punches were really put over by some great Lawler facials. Sadly this made me notice that since the eye job this hasn't been as effective a part of Lawler matches. Here his eyes told a big story while taking those shots as he still had warmth in them. Now his face is kinda stuck in some sort of permanent lustful perv shock. I thought this was a great match, although odd seeing them in the ECW Arena on a Rocco Rock tribute card. I assume this was the last really good Hennig match, since I don't remember anything he did in TNA.

PAS: This was a pleasant surprise. I wasn't expecting much from late era Hennig, but he was good to great in this match. All of the things I didn't like in his WWE run were downplayed or absent. There were a couple of flippy bumps but they were in the flow of the match, and he flashed back and started throwing 1988 AWA Punches. Lawler was really great as usual, and I am giving most of the credit for Perfect's performance to him. Finish was pretty bad though as it is really hard to get the vociferous audience response needed to pull off a ref reversal from a post-ECW Philly indy audience. Also the Lawler stunner is such a bush league spot, save that shit for hacks like Al Snow.