Lawler Don't Want to Be a Tailor Pricking at Your Thumb

Jerry Lawler v. Jerry Jarrett late 1979 -EPIC

ER: You watch literally hundreds of Jerry Lawler matches and then suddenly you see him breaking out things that you have never seen from him. Here he's working a loaded elbow pad schtick and is dropping these great elbows to Jarrett's temple, loading up the pad around his fist and socking Jarrett, really looking like he wants blood. From what I've seen of Jarrett he's never looked this good. It's no secret Lawler has incredible punches but he's also just as good as making opponent's punches look great. Here he flies into Jarrett's fist, with the nastiest being an uppercut right to the adam's apple. I don't remember Jarrett's punches landing with such snap before so I'm putting another feather in Lawler's cap. This match is some of the most compelling hide the weapon matches out there, and it also features an incredible moment that I've also never seen in a Lawler match: Lawler is getting exasperated that the ref keeps accusing him of having a weapon, that Lawler finally yanks down his own overtights (those trunks he wears over his singlet) to definitively show the ref he doesn't have anything, and then gets bumped by Jarrett while his trunks are around his knees, getting beaten around the ring taking amazing pratfalls with his pants down. It was an all time classic moment and logical way to have a wounded Jarrett take over control. The execution in this whole match was flawless, to the pre-match schmozz with Jimmy Hart and Ken Lucas, to every moment of the match. A match that when it ended just felt like the perfect "Lawler" match.

PAS: I have seen some other Jerry Jarrett before, and he always seemed like a bit of weak link in the matches he was in. This really felt like a Jerry Lawler showcase and he took everything that Jarrett can do and made it look great. I had never seen Lawler work loaded elbow pad before and his elbow drops and sitting elbow smashes were just ultra nasty. It was like he had turned into peak Greg Valentine for one match, before going back to doing Lawler things. It kind of makes me want to see a hypothetical match were Lawler throws chops and turns into Wahoo McDaniel or busts out karate kicks and morphs into Shinya Hashimoto.