Jerry Lawler Likes Sugar in His Tea

Jerry Lawler vs. Terry Funk USWA 11/3/90 - EPIC

ER: This is a tough one to rank, as it is not an EPIC match...but my GOD is it an EPIC beating! Funk absolutely annihilates Lawler here, just a criminal beating. Lawler gets one little strike in, which he only gets in by basically getting in the way of Funk beating him. Other than that, this is literally Funk laying down one of his meanest ever beatings. I recently watched Funk/Dick Slater vs. Barry Houston/Todd Morton, and Funk gave Barry Houston WAY less of a beating than he gave Lawler, and Funk beat the HELL out of Houston. Funk waits for Lawler during his entrance, and Lawler comes out dressed as a Trapper Keeper. Funk jumps him and proceeds to unleash hell on Lawler's face. This match was all about Terry throwing Futen level punches at Lawler's head. Shoot, this was Beyond Futen. Terry Funk's punches in this match were the hardest punches I've ever seen in wrestling. These punches made some of the absolute loudest knuckle on head contact noise that I've ever heard, and Lawler comes off like the toughest badass just for enduring it. I have no idea how in the hell these punches were worked. Funk certainly doesn't look like he's working then, just looks like he's punching Lawler as hard as he can. Look at the punches from the mount that Funk throws and question how the hell Lawler didn't stand up with a bloodied bruised and busted up face? 

Lawler is always great at bumping around ringside, falling into and over railings, laying out on tables, and Funk just never lets him get out of the gates. After getting his face beaten in for several long minutes, Lawler shows off a skill he doesn't get much credit for: The man takes and sells a piledriver better than almost anyone. He's so well known for executing a perfect piledriver, but he's clearly a guy who understands the physics of the move inside and out, and he always looks like he takes them on his forehead, and always lingers vertically, as if he was stuck into the mat. Soon after, Eddie Gilbert hits the ring to make sure Lawler sticks into the mat, assisting Funk with two spike piledrivers and holding Lawler straight in the air on his head after impact. Funk terrorizes refs, Lawler gets an awesome non-offense hope spot where he kicks out of the first piledriver twice (with Gilbert counting the pin, and then trying to fast count him), but it's too much. This whole thing felt like Ian Rotten making an example out of a trainee who didn't pay for nachos, just a cruel lawless beating. Funk's punches in this match are among the most violent things on the entire Network.

PAS: Pretty crazy to see Lawler cleaned out like this, I think his main problem was coming in to the match with just long trunks. He can't drop the strap if he doesn't have a strap to drop!! I don't think Funk was hitting him as hard as it looked, Lawler's face didn't appear to bruise and cut up, the way you might see Ikeda's face bruise up in a FUTEN match, so this had to be a form of close magic. Was ESPN sweetening the sound on their Global shows? The punches sounded like a wet leather slapjack cracking someone in the face, no clue how this whole thing worked, but man was it nasty. The Gilbert run in seemed both unnecessary and really necessary. It is a hard match to rate, because it was the most one sided match I have ever seen with stars this big, but if you are going to do something like this, do something like THIS.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE JERRY LAWLER