Everybody Goes as Far as They Can, Lawler Don't Just Care

Jerry Lawler vs. Zach Gowen JCW 7/17/04     Pt. 2 - GREAT

ER: Lawler working a one legged man feels like the most pure Memphis occurrence to me. This feels like a heel Lawler studio match set up angle, like something late 80s Miami Vice heel Lawler would do. I can picture him coming out and addressing Lance Russell and the audience and fielding questions regarding his lack of title defenses, and I can picture the entire promo about how he found a young contender who has fought harder to get where he's at than anybody else in the back, and then picturing the uproar when he brings out this new contender with only one leg. This isn't that, but the elements are all there, and Lawler is someone who - more than maybe anyone - can figure out neat ways to work a match against a man with one leg. He makes a few good jokes before hand, worried that the beating he unleashes on Gowen might be so severe that he could get sued. But, luckily for him, Gowen wouldn't have a leg to stand on. I like how Lawler leaves openings for Gowen by talking trash, love the shtick and facials he works around the missing leg. 

They lock up and Lawler goes in for a single leg takedown, and makes funny faces when he whiffs at the absence of leg. During a knuckle lock he knows what he has to do, keeps looking down at Gowen's legs, looks at the ref, finally says to the crowd "sorry but I have to do it" and legsweeps him. All of his punches look great, the kind of strikes that a loud and surely drunk Juggalo crowd can do nothing but howl about. My favorite is when he rears his fist back and brings it straight forward into Gowen's nose and upper lip. He hits two perfect piledrivers and makes faces while holding him, looking right past the absent leg and acknowledging the absurdity of it all, before fully spiking him. Great piledrivers. Of course we don't end with those, as instead there are some feet on ropes shenanigans which lead to a Lawler loss and leads to Gowen - a Michigan boy - crowd surfing and no doubt getting his butt accidentally touched by a man wearing a Twiztid hockey jersey. Maybe several men. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE KING