Memphis Wrestling:Jerry Lawler vs. Nick Bockwinkel -SURPRISE

My favorite angle of all time. To set the stage, Jimmy Hart had been severely burned by Lawler 4 weeks before & hadn't been seen since. The World Title had been held up following this match:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83vBT152kMU

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• Memphis
• Wrestling
• Jerry
• Lawler
• Nick
• Bockwinkel
• Jimmy
• Hart
• Andy
• Kaufman

[bacardilvr]

One of my favorite lines, that I use on people who annoy me, "Ill slap you and send you to the back, baby" Thanks, Jimmy Hart.

[frythedeliveryguy]

Andy Kaufman = Only celebrity that should be in the HOF.

[GoblinGirl]

Kaufman cut a great promo here.

[buck2239]

@CombatSportFan Well Dallas was already a place of failed promotions. Look at WCCW and SWCW. As ICW found out in Memphis, it is hard to run a oposition territory.

[CombatSportFan]

@buck2239 Jarrett did attempt it for a brief time before he decided to keep it regional. In 1989 he went in and began promoting in the former World Class territory, but it ended up becoming too much of a drain on expenses to try and run Dallas and Memphis as separate territories.

[buck2239]

@CombatSportFan In response to this, Jarrett may not have had the funds to go national. Look what happen to Crockett.

[CombatSportFan]

@ccie12933 Although I should specify that this is not knocking Jarrett or Lawler's talent as bookers. They just got blinded by the publicity it was bringing the Memphis territory. They were getting national attention through all of this. Remember, on it would be another 3 years or so before Hogan would make the WWF nationally known, and here was the Mid-South Coliseum getting footage aired coast to coast for months thanks to this feud. So you can't blame Lawler & Jarrett for losing sight.

[CombatSportFan]

@ccie12933 It was a case of over exposure. Kaufman could drive people already at the arenas into a hate filled frenzy, there was no doubt about that. However, people had already seen Lawler destroy him on the first night, so their interest in seeing it play out more and more fell apart. It didn't help that they turned Kaufman babyface for a night only to have him turn on Lawler to extend the angle (even though it just made people groan.)

[ccie12933]

@CombatSportFan Very good point, thanks!

Did you see the feud as it unfolded? Watching the clips here on YouTube, it does really seem like they stretched it out way too far. Was that your impression at the time? (Not complaining about having them here to watch - quite the opposite!)

[CombatSportFan]

@ccie12933 The first match did, make no mistake about that. It pulled about 8,000-9,000 fans into the Coliseum. To put that in perspective, the Mid-South Coliseum was usually half or 3/4 full for an event (the famous Lawler/Idol cage match drew about 8,500, and Lawler's world title win pulled in 8,000.)

Now the remainder of the feud, by the end you can see where there were dozens of empty seats even on the floor, so I agree it got old. However, the start was red hot.