[1993-10-02-USWA-TV] Interview: Vince McMahon / Interview: Jerry Lawler / Music Video: Fireballs!

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

First, we get a taped Vince promo. "There are only three guarantees in life -- death, taxes and Macho Man Randy Savage."

 

Next, Lawler comes into the Memphis studio to respond. Lawler makes fun of Savage's long-winded, rambling promo earlier in the show. He leads to a video montage of Lawler throwing fireballs, which is pretty cool.

[Kevin Ridge]

Vince asks us if we believe in the Tooth Fairy. If he disputed Santa Claus too there would have been a lot of upset kids in Memphis. Vince's face after the Death, Taxes, Savage line was great.

 

Lawler is promising fire against Savage. Awesome little music video of Lawler using fireballs on everyone.

[PeteF3]

You can believe the sun will rise tomorrow. You can believe the earth is round. And you can believe in the Macho Man, Randy Savage. Then some really weird shit about mufflers and electric razors. Not really one of Vince's better efforts, either.

 

Ha, Lawler says exactly what I'm thinking. "He's talking about mufflers and razors, I don't know what that has to do with this match." He segues into discussing how Savage could shave his hair off, saving Lawler the trouble of burning it off. He AGAIN says what we're all thinking--"How long did that [savage promo] last, about 7 hours?!" A montage of Lawler fireballs follows.

[ajtroma]

The highlight of that Fireball video was poor Leatherface freaking out when his apron actually catches ablaze.

[garretta]

This might have been Vince's best promo yet. It's all about guarantees, which is where the mufflers and razors come in. I'll explain in a second, but first a question: Why do we get on guys for being repetitive during promos, then also get after them when they try and expand their promos outside the so-called wrestling bubble?

 

Vince was referring to two fairly popular advertising campaigns that were active in 1993: Midas mufflers (which guaranteed their products for as long as you owned your own car) and Remington Micro Screen Razors (shave as close as a blade or your money back). Anyone who watched TV outside of the ninety minutes every Saturday that the USWA was on Channel 5 had most likely seen both of them and knew what Vince was trying to say, so let's stop making out like this was Hulk Hogan threatening to make The Ultimate Warrior drink sweat out of the devil's armpit. Not every Memphis promo has to begin with "Let me tell you something, Dave Brown" and end with "I'm gonna kick your butt at the Mid-South Coliseum this Monday night". I admire Vince's creativity here, and every Memphian who couldn't figure out what he was talking about legitimately deserved to be called stupid.

 

I actually thought Vince's expression at the end was a bit too maniacal for its own good. He looked like Mr. McMahon there, and he's been so good in this feud because he hasn't​ looked or acted like Mr. McMahon, but rather a cold, calculating, Machiavellian evil genius, which has been such a wonderful complement to Lawler's down-to-earth hometown hero.

 

It was nice to see Lawler bring things back to the match. I loved his line about Randy using a razor to shave his hair off so he won't have it burned off by Lawler's fire, and I had to laugh when he said that listening to Randy's promo was like sitting through Gone with the Wind​. The fireball montage was a nice way to wrap things up. I wish Vince would have let Lawler throw fire just once in the WWF- SummerSlam would have been a nice time for it, actually- but I guess he didn't want the little kids to be too scared. (I'm sure the King had plenty of young fans in Memphis, but they were more used to him throwing fire than the WWF fans would have been. I don't think anyone ​had ever thrown fire in the WWF, certainly not since Vince took over from his father.)

 

Line of the Segment goes to Dave following Vince's promo. It's nothing especially clever, just a reminder that Vince's guarantees have to be redeemed by Savage in the ring. After all these years, he still excels at being the voice of reason who makes the craziness of Memphis wrestling believable.

[soup23]

I liked the gist of Vince's promo and it was a real Freddie Blassie vibe to it at times but some of the examples he used were odd. That Fire On the Mountain graphic behind Dave Brown and Lawler is brutal. Lawler talks about how confused he was at Vince's examples too. Lawler gets in a good dig saying he thought he was watching Gone with the Wind listening to Savage's promo. The video with the fireballs was cool.