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[1990-06-16-USWA-Memphis TV] Interview: Jerry Lawler / Jerry Lawler vs Rex King


Loss

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  • 1 month later...

The Leon Spinks thing is happening this coming Monday night, so something was off with the dates on the local Evansville promos. Lawler thinks there is a conspiracy between him and Eddie Marlin, that he and Marlin seem to not like each other, but Snowman seems to always get his way.

 

"You couldn't beat me if you had a knife and a gun, which you probably do" ... that gets a big "WHOA" out of the crowd. He starts in again on the stuff with Snowman being a no-talent bum who's not a worthy contender, which I hate, but we've been over that.

 

Lawler then gets in the ring to take on Rex King. He's distracted by Snowman at ringside the entire time. Snowman finally has enough of the taunts and they get into a pull-apart brawl that looks pretty legit with Marlin losing his glasses and Lawler throwing some awesome punches. Pretty awesome.

 

This feud is still delivering.

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Lawler promises to expose the Snowman as a bum again, and for good measure says he'll knock what's left of Leon Spinks' teeth down his throat if he gets in his way. Spinks milked that "Man Who Beat Ali" rep for all it was worth. "You couldn't beat me if you had a knife and a gun, which you probably do." That gets the crowd going, and Snowman produces a hubcap to class this segment up some more.

 

Snowman is a lurking threat outside the ring for Lawler's subsequent match, and eventually hops in and another shoot-looking brawl erupts. Eddie Marlin and security break it up and Lawler is escorted to the back. The action is still awesome but I liked this feud a lot more when Lawler and Snowman were two guys with a fundamental disagreement instead of Lawler being an arrogant heel and Snowman being whatever he's supposed to be now.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

Lawler has his fans in the studio. Lawler thinks Snowman doesn’t have enough brains to be World Champion. Lawler questions why Leon Spinks can be referee when he is friends with Snowman. Snowman holds up a hubcap and Lawler pauses to tell the studio audience to check their cars.

 

Rex King matches moves with Lawler to start. Lawler getting distracted by Snowman being in the audience. Lawler has a leglock but spends the whole time yelling at Snowman on the outside. Snowman has enough and runs into the ring after Lawler and we have another brawl.

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  • 10 months later...

Lawler does some blatant race baiting in his promo, and while this has been a program built around race before this point, Lawler appears to be saying more racist things to make himself a heel to the African Americans they are clearly trying to get into the arenas with this feud. More signs that they are stepping away from the worked shoot, shades of gray booking from earlier in this feud and giving each side more defined heel/face roles.

 

Nice pull apart during the Battle of Kings match. Feels like it's time for Snowman to either win the title or Lawler to move onto other things.

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  • 1 year later...

The pull-apart needed to happen before this, although it still looks great.

 

I didn't see Eddie Marlin lose his glasses, but it's about time he gets put in the middle somehow, given how needlessly physical he's been so far in this feud. Would Jack Tunney try to get between Hogan and Earthquake? How about Jim Herd trying to restrain Sting from attacking Flair?

 

Notice how the ad promoting this week's guest referee spells the man's name "Spinx"? This is both an example of how far the once-mighty can fall and of the ignorance of some of the production people working at major television stations.

 

What was Rex King doing standing around while Lawler jawed with Snowman? Talk about business-exposing. He should have been all over Lawler, even getting some close near-falls to demonstrate further just how distracting Snowman's presence was to Lawler. Whoever laid this match out did a piss-poor job.

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Eddie Marlin was at least a former wrestler who was responsible for keeping order on the show, and even as late as 1988 (maybe later), he'd occasionally come out of retirement and do a gimmicked brawl when a feud called for it. His physical involvement didn't really bother me for that reason. If he wasn't a wrestler at any point, it probably would have.

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I know he used to be a wrestler, Loss. I guess it's not the fact that he gets physical to maintain order so much as that he's doing so against a man who invaded the USWA and is portrayed as someone willing to tear the place and everyone in it apart to get what he wants. Guys like that should plow right through retired former wrestlers like Eddie, no matter how tough he was during his wrestling days or what position of authority he holds now. Snowman should have laid him out during his very first interview segment, and a little blood from Eddie wouldn't have been out of place either. He did it for Tommy Gilbert (if I recall correctly), so why not for someone supposedly a hell of a lot more dangerous to his position of authority?

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  • 1 year later...

Really cool segment that uses a match as an excuse for Lawler to yell at the Snowman, and it eventually boils over. I thought their first studio brawl was excellent but this was even better. I really wish this tactic was used more, just with the constant bickering and yelling to the main opponent on the outside. I don't know if something would be lost outside of a studio setting, but I think a lot of the commentary/distraction finishes they do on Raw could really benefit from something like this.

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  • 8 months later...

Dave Brown introduces Jerry Lawler and The Snowman is in the audience again and Dave says how he will be facing ‘The King’ once again at the Mid-South Coliseum on Monday night, but this time Leon Spinks will be the special guest referee. Lawler says how The Snowman complained when Jerry Calhoun was the referee and he beat him, so they went out and handpicked ‘Big’ Lou Winston to be the referee and he beat him again. He cries about that and they go out and get Kerry Von Erich, the one man who hates him more than The Snowman does, and he beats him yet again. He cries so often that they should change his name from The Snowman to ‘crybaby’ because all he does is cry because he’s not man enough to win a match. Now Snowman gets to handpick his own referee, a man who is his personal friend, former World Boxing champion Leon Spinks, the man who beat Muhammad Ali. Eddie Marlin acts like he and The Snowman aren’t friends, but they’re probably in cahoots as he goes along with everything that The Snowman says. Lawler is already concerned that Spinks won’t referee the match fairly, but tells The Snowman that he couldn’t care less who the referee is as he couldn’t beat him if he had a knife and a gun, which he probably does! He says that is Spinks gets out of line one time, if he doesn’t count The Snowman’s shoulders when he’s got them pinned to the mat Monday night, he’ll knock what’s left of his teeth down his throat! If he thinks that Muhammad Ali hits hard, he’s never been hit until ‘The King’ puts his big right hand on him and knocks him into next week. He then tells The Snowman that after he beats him with his own handpicked referee, he won’t ever get another shot at his Unified title.

 

Jerry Lawler vs Rex King from the studio and Lawler spends a lot of the match pre-occupied with The Snowman at ringside, mouthing off at him and even inviting him to get in the ring. Eddie Marlin ends up coming out to try and keep the peace and to prevent things from getting out of control. The Snowman eventually has enough of Lawler, gets in the ring and the two of them start brawling. Marlin is in there, and he, the referee and Rex King do their best to get them separated. They have a decent little fight, but I don’t think it was a patch on the original studio fight they had prior to the first match at the Mid-South Coliseum, primarily because you could see Lawler pulling his punches here.

 

I really liked Lawler’s promo and with everything seemingly against him, and the infamous ‘if he doesn’t beat me he’s never getting another title shot’ line, I’m guessing we get the title change this week.

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  • GSR changed the title to [1990-06-16-USWA-Memphis TV] Interview: Jerry Lawler / Jerry Lawler vs Rex King

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