Who trained whom? [70s/80s]

[Ship Canal]

 

Lalwer was trained by Jackie Fargo, right? Or was that just kayfabe?

Just kayfabe, Lawler never had proper training. He did the 1960s equivalent of backyard wrestling as a teenager with some of his friends, and then barely got a few sessions' worth of remedial training before being booked onto an small outlaw indy show. He was a radio DJ at the time, and the promoter figured the free publicity that Lawler would provide by plugging the show was worth putting an untried rookie in the main event, even if said rookie was so green that he didn't even know how to bump correctly; Lawler ended up whacking his head on the concrete floor during his first match and knocking himself out cold.

 

Thing is, Jerry did indeed know Jackie Fargo, because before getting into wrestling he'd drawn a bunch of promotional pictures which the Memphis office ended up putting on TV and selling for merchandise and whatnot. So basically Jackie took him aside and said "if you wanna be a real wrestler, quit that outlaw shit and quit your radio job and come with us", and then Lawler got on-the-job training in the form of having Tojo Yamamoto beat the living shit out of him every night for the next few weeks. And the rest is history.

 

 

 

Thanks for the thorough answer, much appreciated.

 

Come to think of it I've heard the story about how he became a wrestler a few times already, I know its on the recent WWE DVD for a start but my memory is horrendous for exactly the reasons you might expect and this year I've begun to live a much healthier lifestyle but its quite staggering the amount of details I need to keep relearning about things. I definitely bought the Fargo being his trainer line for ages though so that's cool you've cleared that up.

 

I am absolutely intrigued by what the "1960's equivalent of backyard wrestling" was though... I'd presumed that was a trend that largely exploded later on but thinking about it, it makes absolute sense that something like would have existed since more or less as long as kids have been exposed to watching wrestling.

[Jingus]

Oh, it was nothing like the much more organized stuff that happened later, at least as far as I know. It was just Lawler goofing off with his friend and them body-slamming each other on the lawn (in back, where nobody could see them).