Pro Wrestling Chronicle

Match # 116: Jerry Lawler vs. Kerry Von Erich (6/27/88)

This one takes me back to childhood in the late 80s watching World Class on ESPN. My mother would yell at me if she caught me watching, so I turned it low every weekday afternoon, sit right up close on the TV, and be transported to another world. For all I knew these matches were happening live – in fact I think I thought they were live every afternoon – and I couldn’t wait to see what would unfold in my male soap opera after my mother was done watching hers just before wrestling.

This is a double titles match, though you don’t know that unless you are paying attention to the announcements at the end. Lawler is AWA World and (Memphis) Southern champion, while I assume Von Erich is World Class champ. Though Lawler was a heel on World Class TV when I was watching, in Memphis at the same time they played this as face versus face.

First 8 minutes are clipped out, which really sucks. The crowd is awesome for this and makes everything important. They go back and forth with a lot of sleeper, front face locks, and other submission holds. In between we get the classic Lawler punches and Von Erich discus punches. Match would have had a horrible ending 16 minutes in (8 for us TV watchers) as Jimmy Golden’s Stud Stable interferes. But Ref Calhoun does something awesome and restarts the match.

The match after the restart rules. Lawler gets in some big shots and every punch means something. Calhoun is being a stickler for the rules, but in a great way that keeps both men separated often enough to cause the crowd to want to see more. This isn’t an awesome work rate match, and it’s probably not the best from these two, but it’s a good story. The finish is a double count out as both men struggle to get back in after a brawl outside. If only they’d had a better ending (which wasn’t the purpose of the match then anyway) I could go higher with this. As it is I recommend a viewing if you love this feud, but for the purposes of the ballot I’ll go 3 stars and 6/10.