The World Class Diaries come to an end with a classic match-up from my childhood.

Whoever is color commentator at this point (Terrance Garvin?), backing up the great Mark Lawrence, is horrible. Winner of this battle gets the World Belt and the Texas title. “Double or Nothing” match. Lawler does some great mic work on the fans, and then Kerry. Kerry is the aggressor early, and Lawler is hesitant, taking his time. Lawler’s punches are the best thing ever… as usual. Kerry clamps on a sleeper and Lawler is in trouble, so Lawler pulls a chain out of his tights and clocks Kerry with it. Lawler is in control as we head to commercial.

It’s building well with Lawler cheating to maintain control. Kerry clamps on the iron claw and comes back. The fans don’t seem too vocal, or there a lot of them. Cool moment where Kerry has Lawler on the outside, goes after the heel color commentator, then tries to hit Lawler with a chair. It was unhinged, which is something you don’t see a lot from Kerry’s range. Lawler uses this to punch Kerry with a loaded elbow pad several times. Lawler’s beatdown of Kerry is better the second time around. Kerry comes back again, gets a pin, but Lawler is in the ropes.

There’s a ref bump, Lawler sending Kerry into the ref, and Lawler kicks Kerry low. Heel commentator Garvin slides a chair in for Lawler, who beats Kerry with it, then takes the pin when the ref comes to. Lawler wins in 12 minutes.

Well, it had a narrative, and sort of played out like a RAW main event with an angle at the end. It had it’s good moments and a story you could follow, but a lot of the narrative was stuff I had seen from these two, and although it was good (the standing punches and the reversal of fortune), it wasn’t what I’d call great. Terrence Garvin played way too much into the match, especially being distracting on commentary. As a match, it was 75% of their abilities, with a crowd that was either too small or too jaded to fully invest in the story. Finish wasn’t as hateable as others, but at this point in their feud I needed more to care. 3 ¼ stars and 6.3/10

If for no one else, this is a dream match for me.

Embry comes out with Percy Pringle holding the Texas Heavyweight title. Lawler is the “World Champion”, I guess the USWA belt. It’s for the World Title. Al Perez comes out pre-match with Gen. Skandor Akbar and challenges the winner. Kerry Von Erich comes out and says he wants the title shot. Tojo Yamamoto comes down to say the shot should be PY Chu-Hi. To the match.

Lawler stalls at the start, and the crowd gets hot behind Embry. Lawler ends up bailing out a few times because of Embry’s quick punches. Lawler is a great southern-style heel. Big back body drop by Lawler, but Embry comes back with a DDT. Lawler teases taking something out of his tights, then shows his hands to having nothing in them. Lawler gains the advantage by taking a towel from ringside and covertly choking Embry with it. This thing plays out behind the ref’s back for several minutes. Lawler pulls his boot off and hits Embry with it, but can’t get the pin because Embry gets a foot on the rope. Embry sells like he’s nearly knocked out.

Lawler continues, prancing around arrogantly as he throws jabs at a defenseless Eric Embry. Akbar and Tojo come down the ringside. Things look bad for Embry. Lawler wastes time and can’t get the pin. Gutsy Embry keeps kicking out. Embry pulls the straps down and comes back. Embry punches and kicks his way to a good near fall. Embry uses some sort of spike to get a visual fall on Lawler, but the ref is distracted, and Akbar rings the bell. Embry thinks he’s won, and at that moment Lawler rolls him up for the pin. Lawler wins.

Eric Embry pulling the straps down to come back on Lawler was one of the more interesting things I’ve seen on the set. Embry did look pretty dumb for thinking he’d won when there was obviously not a ref’s count. That is one of my few complaints, along with me wanting more of those great Embry hope spots. These are quibbles. I really did like the match. It had character and story; two of my favorite wrestlers weaving that story. The wrestling itself was solid, but the match story made it better. This is lower top third for me. 3 ¼ stars and 6.4/10

This feud will be settled (or not) in a Thanksgiving cage!

We start just in progress. Lee Marshall of the AWA is actually doing commentary with Marc Lawrence, but rest assured this is from the Dallas Sportatorium. These guys are pros at building a match. Lawler is having a smug ol’ time having gotten the better of Kerry with punches, and then they circle. Kerry comes out of the corner and decks Lawler. Lawler wants out of the cage, but Kerry won’t let him. Lawler, the master of the punch, is really selling Kerry’s punches and cage shots. They tease the iron claw, but Lawler struggles. Kerry gets it for a few minutes. The crowd isn’t as hot as the heyday, which is a shame. Lawler cowers, then uses a chain from his boot. Lawler is hiding the chain from the ref. Kerry is bleeding. Lawler hides the chain back in his trunks periodically. I really like the match story of the first five minutes.

Old ref Bronco Lubich just doesn’t see the chain, but everyone else in the crowd does. The drama builds as Lawler has full control. The story is basic, evident, and effective. Awesome moment as Lawler hides the chain in his mouth, Bronco checks him, then Lawler smiles to the crowd and shows the chain in his mouth.
The pattern of punches and hiding the chain continues until Kerry gets the chain and destroys Lawler with punches. Great Lawler bumps. Lawler tries to hide behind the ref, but Kerry gets him. Lawler uses another object from his tights (which was a show, don’t think he had anything), and we finally get a few pin attempts. Crowd chanting for Kerry. The finish looked good, but came out of nowhere. Kerry sends Lawler headfirst into the corner of the cage, bounces off, and rolls him up for the pin in ten minutes. Kerry wins.

I really liked the movement and dumping of Lawler, as well as the overall story of the match. It looked great. Lawler was awesome and Kerry played his part. At times it feels like Lawler could be as good of an opponent for Kerry as Flair was half a decade before. Very few negatives, as everything made sense in a wrestling context. The finish came out of nowhere, even though it looked good, and didn’t quite pack the punch I was hoping for, but this was a very good match, just a level below other great cage matches on the set, as it really looked like they were holding back slightly for the big SuperClash match that they had coming up. It did need a finish fitting the build. It came off a little short which makes me worry I’m over-rating it, but it’s not always about length of time. It’s match story quality This will land in the late teens/early twenties of my ballot. 3 ¾ stars and 7.3/10

A legendary feud I remember from my childhood gets revisited. I’m excited.

The backstory is Lawler coming into World Class with the AWA/Memphis belt, and claiming to be the real world champion. Kerry challenges Lawler to unify the belts, and Lawler accepts. Of course, the first match ends in controversy. Something about Lawler cheating and Kerry being knocked out immediately. They book a rematch on 9/9/88. Lawler does a promo before the match calling out the WWF/NWA champs, calling them company champions. He puts over Von Erich for accepting the challenge. Kerry offers his hand and Lawler KOs him before the bell. Loaded glove. Lawler tries to steal the World Class belt but they won’t let him, then Lawler cuts a heel promo. That leads into tonight.

Lawler is still the AWA and Memphis champion. Kerry is the World Class champion. This is a unification match. The crowd is hot at the opening, and they take their time. Locking up, the bigger Kerry tosses Lawler. But Lawler comes back with several big clotheslines. Lawler makes a good showing early, and I love the pacing/story in the first five minutes.

Lawler continues to rule the ring. It’s all Lawler, and he’s letting the crowd know it. Kerry seems concerned, but determined. A cautious, slower pace for this match that fits the importance. Kerry takes a famed Lawler punch and discus punches Lawler. Lawler bumps big and bails to the outside. Now Lawler is cautious, and Kerry is on the offensive. Lawler stooges about for Kerry’s punches, hiding in the corner. The crowd eats this up. Ten minutes gone.

Lawler is getting desperate. Fans chant “Go Kerry Go.” Kerry gets a nearfall and Lawler gets a foot on the rope. Pile driver from Lawler, but Kerry powers through and decks Lawler. Lawler sells big for this stuff, then lowers the famed strap and comes back. Now they just slug each other, ending up with both so entangled they deck the referee. The match ends at 13 minutes as a double DQ. They keep punching each other as mid card wrestlers try to break them up. Both of them are DQed and under World Class rules ALL the titles are held up.

This match is a well-paced, meat and potatoes slugfest that has drama, kept me on the edge of my seat, and told a story. I didn’t mind the finish so much as it felt like a chapter in a larger story. I really enjoy this match up, partially because it reminds me of my childhood. 3 ¼ stars and 6.3/10

Jokes aside, the goofy Freddy stuff is both embarrassing and surprisingly okay. Tommy Gilbert under the mask throws great punches and walks the line between goofy and good work. I can not believe he was a babyface though.

A lot of the focus of this drawn out match is the crowd heat on manager Ronnie Gossett, and everyone waiting for him to get in the ring to get beaten up. They milk that one forever, and they milk most of the match w/ pauses and heels stooging. A good time but I got bored because I personally don’t care about Gossett. That probably unfair, but it’s my journey/ballot through 80s Memphis, and this story didn’t quite capture me.

Ending is just everyone brawling and I unfortunately could not figure out who won or lost. 2 ¼ and 4/10.

Another in a long line of late 80s match-ups between these two. This is a feud I loved as a child, and this one is for both the belts. Von Erich’s World Class title & Lawler’s AWA title are on the line.

If this match had been melded with their earlier match up on this disk, and either was given a good ending, they may have made a top ten finish. The body of this match is probably better. I thought everything meant a bit more in the former meeting though. With these guys you get punches and rest holds, but it’s on the higher end of that stuff. The fans weren’t as hot as you’d think for this match, but Lawler and Von Erich worked hard. A typical three star main event that was never mean to be a great match, but shines in spots to spite itself. 3 stars and 6/10.

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.

This was a clever little match. Not great, but decent, and definitely worth inclusion on this set. These two are master workers for their style, and they know how to play to a Memphis crowd.

First ten minutes are pretty similar to a Dick Murdoch vs The Nightmare match from the Mid South set. Lawler wants to punch Mantell for slaps/punches off a rope break, but the ref keeps stopping him. He keeps building up for it and taking shots. Finally he hits one of those classic punches and it’s sold accordingly. Pretty fitting considering Murdoch and Lawler have two of the best punches in wrestling history.

The reason I enjoyed this more then I probably would have is Mantell makes the ref check Lawler for chains/fire twice before the match, only to pull out a chain at the end. That’s not the great part though. The great part is Lawler pulling his own chain out of Mantell, and this time the ref stops Mantell from throwing the shot and misses the Lawler rule breaking. That’s the finish as Lawler pins him after the chain shot. The only minuses are Lawler’s come back coming way to soon and out of nowhere, and the first ten minutes lent itself to a 30 minute match, but they went slow build to finish at 15 minutes. Oh well, you can’t get everything. 3 ¼ and 6.5/10.

They built this up for a while as Lawler’s last shot at his quest to become the world champion. They even had voting to pick a ref (with Larry The Ax Hennig), and local area legend Jackie Fargo winning. This is for the AWA World Title with Hennig as a big heel in Memphis. This is pre-Perfect days, so he was just starting to put the character together as a persona.

They show Bill Apter, Joel Goodhard (who started TWA), Dan Wolf, Dave Brown, and others. Guess they couldn’t get any real wrestling old timers to show up. They did get the mayor of Memphis to show up (to a mixed reaction) though, as well as some pro athletes whose names I couldn’t hear.

I’m not exactly sure how to characterize the match. The first 12 minutes weren’t horrible, but they were so inconsequential that you don’t hear Lance Russell’s live commentary until 12 minutes in. There is an oddly more laid back Russell commentary for the first 12 minutes. Basically Ref Fargo exerts himself as a “fair ref” by constantly detracting from what the heel Hennig is allowed to do. His manager is kicked out of ringside for cheating. He won’t count pins for Curt and makes him break holds with fast 5 counts. It totally makes the deck stacked against the heel while he tries to get the heat, and I hated Russell and Brown trying to act like this was justice. First half of the match sucked.

In totality this was a 25 minute match where maybe 5 minutes as interesting or engaging. Lawler bleeds, though it wasn’t to compelling for me, and the finish was very odd to me. The pin, pop, and aftermath as Lawler claims his first World Title is pretty awesome, but for the bulk of the match the importance doesn’t quite come across. Honestly, both men bump really well in sections, but this never flows when either man controls the action. It’s a first to second gear match that never really moves well. I’m at a loss. It didn’t suck, it just wasn’t as good as the context and stage it was in/on. 3 and 6/10.

Match Discussion Here

Joined in progress from the Mid South Coliseum. Crowd is hot, but you can see they are way down. There are seats and sections everywhere with no people in them. Memphis was slowly dying as an arena attraction at this point.

Each man does a promo tease involving fire at the start. Well, I guess we had to have a match based around fire. It’s a prerequisite for Memphis and Jerry Lawler. I’ve never gotten the babyface throwing fire first for no reason, and I’ll state that up front.

Early story is Gilbert keeps losing the lock ups to Lawler and fears the King going to his tights to throw fire. Even when he lands a punch he runs away and almost gets counted out. Missy Hyatt is with him and she looks the best I’ve seen her in over a decade. A young Missy was like Tammy Sytch in 1996.

Gilbert gains the advantage after a while and beats down Lawler. Nothing to write home about but they both knew how to throw punches and pace everything. The big spot is Gilbert tying Lawler’s neck to the turnbuckle and punching the crap out of him. That was pretty cool. Lawler pops the strap after that and Gilbert does cartoonish bumps off the famed Lawler punches. I’m not really into that style of bumping, especially in a more serious match like this, but it was decently effective.

Here’s where they lose me. Lawler gives Gilbert the piledriver because it’s no DQ. That should be a KO. But them Gilbert moves out of the way of the fist drop from the second rope. He’s fine. No ill effects. Meanwhile Lawler stays down like he’s dead from the fist drop miss. WTF? I know they were stalling for the fire spot, but get it together quicker guys. Even worse was the fact Gilbert wanted one of Missy’s shoes, but some guy stopped that from happening, and that took over a minute of standing around. Flash paper and a lighter should take about 10 seconds. What’s the hold up?

Lawler throws the fire, and at least that looks decent, and wins by count out when Gilbert and Hyatt leave after he’s burned. What a babyface. What a finish. What-EVER! 2 ½ and 5/10.

Match Discussion Here