Athletes - Jerry Lawler

Home > Listing Index > Athletes > Jerry Lawler

	Athletes - Jerry Lawler

Jerry O'Neil Lawler (born November 29, 1949 in Memphis, Tennessee, United States) is a professional wrestler and wrestling commentator, known throughout the wrestling world as "The King". He currently works for World Wrestling Entertainment as a color commentator for its RAW brand (with Jonathan Coachman and Joey Styles). He also frequently wrestles for the Memphis Wrestling promotion and occasionally commentates there as well.

Career

Lawler is perhaps best known not for his considerable wrestling skills, but for a much-publicized feud with the late Andy Kaufman that was later revealed to be completely contrived (a total "work" in wrestling parlance). This feud included a widely-seen confrontation between the two on Late Night with David Letterman. The bad blood between the two men seemed so convincing that it came as a surprise when in 1999 (15 years after Kaufman's death) it was revealed it was all a work.

Jerry Lawler has made history as being the wrestler with the most championship reigns of all time. He has won 112 titles in his career; 43 of which were the Southern heavyweight championship. In fact, between them, Lawler and his son Brian have held a combined 68 Southern heavyweight championships.

Lawler unified the American Wrestling Association World Heavyweight Title (defeating the late Curt Hennig on May 9, 1988) with the WCCW World Heavyweight Title (defeating the late Kerry Von Erich on December 13, 1988), creating the United States Wrestling Association Unified World Heavyweight Championship. He was a co-owner, along with Jerry Jarrett, of the now-defunct promotion. From its start in 1989 to its end in 1997, Jerry Lawler held the USWA heavyweight title a total of 28 times. Of course, this statistic, as is true with all professional wrestling statistics, must be interpreted in the light of how professional wrestling operates. He left the Memphis-based USWA for the WWF (now WWE) in 1993. Entering the federation as a heel, Lawler soon began a lengthy feud with Bret Hart over the latter's winning of the inaugural King of the Ring tournament. The feud finally ended when Hart defeated Lawler in a "Kiss My Foot" match at King of the Ring 1995. Despite some brief feuds with other faces, such as the Ultimate Warrior and Jake "The Snake" Roberts, in 1996, Lawler gradually began to settle more and more into a role as the primary color commentator for WWF TV telecasts.

In 1997, as part of a WWF cross-promotional deal with Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), Lawler insulted the credibility of ECW as a commentator on RAW. Later in the evening, ECW owner Paul Heyman personally called him over the air and gave a rebuttal. This led to several ECW wrestlers making appearances (and even wrestling matches) on WWF television, with Lawler all the while insulting ECW and its wrestlers. He was finally booked to wrestle Tommy Dreamer (a man considered by many to be the face of the ECW promotion) at ECW's Hardcore Heaven pay-per-view in August 1997, a match which he lost.

In 1999, perhaps inspired by fellow wrestler Jesse Ventura's successful run for the governorship of Minnesota, Lawler ran for mayor of Memphis, finishing third in a field of 12 candidates.

Earlier in his career, like many wrestlers, Lawler took his turns as both face ("good guy") and heel ("bad guy"). Perhaps the best gimmick of this period was his on-and-off feud with an erstwhile tag-team partner, Australian wrestler "Superstar" Bill Dundee. A celebrated "grudge match" between the two at Memphis' Mid-South Coliseum represented a rare example of theatrical make-up blood actually being found in use at a pro wrestling event, since the match was being taped for an NBC television program documenting the rise in popularity of pro wrestling. Most blood in professional wrestling has traditionally been real, as a result of "blading."

Jerry Lawler is responsible for "The Mouth of the South" Jimmy Hart entering professional wrestling. Lawler wanted to record a wrestling album with him singing and, since they had gone to school together, he called Hart and asked him to be a part of it. So close are the two men that on April 2, 2005, when Hart was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, Lawler performed Hart's induction.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Jerry Lawler ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Jerry Lawler; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Athletes - Jerry Lawler

Career

Searches on eBay

Related searches on eBay