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G.O.A.T. (The Jerry Lawler Thread)


PowerButchi

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Posted

My opinion is that Jerry Lawler is the best ever. 40 years of awesomeness proves it, but who do you think is the best ever, and why?

 

(Saying Shawn Michaels or Bret Hart might end up in me angrily proving people wrong!)

 

But yes, Lawler had:

 

A) Great Punches

 

B) Made Miz look great when he was 60

 

C) Great Punches

 

D) and he dragged utter shite to brilliance. Bam Bam Bigelow;s best match was against The King in 86 when BBB couldn't work yet. Lawler dragged it out of him. And he's not the only one.

 

E) Great Punches.

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Posted

1992-93 Akira Hokuto is the greatest wrestler I've ever seen. Explosive offence, crazy mad charisma levels, cracking entrance music and one of the greatest sellers in the history of Japan (and joshi isn't known for its selling tbf)

 

In terms of overall career though I'm gonna have to be boring and say Flair. I absolutely adore the bloke. He's WWE run was depressing but otherwise he's gold. Great as a midcard and tag team guy in the seventies, great as the travelling world champ making babies look like stars, great at wrestling in the All Japan style against Jumbo and the like, great in the Royal Rumble, greatest promo ever . . . You could knock him for being more formulaic than wrestlers generally are but his spots always entertain and make me laugh personally. And they always result in a great match. He can have someone in a wristlock for ten minutes and find ways to make it entertaining by having a cheeky grab at the ropes or telling someone in the crowd "you keep your mouth shut!". It seems like everyone was having classics with him in the 80s. They were.

 

Lawler and Funk are the others. Terry Funks career is even more diverse than Flair's.

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In all fairness, I did like Hokuto. Because she would sell. My major problem with Puro was always the selling, and I don't care how much people say "It's being stoic". Fuck stoic. Unless their name is Bill Goldberg stoic doesn't work and just cheapens the opponents offensive arsenal. But do you know who could really sell, and then time an awesome comeback?

 

Jerry Lawler.

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Posted
(Saying Shawn Michaels or Bret Hart might end up in me angrily proving people wrong!)

Yeah, but has King done an episode of Bookaboo?

 

It's the only thing that he's missing from his arsenal to be proclaimed G.O.A.T. in my opinion.

 

In all seriousness, would it be fair to say the only thing Jerry is truly missing is the stella push from one of the big two and carrying one of those companies to be pushed that tad higher than the awesomeness of Ric Flair?

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Posted
The King is also a great illustrator, always a good thing to have another skill and drawing is cool.

 

It'd be better if his second skill was commentary.

 

Seriously though, I'm incapable of having an impartial view on The King because his voice has spent so many years grating on me. So fucking sick of his commentary, although his shit jokes do make me laugh very occasionally.

 

So it doesn't matter how great a wrestler he is, he is no GOAT in my eyes.

 

Flair #1

Posted

I would have liked to have seen Lawler have a title run around the time he arrived in WWE. He'd have been great as a cocky heel champ.

 

That being said, he wasn't getting anywhere near a WWF championship belt whilst he was still in Memphis.

Posted

I honestly think not letting him take the belt from Miz at EC was a mistake. By all means it should have been dropped back to the Miz the following night following some shinanigans on Coles part. It could have helped the Miz get heat in a period where he was completely put in the back ground of the Cena/Rock fued.

Posted

The focus was on Rock and Cena predominantly, but no way can you have your champion losing the title to a 60 year old who rarely wrestles in WWE going into Wrestlemania. Maybe in the autumn you can do something like that, but not going into Mania.

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Posted

Lawler is a master storyteller, his ladder match with Miz for the belt is one of the matches iv'e become most emotionally involved in (top 3 along with Foley-Orton and Punk-Cena) agree with Butch that he's the best ever, he's still better at 60 than 99% of wrestlers past and present, didn't cripple himself because of it either.

Posted

Winning emotional investment in matches is everything, and that's why Lawler is so good. Personally, I'd put Hogan up there with him, as I've cared more about Hogan as face or heel than most other wrestlers. Even old and crippled, Hogan and Sting had the crowd eating out of their hands.

 

Of the modern era, Cena gets the crowd to react as well as anyone. That he manages to get and work two separate reactions at the same time, is quite something too.

Posted
The focus was on Rock and Cena predominantly, but no way can you have your champion losing the title to a 60 year old who rarely wrestles in WWE going into Wrestlemania. Maybe in the autumn you can do something like that, but not going into Mania.

 

The Miz was an after thought anyway and was always going to remain so. The fact that he lost to a 60 year and had to resort to cheating to win the title back, would have made for a good story and good ammunition for Cena and Rock to throw at Miz. It would have also given Miz the extra fire he needed going into the match beating Cena "The Man" would be seen as redeeming himself.

Posted

I've said this before but I think working a more toned down (people might think of it as simpler but I don't) style is generally more impressive than going 100mph with head bumps. I know I watch lucha so that seems an odd statement for me to make, but even there that point stands. That's not to say you can't have an entertaining match built around cramming in loads of spots, you can, but the more you do the less it means, and it seems to me with the way wrestling has gone and certainly the way predominantly younger wrestlers wrestle, it's harder to just do the basics and hold yourself back from blowing your load all the time. I think that's possibly because of self doubt or just doubt in the audience. If you're a great wrestler, a really great wrestler, than you could work a match around a few punches and a few submissions and get people to care the whole way through. Everything great in wrestling is timing, 'psychology' (I'm not a big fan of that word but meh) and body language, everything else should be additional. People have wrestled entertaining matches without those skills but I know that I only care about them for that match. Not beyond that. Lawler is one of those masters at making what little he does in terms of moves work for him brilliantly because he has the perfect understanding of the basics which seem to me, going by who can do them and who can't, harder than being able to do a 450. I might be wrong, I've never done any training, but it certainly seems that way.

 

I don't really have a greatest of all time though. It's difficult to with Youtube I think because you know you're going to stumble across someone who you've never really watched before and think "fuck, I've never seen it that way before."

 

I do think Lawler's wasted though. Maybe he's not interested in a trainer's job but I'd offer him whatever I could to try and persuade him to take one.

Posted

Yeah I agree with the toned down thing. That's why I think current WWE has the best in ring product in the world at the moment (although I don't watch Lucha yet so could be wrong). That's why my favourite wrestling period by far is the 80's. Wrestling was fucking great then with all territories still knocking about. Strong characters telling simple stories in front of the best crowds wrestling's ever seen. I love the stuff from Japan then too, the All Japan heavies were superb. 80's southern tag team wrestling is my favourite type of match. Which brings me to . . Ricky Morton and Bobby Eaton. Two of the best ever no doubt, Morton is the best tag worker there's ever been and both had great matches in their singles runs too. If they both got more of a singles push I'm certain they'd be discussed more in these things.

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