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Couture's Championship Profiles: AWA Champion Jerry "The King" Lawler
By James E. Couture
Jun 3, 2007 - 10:05 AM

Folks, it's the wrestling journalism equivalent of Crystal Pepsi: clean, pure, but ulitmately confusing, me, James E. Couture. Now since I got my WrestleMania 23 Deluxe Edition set last week, I decided to hunker down and watch the Hall of Fame induction ceremony. After watching video recaps of Mr. Fuji, Nick Bockwinkle, and all 1300 wrestling Samoans, it was time for the main event. No, not Jim Ross, though he does hold a pinfall victory over Triple H (Dammit! Get out of my head, SmackDown v Raw!). No, I'm referring to his broadcast colleague and hetero life partner, it's Jerry "The King" Lawler, AWA World Champion!

The year was 1988 and the AWA was in shambles. Sure, they had the perfect champion in Curt Hennig, but the AWA's failure to showcase his diving and backwards-basketball shooting abilities turned the fans away in droves. With Hennig headed to the greener vignette pastures of the WWE, the AWA had a problem.

"The AWA didnt' have a problem. The problem was that these guys kept wanting to keep the money they earned. What do they think this is, Russia?" -Verne Gagne, TV infomercial "Making Money the Verne Gagne Way", 1994

Their solution? It wouldn't be homegrown talent like Greg Gagne or DJ Peterson. No, the AWA would turn elsewhere. Somewhere more southernly...

After giving Andy Kaufman cancer with a piledriver and winning his record 862nd Southern Heavyweight Title, Jerry Lawler was on top of the world. On May 9, 1988, it was Jerry "The King" Lawler Day in Memphis, a break from their usual "Honky Tonk Man Rememberance Week". That night, Jerry Lawler faced off against Curt Hennig with the AWA Title on the line. After a hard fought battle, Lawler found Curt Hennigs one weakness: hard metal objects. After a vicious slingshot into the turnbuckle, Jerry draped the arm across and 1-2-3, we had a new AWA Champion.

What followed was a title reign that made Dr. X's reign look like Rick Martel's, whatever that means. After unifying the AWA Title with the WCCW Title at Superclash III: We're All Gonna Die, and scoring with the sixt---nineteen year old leftovers from Kerry Von Erich, the King was at a crossroads. He wanted his payoff from the Superclash, and to, y'know, not lose at all ever. Verne Gagne countered by offering to let Jerry pay him $2500 to drop the title to Wayne Enos*, or whatever the hell Beau Beverly's real name is. The two could not agree. Jerry Lawler was stripped of the AWA World Title.

Jerry Lawler would go on to accumulate many accolades in the WWE, including rocking a sweet mullet, scoring his own personal dentist, and being the opponent for wrestlers with nothing better to do. The AWA Title would go away for awhile, only to be revived so it could be held by legends like Evan Karagias, Steve Corino, and Some Japanese Guy, and defended throughout the new AWA network of territories.

Well, until Hardcore Holly accepts his French heritage and returns as Hardcore Pourneaux, I am, in fact, James E. Couture.

Go ahead, Google the term "AWA" and see what happens if you started a wrestling revolution and nobody came.

*Dramatization, may not have happened