Lawler waits for Piper, gets Tommy Rich instead. Buzz Sawyer on Tommy Rich. WCW, November 1982. 

Same here brother!

I think the King's own territory the Memphis USWA/CWA area was the greatest of all time

Georgia Championship Wrestling, the all star game of professional wrestling every Saturday.

Your 100% right, The best ever, Loved the rivalries, they played it to a tee

Florida was better

He ain't no Double A

lawler was a great heel. Magic on the microphone.

Yeah that's why it's so hard to hear him become a cackling fool on the WWE. If a youngster heard this version of The King they wouldn't believe it. He owned that territory for what seemed like forever. He could go "Heel" or he could go "Face" and be equally spot on. Then he comes up to Greenwich, Ct to work for Vince and he starts to sound like Jimmy Hart on Diet Pills. I can only describe it as a Cackle + A Screach.

​​@@thack57 Jerry Lawler admitted long ago he wanted to be in show business. He also admitted he wanted to be famous and wealthy. He was already famous and wealthy from owning his own territory in Memphis and Vince gave him the opportunity to become famous throughout the country. Get paid a lot of money and 95% of his time would be spent doing mic work. He was getting older and realized he could become even more famous than he was and make a bigger check without getting bounced around in the ring. His gimmick was what Vince wanted and Lawler gladly accepted and cackled all the way to the bank with it. And here in 2023 you're still talking about him. He obviously succeeded with money and fame in show business like he always wanted.

that's what made the nwa, THE NWA

And just a few short years later, the Mid Atlantic stars from the Carolinas took over World Championship Wrestling when Crockett bought the WCW time slot.

Also keep in mind that the Georgia promotion aired on the Atlanta superstation. When I was growing up in Alabama in the seventies, that was the first wrestling promotion I saw. Our television went up to thirteen channels, so options were pretty limited. Years later, Gordon Solie was the announcer on a Birmingham promotion that was carried on a local station, so for me, Gordon Solie's commentary was practically synonymous with pro wrestling.

You're so correct. Buzz Sawyer was a heel in Georgia. Yet when he went to Portland Wrestling to help his brother Brett. Buzz Sawyer was one of the most popular wrestlers in the territory.

People want to blame Vince, but Brainless#1 at JCP killed off the territories, Vince just hammered in the final nail.

AMEN

Old school wrestling will never go out of style

Yep, by 3 million miles !!!!!!

Of course it's great their all coked out of 🧠

Yes absolutely

Were you also born in 1970

Good memories, he and Gino was it. I hated Gino leaving and Tully going to Central States, but Gino got over in World Class.

I met him also...1992 to be exact in Henderson Kentucky..very nice man..one of the best moments in my life..

@@TheKingme06 Thank you, Ronny. i agree. i did not recognize him (He was very much on the down low and maybe 6 feet tall) but, his voice is unmistakable. Ronny's and Donny's always get along. Isn't that simply Marvelous? Add: Danny's.

which comics was he into? Is he a Marvel guy or a DC guy?

@@crittoneida958 I think both. He's always been a comic book fan.

Jerry Lawler is an accomplished artist..I believe that's how he got into wrestling..He used to draw caricature pictures of the wrestlers and would send them into the wrestling show that they had in Memphis on the weekends,and Lance Russell would show them....If you ever get the time go look at his website and some the work he has done.

It sucks now !!!!

@@mitchcumstein5220 it's beyond suck. It's a Cumstein.

It became OVER produced,too slick and glossy.I like those old school buffoons....

They lost all realism and connection with the audience and viewers.

That's right!

Piper saw no money there. And he wasn't gonna let the two Jerry's use him.as a stepping stone to get a shot at the NWA championship.

wrestling was great back then. Thanks for posting.

Tommy.

He made several stops in Georgia, this wasn’t the only one.

You're welcome, Tyrone. Glad you're enjoying the videos. It's a lot of fun posting them so folks can revisit them again. Plus, I'm seeing a lot of stuff I haven't seen since I was a kid, or am seeing first time.

Lawler was a wrestling wunderkind in the late '60s/early '70s and Rich was mid-south wrestling's wunderkind of the mid-'70s and they had some epic matches in Memphis over the next two decades. Too bad the program between Piper and Lawler never panned out. It was to span both territories much like the Lawler program with Kerry Von Erich did years later. Both Lawler and Piper were masterful heels and it would have been a symposium on how to draw heat if nothing else.

Did you go to a TV tapings on channel two WSB?

@@terryg995 no they were seen on tv

Like Brody a heel in awa but loved in Texas

@@miketustin4075 Or Flair during 1984 when he was a face as champion in Mid Atlantic, but on the road he was a major heel.

That's what great wrestling ability combined with a ton of coke will do lol! 😂

@@billnelson8517 and some loratabs

I loved Buzz Sawyer when he came to Portland Wrestling to help his brother Brett fight Rip Oliver and his clan. Buzz was one of the most popular wrestlers in Portland Wrestling.

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-dDzHbe7cDng.html

went by roy rogers too

David Haskins was Davey rich not Johnny rich

@@chrischar9428 David did a Rich cousin in Knoxville but he wasn't Johnny Rich

@@isaacbraxton1731 you replied to wrong person

Exactly. Tired of sitcom reruns all day

People were easier to impress then

they had clear lines of heels and babyfaces, Jerry was neither. Today they are all just gray.

The king

Memphis was loosely aligned with AWA and NWA. Hell, nobody but that jackass got a shot at Flair or Harley but him.

Before

No, Piper was free agent, he wrestled back and forth between MACW, PNW and GCW during this time. I'm not sure when or if Ole fired him he was too hit back then.

In August of 1982.

Before then they were doing FL Championship Wrestling from Jacksonville. Both programs had the same feel. Wrasslin...not Wrestling.

Yes, he'd pop up here and there. Atlanta. Florida (there was a Memphis/Florida crossover involving heels managed by JJ Dillon, and Lawler fought members of Dillon's stable). Chicago. Texas. The Andy Kaufman incident made Lawler a hot property, so there were angles with wrestlers "challenging" him for brutalizing that little guy. Sometimes he'd be an obnoxious heel in the other territories, sometimes a face. He was equally good playing it either way.

10+ years in the business he should have perfected somethingcause it sure wasn't wrestling science.

The journeys that Jerry Lawler made to Chicago and by extension The AWA in pursuit of dethroning Nick Bockwinkel established him as a very credible option to become The World Champ there eventually. In 1988 in his hometown of Memphis as an 18 year veteran Jerry Lawler finally achieved his dream of becoming AWA Champ. By dethroning Curt Hennig who himself had depended upon the nefarious assistance of Larry Zbyszko to dethrone Nick Bockwinkel in San Francisco.🤔😂🎤🎼🎸🤼‍♂️B.W.

He beat Kerry Von Erich in awa/wccw unification match

@@armandop9082 when the AWA and WCCW were on their last legs.

@TheLeebo1962 agree it was over by then, wwf had taken all the talent and Vince was on mission to dominate.

Too much sniff sniff snort snort.

No, he was touring PNW and MACW

I always heard Piper got fired because he and Tommy Rich showed up late for a wrestling show....I don't believe anything happened to Rich as he was the biggest star that they had at that time in GCW.

@@MegaSammy70 I can''t say who was bigger, but Piper was also wrestlingup in PNW at the same time and MACW. He had a full schedule. I don't be;ieve he got fired because he was with all three before he went to the WWF. Tommy Rich proved he couldn't carry the ball that's why flair got the nod.

Exactly, Piper was the hottest thing outside Flair, he had it built in that he could wrestle in PNW for Owens at the sane time. When you didn't see him at GCW or MACW, he was in Portland.

Unh hunh. That is very interesting and how impressive that absolutely no one else in wrestling has ever told this story. You must have a real inside track on information.

@@patricksullivan2261 I never said I saw it. It happened in real life at one of the Memphis untelevised "dark" matches in '82. Piper came back from Portland and confronted him and shut down that angle real quick. Ans as far as that goes Tully Blanchard laid him out in San Antonio. So yes, you boy has a glass jaw.

@@terryg995 unh hunh. It happened and no one but me can attest to this. Look Lawler was no shooter but neither was Tully Blanchard. And by all accounts Roddy and Jerry got along just fine. You are preaching something that never happened. Let it go.

@@patricksullivan2261 I attest to nothing. Piper has enough shoots here attesting that he and Jerry were not friends. Tully was a FYI. Funny how he showed up on GCW tapings two weeks running and never again. I could attribute that to Piper shutting him down or simply that nobody liked him outside of Memphis. Take your choice

Ole fired Piper because Tommy sabotaged Roddy by causing him to miss a booking. Piper & Lawler never took place until '94.

Why? Did you think it was real? It's scripted, like the matches.