Monday Night April 14, 1980
Here’s the card, 28 years ago this week:
As you look at the card, you’ll quickly notice the absence of one name, Jerry Lawler. “The King”, was a little over 2 months into a broken leg injury. He did try to come back that summer, but ended up further damaging his bad leg. Lawler ended up being out about 11 months before coming back to a full time schedule on Dec 29, 1980.With Lawler out indefinitely, promoter Jerry Jarrett had to act fast and decide who would be the one chosen to carry the territory? Jarrett’s decision was shocking, but ended up working. The guy he chose was Jerry Lawler’s manager, Jimmy Hart. Everyone knows who Jimmy Hart is now, but back in 1980, that wasn’t the case. A few months earlier, Jimmy had just started managing a heel Jerry Lawler. The interesting thing was Hart never talked during the King’s interviews. He would usually just stand there slightly behind Jerry and cheer him on. In Feb 1980, that all changed. As soon as Jerry Jarrett heard about Lawler’s accident and the extent of it, he gathered the group together (himself, Bill Dundee, Lance Russell, etc) and told Jimmy Hart that the company’s survival depended on him. When I recently talked to Jimmy about this, he couldn’t explain enough how freaked out he was by the whole thing. He went from having no mic time to being included in almost every segment on the weekly Memphis TV show. When I asked Jerry Jarrett about his decision to put Hart on top, he said he knew Jimmy would be successful. Jimmy had worked in the promotion, (behind the scenes) for over a year and had an amazingly positive attitude as well as being very loyal.
It was Jerry Jarrett’s idea for the now famous interview Jimmy Hart gave on that first Sat morning after Lawler broke his leg. It was a classic angle on Memphis Wrestling that is remembered to this day. The announcer, Lance Russell talked about how Jerry Lawler had broken his leg, etc. Lance went on to call out Jimmy Hart to ask how the King was doing. Jimmy Hart comes out and gives the interview of his life. Jimmy tells Lance, “What do you do when a race horse breaks leg… You put him down!” With that one interview, Jimmy Hart was forever engrained in Memphis Wrestling history.
Through out 1980, Jerry Jarrett had a constant array of wrestlers that were brought in to keep the fans interested in wrestling. Some of them were: Billy Robinson, Jimmy Valiant, Bill Dundee, Tommy Rich, Ken Lucas, Paul Ellering, Killer Karl Krupp, Austin Idol, Nick Bockwinkel, Lou Thesz, Dr. Bill Irwin, Tony Atlas and many more.
The card above shows that Jarrett was somewhat successful in his attempts to keep the company thriving. The attendance had nearly 5,000 on this night and for most of the “Lawler-less” year they averaged between 4,000-5,000 people every week.Order The Book!! CLICK HERE!
