This past Monday was a huge day for the company, with the simulcast between Raw and Nitro, and the return of Mick Foley. Shawn Michaels was also scheduled to return but was pushed out on both Raw and Smackdown due to time constraints. Smackdown drew a rating in the 4.0 region, and once again the rating is well below what the WWF want. The WWF/WCW deal is now final. Chris Benoit is now being pushed as a face. Jim Ross has stated that there will be very few inter-promotional angles and matches, although remember Jim Ross said this, so don't read a whole lot into this.

Finally, Wrestlemania X-Seven is being called by many as one of the greatest PPV's ever.

The date for the first TV taping under the new era is tentatively set 9th May, with the show being aired on 12th May. It appears as though the current WCW booking crew will be kept on board, as well as some WWF scriptwriters coming in to help.

By the end of 1985, Jerry Lawler had become the single biggest draw in the history of Tennessee wrestling. Although he lost a "loser leaves town" match in December 1985 to long time rival Bill Dundee, it was widely expected that Lawler would make a comeback. To keep busy during his absence, Lawler toured Hawaii.

Lawler made his comeback under a confusing Polynesian gimmick, which was ended abruptly, and he finally settled back into the promotion by the spring of 1986. Crowds dropped to alarmingly low levels while Lawler was gone. Lawler soon returned to his feud with Bill Dundee, and eventually it turned into a feud between Lawler and Dutch Mantell against Bill Dundee and Buddy Landell which climaxed with Lawler and Dundee winning a epic Texas Death Match which went over an hour and contained close to 30 falls! Following this, Lawler started to team up with former rival Austin Idol on a regular basis and the team became the top tag team in the area very quickly.

Eventually, Idol turned on Lawler which resulted in Lawler declaring war on him for the rest of 1986 and throughout 1987. The feud eventually resulted in a number of people getting involved with Idol, forming an alliance with Tommy Rich and the brash young manager Paul E. Dangerously (Paul Heyman) while Lawler recruited Bam Bam Bigelow and Bill Dundee. The two sides faced each other for endless months around the circuit in wild brawls, which the crowds ate up. The big blow off match was set for the infamous "Hair Vs Hair" match between Jerry Lawler and Austin Idol. Beforehand, Paul E. Dangerously declared he would refund all the fans ticket money if Idol got his head shaved. This brought out a huge sell out crowd to the Mid South Coliseum who all wanted to see Idol get his head shaved bald. The match started out like a regular cage match until Tommy Rich emerged from under the ring to help Idol to double team Lawler (Rich had been under the ring all night). The two proceeded to shave Lawler's head after giving him a major beating. This caused so much uproar that the fans started a full scale riot, scaling the cage trying to get at Idol, Rich and Heyman. The fans were so enraged that the trio had to escape the cage and run down the aisle back to the dressing room while the fans tore up the Mid South Coliseum.

As a result of his head shaving, Lawler took a few weeks off and returned to defeat Idol in a scaffold match to put an end to the feud. At this point in time, most regional organizations were struggling to attract crowds, which resulted in the three top regional organizations in CWA (Memphis), World Class (Dallas) and the AWA (Minneapolis) working together to form an alliance, which resulted in Jerry Lawler defeating Curt Hennig in May of 1987 to win the AWA World Heavyweight Title. This forced Lawler to work a spilt schedule in Tennessee and Minnesota, while working the occasional date in Dallas, usually against Kerry Von Erich. His time now in Memphis was taken up by matches with Brickhouse Brown and Dutch Mantell although he wasn't really around much. Lawler would be stripped of the AWA World Heavyweight Title in May of 1988 after missing scheduled defenses in Nebraska. In 1988, the CWA entered a feud with World Class, which basically was a Tennessee Vs Texas feud, which meant Lawler was working full time in three promotions, usually as a heel outside of Tennessee. In Dallas, Lawler feuded with the remaining Von Erich's and Eric Embry, a feud that would rage on for most of the year. Come the end of the year, the three organizations had decided to unify all three top heavyweights titles to form a unified Heavyweight champ and it was decided that Jerry Lawler and Kerry Von Erich would face each other in December 1988 at AWA's SuperClash 3 PPV in Chicago. Lawler was chosen to go over as he could work a more flexible schedule and perform in every promotion.

The deal with the AWA soon turned sour however, as AWA promoter Verne Gagne backstabbed the two other promotions and kept a large proportion of the gate receipts from Super Clash 3 which resulted in World Class and CWA throwing the AWA out of their alliance. Tennessee promoter Jerry Jarrett bought out World Class, so in essence, he had two promotions to run meaning the top star Jerry Lawler now worked full time in Dallas and Tennessee defending the unified World Heavyweight Title against numerous opponents such as  Jeff Jarrett, Eric Embry and Kerry Von Erich. Although business was steady in Dallas, by 1990 Lawler had focused his energies back onto Tennessee and in particular against the returning duo of Eddie Gilbert (who he had feuded with back in 1985) and Terry Funk. The feud came about after a tournament in Memphis to declare a new Southern Heavyweight Champion. Jerry Lawler had made it to the final against Terry Funk, but interference from Eddie Gilbert almost cost Lawler the title which set up a long running feud between Lawler and Terry Funk + Eddie Gilbert, which lasted throughout 1990.

The feud rumbled on throughout 1990 with it turning into a mainly Lawler Vs Gilbert feud by the fall of 1990. The feud in September of 1990 would feature one of the most famous Memphis angles in history which would go down as one of the most dangerous angles of all time. Gilbert thought up a crazy angle of him running Lawler down with a car in the parking lot of the Memphis TV studios. After discussing it with Lawler, they both agreed that the angle was indeed possible. The angle started with Eddie being fired by on screen promoter Eddie Marlin which resulted in security and Jerry Lawler escorting Eddie out of the building right to his car. Eddie got into his car and started to drive away, but he swerved and hit Lawler at full force (much harder than they had worked out) which resulted in Lawler being thrown onto the windscreen and violently thrown onto the concrete (Lawler would suffer legit hip and back problems). The scene was so realistic; a handful of TV viewers called the local police to report an attempted homicide. Eddie, immediately thinking he had seriously injured his boy hood idol, stopped at the first phone to enquire about Lawler, only to find out that police were waiting at the TV studios in order to arrest him. Unfortunately, as he had a habit of doing, Gilbert left Memphis before a final blow off match could be reached, so Lawler moved onto a fresh feud in 1992 against the vicious team of The Moondogs, who had been terrorizing the promotion for close to a year. In order to battle The Moondogs, Lawler recruited Robert Fuller and Jeff Jarrett and the two teams battled in a series of wild brawls throughout the first six months of 1992. The most memorable brawl occurred in Kinnett, Missouri, where Lawler and Jarrett rumbled with The Moondogs in a wild and bloody concession stand brawl. In late 1992, promoter Jerry Jarrett struck up a partnership with WWF owner Vince McMahon which would lead Jerry Lawler's career down a completely different path...

Next week I'll go through Lawler's classic feuds with Bret Hart as well as his battles with the Gilbert family back in Memphis.

The scene is a large, rich place throne room. A large chair is in the center of the room and it is surrounded by worshippers and sex slaves. Seated at the chair, is of course, Vince McMahon.

McMahon: Where is Mr. Benoit?

Benoit, followed by Chris Jericho and Lance Storm enter the room.

McMahon: Ah, did you finalize my deal my deal with Russia?

Benoit: Um, no sir, they said they aren't selling.

McMahon: Well, why not!? I'm Vince McMahon, dammit! I already own the western world, and Africa and most of Asia and Most of Europe.......only the jobber countries won't let me buy them out.

Benoit: That reminds me, people from the former country of Canada are here to see you.

Jericho: Hello.

Storm: Hello.

McMahon: Well hello there, what would you peon jobbers want from Vince McMahon?

Jericho: Sir, the Christians are getting awfully angry at the fact that there isn't a single Christian church in McMahonland.

McMahon: What do you mean? There are plenty of churches, and they all feature worship of me not some Christian jobber god. All Christians are now going to be held back to the lower card....peasants.

Jericho: (pissed off) Ok, c'mon now, you can't do this, first you buy WCW, and now you rule us like a king, what next.

McMahon: What next? That sounds like a challenge...to the lion pit you go!

Benoit leans over and whispers in McMahon's ear.

Benoit: Umm, the last time you tried to feed Jericho to the lions, he used his submission thing and made them all tap out. The lions are in much pain today.

McMahon: Right. Well.........to the sea lion pit!

Jericho: Sea Lion!?

McMahon: Yes, now be off!

The APA runs in and grabs Jericho by the shoulders, they drag him out of the hall.

Benoit: Now, here is Mr. Lance Storm.

Storm: Hello, lord and master of all that is living.

McMahon: Ah, I like this one. What would you like?

Storm: I work down at the lumber yard, and everyday a bunch of people with next to no skill and savage weapons chase after us.

McMahon: Are you talking about ECW?

Storm: Yes. We need something to do with them.

McMahon: First thing I'm gonna do is fetch that bastard Paul Heyman! Traitor! All of the ECW savages are going to pay.

Storm: One more problem, New Jack is threatening to kill me by missing a blade shot.

McMahon: APA! Go and kill New Jack for Mr. Storm.

No Answer

McMahon: APA?

Suddenly a soldier that is all bloodied up comes running into the room.

McMahon: What's wrong?

Soldier: The Sea Lions got us!