Jerry Lawler may be described as a big fish in a little pond, but oh what a fish and what a pond.  For years, Lawler wrestled in Memphis, Tennessee's  super hot wrestling territory where he battled some of the biggest names in the sport, drew sold-out crowds, and entertained the fans with his combination of brawling and intense charisma.  Over time, Lawler went on to own his own wrestling promotion and provide color commentary for "Monday Night RAW", the most popular wrestling show in North America. 

    Jerry "The King" Lawler's first broke into wrestling thanks to his skill as an artist.  As a teenager, Lawler would go to the wrestling matches with his father and he began drawing pictures of the different wrestlers he saw.  Lawler sent in some of his pictures to the local tv station which ran wrestling and one day he tuned in and was shocked to see his pictures on the air!  Even more shocking was the phone call Lawler received from wrestling announcer Lance Russell who invited Lawler to appear on the show.

   Lawler continued to draw pictures of wrestlers and he was soon befriended by local legend "Fabulous" Jackie Fargo who also admired Lawler's work.  Over time, Lawler decided to become a wrestler himself and soon started working matches in the Memphis area.

    The man who would someday be king saw his wrestling career start off slow.  Like most wrestlers, he was paid very little and traveled far and wide to find work.  Slowly, Lawler found success as a tag team wrestler and he attracted the attention of promoter Jerry Jarrett who appreciated Lawler's ability to take bumps and make his opponents look good.

    Jerry Lawler earned his nickname "The King" after defeating Memphis wrestling legend Jackie Fargo.  Fargo was known by fans as "The King of Memphis".  During a pre-match promo, Lawler promised to knock Fargo off his throne and after he defeated Fargo, fans told Lawler that he was the new king.  Lawler then began carrying a crown with him to matches as the nickname stuck.

After earning the nickname "The King", Lawler began carrying a crown with him.  The crown often became the center of matches as opponents would steal it from him, knowing how precious it was to him.  One such opponent was Rocky Johnson who defeated Lawler for the Southern Heavyweight Championship and found himself in possession of Lawler's crown as well.  After Lawler was furious and challenged Johnson to a match.  After defeating Johnson for the Southern belt (with the help of a chain), he put the belt up against the crown.  Johnson had the match going his way until Dennis Condrey and Phil Hickerson entered the ring and beat down Johnson.  As Condrey and Hickerson held Johnson, Lawler whipped him with a leather strap.  Lawler then ran off with his crown.

Babyfaces facing Lawler had to contend with just more than "The King's" wrestling ability.  Lawler's craftiness and use of foreign objects turned many a defeat into a victory.  Many a match was stolen when Lawler would reach into his tights and pull out a small steel chain to wrap around his fist and knock out his opponent.  As a heel, Lawler's craftiness infuriated the fans as he outsmarted and cheated his way to many wins and championships.  In addition to the chain Lawler was notorious for using fire on his opponents.  Opponents never knew what to expect when they wrestled Lawler.

Sometimes even Lawler's own partners didn't know what to expect when they battled Lawler.  During a tag match against Jackie Fargo and Rocky Johnson, Lawler's partner the Mongolian Stomper was shocked to see that Lawler was not very eager to get in the ring with either Johnson or Fargo and he refused his tag!  Finally, a furious Stomper attacked Lawler and helped his opponents get the pin on him. 

One of the greatest feuds of Lawler's career was with manager Jimmy Hart.  Like many a feud, Lawler and Hart had been friends at one point before things soured.  Lawler tapped Hart's background as a musician during his run as a heel and the two began working together with Hart acting as Lawler's manager.  However after Lawler broke his leg in a football game and was sidelined for many months, Hart saw an opportunity and dumped Lawler, asking fans "What do you do with a horse with a broken leg?".  Hart even took Lawler's crown and gave it to one of his wrestlers, the Dream Machine proclaiming a new king of Memphis.

Lawler was furious and after his leg had healed, he returned to get his revenge.  Lawler started by regaining his crown but that was just the beginning.  He went after Hart and broke his jaw, just one of many encounters between the two.  Hart had formed a stable of heels known as "The First Family of Professional Wrestling" and he used his wrestlers to try and put Lawler out of action once and for all.  Lawler and Hart feuded for years with each man winning battles over the other, but never the war.  In the end though, "The King" finally ran Hart out of Memphis after winning a "Loser Leaves Town" match which forced Hart out of CWA for good.

     Over time, Lawler would go on to become a local celebrity (he even had his own television talk show) and wrestling legend.  Memphis wrestling was ahead of its time with its use of music and video as well as some of the greatest angles in professional wrestling.  Many of the sport's top stars wrestled in Memphis either with Lawler or against him (or both!) including King Kong Bundy, "Ravishing" Ric Rude, Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart, Tommy "Wildfire" Rich, Eddie Gilbert, Lord Humongous, Randy "Macho Man" Savage, and many others.

     Without question, Lawler's biggest claim to fame was his feud with comedian Andy Kaufman.  Kaufman (an avid wrestling fan himself) went around the country, challenging women to wrestling matches.  He proclaimed himself the Inter-Gender Wrestling Champion and offered $1,000.00 to any woman who could pin him.  When Lawler learned of Kaufman's antics, he was disgusted at Kaufman's disrespect for professional wrestling, and challenged him to a match. The two met and as expected, Lawler destroyed Kaufman.  Lawler allowed Kaufman to put him in a headlock then proceeded to suplex him.  Then "The King" delivered a piledriver to Kaufman and broke his neck.  Lawler was disqualified for using the piledriver but he had delivered his message to Kaufman who was sent to the hospital for his neck injury.  The feud became national news and helped increase Lawler's popularity, especially with wrestling fans who admired him for defending the integrity of professional wrestling.  Kaufman and Lawler later appeared on "The David Letterman Show" where Lawler slapped Kaufman out of a chair and Kaufman responded with a tirade of obscenities. (In reality, the feud was a complete work.  Lawler and Kaufman were actually friends and Kaufman wasn't hurt in the match with Lawler. This was a well-kept secret for many years until it was disclosed in the Kaufman biopic "Man on the Moon").

In 1985, Jerry Lawler promised his fans that he would win the world heavyweight championship by the end of the year or he would retire.  Lawler faced Ric Flair for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship but failed to pin the champ.  Flair was scheduled to return to CWA in November 1985 and he would defend his belt against whoever held the Southern Heavyweight Championship.  Lawler was champion at the time and he knew this would be his last chance at winning a world championship.  Little did Lawler realize that his love/hate relationship with one of his biggest rivals would threaten his goal of winning the NWA Championship.

Jerry "The King" Lawler's quest for the NWA title was just the tip of the iceberg according to a story in the August 1984 issue of Pro Wrestling Illustrated.  The cover story "Can Jerry Lawler Survive His Own Dreams of Greatness?" dealt with a reported plan by Lawler to win both the AWA and NWA World Heavyweight Championship.  Competitors and colleagues such as Jimmy Hart, Jos LeDuc, and Jimmy Valiant commented on Lawler's ambitious plan.

    As the top wrestler in  Memphis, Lawler had more than his fair share of feuds with the area's top stars.  As often happens in wrestling, Lawler's partner one night might become his enemy the next night.  One of Lawler's biggest rivalries was with "Superstar" Bill Dundee.  Lawler and Dundee had tremendous success as tag team partners but they just as often found themselves fighting each other.  One such feud occured when Dundee was cutting a promo and he said that him and Lawler could beat any team in CWA.  The Fabulous Ones took offense to his comment and Lawler came out to try and calm the situation before it got out of hand.  Unfortunately Dundee took offense and he ended up challenging Lawler to a match for his Southern Championship. and put his foreign sports car up as incentive.  Lawler didn't care about the sports car but wanted a match with Dundee since Dundee had been causing trouble in the Memphis area recently.  Lawler and Dundee went back and forth until opportunity arose and Dundee punched Lawler with a chain, gaining the victory and the pinfall.  Now, Dundee would have his shot at Ric Flair's NWA World Heavyweight Championship and to make sure, he refused to defend the title until after his title shot (the 30 day mandatory title defense wouldn't pass until after the match with Flair).  Lawler did everything he could to secure a title match, even threatening to smash Dundee's sports car with a baseball bat.  However even when he got his title match, Dundee was able to slip away with the Southern belt. 

Despite coming up short in his quest for the world championship, Lawler reconsidered his promise to retire, feeling that his fans wouldn't want him to leave anyways.  Lawler made an appearance on Memphis television and told the fans that he wasn't going anywhere soon.  Or so the thought.

Despite Lawler's continued efforts, he could not get his hands on Dundee. In the end, Lawler offered to wrestle a loser leaves match against Dundee.  Finally, Lawler would have his chance to get payback on Dundee.  Before the match though, Lawler was injured and he had to wrestle with his face heavily bandaged and with his vision severely damaged.  Despite a valiant effort, Lawler lost the match and was now banned from the CWA for six months. 

With Lawler gone, Dundee and Landell ran roughshod over the CWA.  At one point, Dundee and Landell beat up Jerry Jarret's teenage son Jeff Jarrett, nearly blinding Jerry when he came to his son's aid.   Finally, promoter Eddie Marlin lifted the suspension against Lawler, feeling that only Lawler could stop Dundee.  "The King" returned to the CWA and teamed with Dutch Mantel to get his revenge on Dundee.

Lawler's success in the ring was shown by his tremendous success at winning championship gold.  He has held a reported 200 regional titles during his career. Like all wrestlers, Lawler's ultimate goal was the World Heavyweight Championship, the one title that seemed to always elude Lawler.   Due to his tremendous success in Memphis, Lawler received a number of world title matches.  Lawler received several shots for the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) World Heavyweight Championship battling Harley Race and  Ric "Nature Boy" Flair when they each held the title.  Lawler also received shots against the American Wrestling Association (AWA) World Heavyweight Champion and had several matches with AWA champion Nick Bockwinkel.  One memorable match against Bockwinkel had a stipulation where Lawler was forced to pay $100 every time he used a closed fist on Bockwinkel.  While Lawler never defeated Bockwinkel for the AWA title, he would eventually win the belt when he defeated Curt Hennig for the AWA World Heavyweight Championship in Memphis on 5-9-1988. 

       As the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) and World Championship Wrestling (WCW) battled for national dominance, Memphis wrestling found itself being squeezed out of the picture as both the WWF and WCW signed their top stars and competed against them.  To become more competitive, Memphis wrestling became the United States Wrestling Association (USWA).  Another move to maintain their competitiveness was arranging for a talent exchange between the USWA and the WWF.  Jerry began working for the WWF in 1993.  Lawler ran an interview segment appropriately named "The King's Court". 

          Lawler's gift for gab led to him providing color commentary in the WWF after Randy "Macho Man" Savage walked out on the WWF leaving Vince McMahon scrambling to find a replacement for his announce partner.  "The King" proved to be a great addition to the announce team as he used his lightning fast wit to entertain the fans, often at the expense of McMahon (who he constantly mocked as having a toupee to the point where fans wondered if McMahon was actually bald).

      Wrestling as a heel in the WWF, Lawler began an intense feud with Bret "the Hitman" Hart,   The two battled on "Monday Night RAW" and on pay-per-view as Lawler routinely insulted Hart's parents Stu and Helen, leading Bret to fight Lawler in defense of the Hart family's honor.  During the feud, Lawler lost a match to Hart where the loser had to kiss his own foot! "The Hitman" made "The King" live up to the match's stipulation, which made for an embarassing situation for Lawler.  Lawler brought in Isaac Yankem, a former dentist turned professional wrestler to help him battle Hart.   At one point in the feud with Hart, Lawler allied himself with Doink the Clown but he abandoned Doink after Hart defeated him, leading Doink to turn face and challenge Lawler to a match at Survivor Series.  Doink teamed with his midget sidekick Dink and two other midgets to take on Lawler and his team of midgets.

     While the King continued to wrestle in the USWA and Smokey Mountain Wrestling, his WWF in-ring appearances grew more infrequent as he focused on color commentary.  However in the summer of 1996, Lawler worked a program against Jake "The Snake" Roberts who had proclaimed himself a born again Christian after years of substance abuse problems nearly ended his career.  Lawler mocked Roberts' change in lifestyle and forced him to drink Jack Daniels' whiskey after blasting Roberts' in the throat with a liquor bottle.  The two met at SummerSlam where Lawler defeated Roberts.

        While Lawler's appearances in the ring have dwindled, he is never shy about getting in the ring when the circumstances are right.  When the self-proclaimed watchdog group "The Right to Censor" interfered with Lawler's enjoyment of scantily clad divas, he challenged them to a series of matches.  Lawler has also stepped into the ring several times to defend his broadcast partner Jim "J.R." Ross against wrestlers such as Tazz, Val Venis, and Muhammad Hassan.  "The King" also is active in the independent wrestling scene and continues to make appearances in his hometown of Memphis, TN.