On April 27, 1987, rookie manager Paul Heyman had more heat in one night in Memphis than Verne Gagne’s AWA had all year. (Granted, that’s not saying too much.) Along with his cronies Austin Idol and Tommy Rich, Heyman (then known as “Paul E. Dangerly”) cheated local hero Jerry Lawler of his hair and the AWA Southern title in a steel-cage match. (In hindsight, the cage probably saved the lives of those heels from hell in the ugly aftermath.)

While that was certainly enough to create a melee of Pacers-like proportions, to make matters worse, in the pre-match hype Idol had promised to refund every audience member’s price of admission should he lose as well as have his own precious bleached-blonde locks snipped. Since the very idea of Lawler losing a hair match at that time was about as unfathomable as Rich regaining the NWA World title, more than 9,000 Memphis fans plucked down their blue-collar cash thinking the Women’s Pet had made a wager he’d soon regret.

SIDE-NOTE SLAM: Six years earlier to that day, Rich captured the NWA World title from Harley Race on April 27, 1981, in Augusta, Ga., before dropping it back to the former champ four days later in Gainesville, Ga. Bloated and looking nothing like the man who had broken hearts on WTBS years earlier, Rich returned to Memphis as a heel toward the end of 1986, probably his most lucrative option besides the Continental territory. Goes to show you how quickly things change in the wrestling business, especially when you don’t take care of yourself.

That confidence was shattered seconds after Heyman kneeled on the floor of the Mid-South Coliseum to yell the prearranged signal to Rich, who had been secreted under the ring around 3 p.m. that day. Wearing an undersized Coca Cola Clothes sweatshirt, Rich moved like wildfire from the floor and into the ring, just in time to save the Idol from a King-sized, match-ending piledriver. After the momentarily stunned ref Jerry Calhoun came to his senses just in time to count out the King, Heyman wrapped a thick chain around Lawler’s neck as local hairstylist Ted Cortese cut the hair of the city’s number-one son.

Flying-body-pressing the envelope even more, Heyman goaded the Memphis fans, who were quickly surrounding the cage, by merrily skipping around the ring with Lawler’s locks. Seated in the fourth row taking pictures with his father’s Pentax camera, 15-year-old fan Scott Bowden feared for the heels’ lives. Luckily, Memphis Police Department officers managed to scale the cage with Superfly speed to drag down the drunkards attempting to climb the cage and lynch the heels. Twenty minutes later, with the crowd refusing to leave, the heels carefully surrounded themselves with a circle of cops at the door of the cage before making a desperate run for the dressing room, with fans attempting in vain to reach them.

It’s pure speculation, but the bad seeds for Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) may have been planted that night in Memphis. (Which is ironic, really, given Lawler’s legit disdain for Heyman and the former Philly-based promotion.) After all, Heyman’s vision for ECW certainly could not have been inspired by Vince McMahon Sr.’s WWWF, whose dressing rooms he frequented as a young man. (You have to give Sr. credit, though: When he did run a big angle — usually about twice a year — he usually made it count. Memphis, on the other fist, ran about two controversial angles per TV show.)

Don’t get me wrong, Heyman was certainly innovative — he thought outside the squared circle, which is probably why Lawler disliked him during the young manager’s initial heel stint in Memphis. Heyman also had to be influenced by his friendship and working relationship with would-be Memphis King Eddie Gilbert, who mastered the art of building on what Lawler and Jarrett had done previously.

SIDE-NOTE SLAM: Lawler supposedly berated Heyman for using the cell-phone gimmick, despite the fact that some of the great wrestling managers of the time carried a weapon of choice. Jimmy Hart had his cane, Missy Hyatt had her loaded purse and Jim Cornette had his tennis racket. (And years later, Scott Bowden had his Uncle Bobby’s Florida State football helmet, an old high-school helmet that Lawler painted for me to resemble those worn by the Seminoles on Saturday afternoons.)

In fact, one of the reasons Lawler, Bill Dundee and Jarrett laugh off Heyman’s influence on the wrestling business is that they believe Memphis was the prototype for ECW. When discussing the infamous Tupelo, Miss., concession-stand brawl (featuring Lawler and Dundee vs. Wayne Ferris and Larry Latham) with Tim Dills of KAYFABE MEMORIES, Jarrett says, “We were hardcore before it was called hardcore.” Unlike the Memphis bookers who followed Jarrett and Lawler, however, Heyman raised the stakes, taking the Memphis style of unpredictability, wild gimmick matches, and, most important, personal issues to a whole new level. While Memphis was very innovative for its time, it also had a strong sense of tradition, something ECW would ignore.

Of course, the Memphis tradition of being, well, traditional was passed on to uber-geek Randy Hales, the booker who loved to recycle old Lawler/Jerry Jarrett angles and finishes incessantly during my own heel-manger run in Memphis from 1994-1996. Want to know one basic difference between Hales and Heyman? While Heyman was committed to bringing the wrestling industry past “hair band” status and into a Nirvana-like revolution similar to what was taking place in the music industry in the early to mid-’90s, Hales rejected my request in 1994 to set a new video featuring Sid Vicious to the song “Head Like a Hole” by Nine Inch Nails. Hales cited the fact that “War Machine” by KISS had worked in the past for monster heels (e.g., Lord Humongous, Bam Bam Bigelow), and would therefore work fine again, thank you very much. Besides, Hales told me, he’d “never heard of that band,” so they must not be any good. No wonder Mick Foley wanted to kick Hales’s ass after the Memphis booker gave him misguided pointers on working as a heel, i.e., pull the babyface’s hair and then beg off as the ref blindly asks the ringside fans if he did indeed commit the infraction.

But how did Heyman really do it? How did he transform Extreme Championship Wrestling (formerly Eastern Championship Wrestling) from a bloody, brawl-filled bingo hall promotion in Philly into the most innovative promotion in years, one that not only influenced Vince McMahon’s promotion but may have very well saved WWE from being the casualty in the Monday Night Wars? Yes, the marketplace was ripe for a WWE/WCW alternative at that time, with dozens of top workers unsigned by the big two. (Heyman describes ECW as being filled with “the wrestlers no one else wanted.”) But for a small independent promotion to make such a strong push toward national recognition is amazing, despite the fact that Heyman and Co. didn’t remotely match WWE and WCW in national prominence, an end result that was guaranteed given the violent nature of ECW.

WWE’s recent DVD release, THE RISE AND FALL OF ECW, attempts to answer that question, with documentary interviews from Heyman, Tommy Dreamer, Tazz, Chris Jericho and the Dudleys, all of whom are now employed by McMahon. The 6-hour, two-disc set also features clips of ECW’s highs and lows, along with six complete matches.

Next week, I’ll delve deeper into the beginnings of ECW, including a review of the DVD and an interview with Kevin Lawler, Jerry’s son, who accompanied Eddie Gilbert to Philly as his supposed “booking assistant” during the early days of Todd Gordon’s promotion.

Like A Bad Wrestling Angle Playing Out: Ever wonder what happened to April Veach, the girl Lawler mentions in his autobiography as one of ex-wife Stacy Carter’s potential replacements? OK, probably not. Apparently, when they were “dating” two years ago, Ms. Veach took the time to case the King’s castle after Lawler supposedly claimed that he had $200,000 stashed in one of his jukeboxes. Criminal counts released by the FBI allege that Veach and Memphis Police Department officer David Tate, son of local Channel-3 newscaster Jerry Tate, plotted to break into Lawler’s house to steal the money, using deadly force if necessary. Lesson learned: When you date a stripper who’s young enough to be your daughter, the end result is usually not too favorable. (Hard to imagine that she turned out to be a gold digger.) The following is reprinted without permission from the Memphis COMMERCIAL APPEAL newspaper:

Suspects targeted Lawler
Officers accused of plotting burglary

Two Memphis police officers targeted professional wrestler Jerry “The King” Lawler’s home for burglary, under the impression he had $200,000 stashed in a jukebox. But the flamboyant wrestler and one-time mayoral candidate says the would-be burglars wouldn't have gotten “anything but practice.”

Lawler said he has a jukebox in his home, in the 5100 block of Walnut Grove, but it doesn't have $200,000 hidden in it. Lawler said his jukebox has about 100 CDs in it, “but not the kind you can take to the bank.”

Memphis police officers David Tate, 37, Billy Scott, 28, and a 21-year-old female accomplice, April Veach, were charged Monday with conspiring to burglarize the East Memphis home, and violate Lawler's civil rights as homeowner.

Tate was accused in an array of federal charges of taking bribes to tip off topless nightclubs when raids were coming, of taking prostitutes (actually undercover FBI agents) to “high rollers” at Tunica casinos and of protecting couriers taking Ecstasy and high-grade methamphetamine to a "buyer" in Tunica.

Fellow officer John Vaughan, 28, was charged with Tate in the drug counts.

Tate was captured on an FBI wiretap discussing the burglary, telling Veach he had the floor plan and that the owner wasn’t home on Mondays. He said he was prepared to fit Veach with a bulletproof vest because he believed the homeowner was armed and said he planned to wear a Pizza Hut uniform to case the place.

Tate is recorded as saying, “That (expletive) in that house has a pistol. I ain’t goin’ out like a punk. I’ll light up, I’ll light up their (expletive) world, doc. I stand there, and I'll, I'll stand there and trade lead with ‘em.”

Lawler says he usually is out of town on Mondays.

“These guys sound so brazen,” Lawler said. “It's shocking, the fact that some of our police are that corrupt. What kind of person would shoot somebody for $66,000?”

Lawler said he owns only an old 22-caliber rifle, and has very little of value — other than sentimental — in his home.

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