Lawler v The Macho Man!

Jerry Lawler v Randy Savage (Cage Match) (Memphis, 12/12/83)

I had this as the 12th best Memphis match of the 80s. Lawler is a top 10 all-time candidate and Savage is one of my five favourite wrestlers ever, so it was strange that I was such a low voter on their most highly-regarded match together (the '85 Loser Leaves Town). I should re-watch that, but either way this was Lawler v Savage in a cage and if you're familiar with either guy then it brings about what you'd expect it to bring. Lawler unloading with a punch flurry to the body early was great. You could just feel how sick to death he was of this wildman from an outlaw promotion in Kentucky. He wanted rid of him and there was no fucking around, no slow start here. Savage going to the headlock felt almost like containment, seeing if that slow starter thing was actually true. If you've seen enough 80s stipulation matches then you've come to terms with many of them still having the rules of regular matches enforced to some degree, even the ones that are advertised as no holds barred, but Savage doing hide the object shtick in a cage match is still amusing. It also ruled, because both these guys are god tier foreign object shtick workers. I don't even know if an actual object was present or they just worked the hell out of the IDEA of it, but I sure bought Savage jamming something in Lawler's eyes, just like I bought Lawler catching it when he eventually punched it out of Savage's hand. Savage was a nutter and seeing him hit double axe handles off the top to the concrete in 1983 is madness. I had no memory of him hitting the elbow off the top of the fucking cage either, and he landed awkwardly enough that I wondered if he didn't crack a hip. Lawler going up afterwards before taking a look at that rickety cage and settling for the fist drop off the top rope instead was the move of a much more stable individual. It also feels trite to mention the punches, but by christ were these some glorious punches. Savage hit one jab flurry that was as good as any I've ever seen and Lawler's uppercut from his knees was spectacular. I loved the Lawler comeback. Savage has him trapped between the ring and the cage, ramming him head-first into the big wooden beams holding the thing together, then Lawler responds to the crowd and starts to block, eventually turning it around, strap down, dragging Savage back in the ring to put and end to things. For all the great stuff there were some weird moments as well. A couple big transitions were really abrupt, including the one that led to the elbow off the cage. Lawler had Savage on the deck throwing punches, then Savage just sort of got up, hit a snapmare, and Lawler had to lie there selling a fairly routine move so Savage could climb mesh and wood held together by chicken wire. There was another moment like that later, where I guess Savage decided he wanted to bump into the cage now and Lawler had to awkwardly play along. Those parts stick out considering the strength of the stuff around it. I don't know if Savage was into microplanning his matches this far back but maybe he was just determined to stick to schedule. I also did not know Jos LeDuc could climb a cage that quickly. Impressive for a man his size. Who doesn't love a schmozz finish in a cage match?