I'll bet a lot of you thought I'd lost my computer or maybe forgotten how to type, because once again I start an update with how long it's been since the last one.  I don't know what happens...the time just goes by and so many things are going on that it seems almost impossible to find the time to sit down in front of the computer and bring everyone up to date on what has happened in the life of "the King."  I know it's been many months since the last update and so many things have occurred that I know it will be impossible to mention all of them.

     I'll start by remembering some friends and co-workers who died since the last time I wrote.  All of these men gone before their time. Dead at a relatively young age, and it makes you realize that you never know when your last moment on this earth will be and I truly believe we should live each day as if it's our last, and let everyone you love know you love them.  Road Warrior Hawk was a man that I really felt was my friend.  In this business you meet and work with so many individuals, some you like and some you don't like, but in reality, very few of us are really friends in the true since of the word.  I consider a friend to be someone you genuinely like and they like you in return and would go out of their way to do things for you, and you would go out of your way to do things for them.  Someone you could count on for help and someone you would always be willing to help.  Hawk and I were never around each other socially, but in the business we became friends when the Road Warriors were just getting started.  They came to Memphis and worked a match against Austin Idol and me.  They were young, and very "green," but you could see that these guys had the potential to be something special.  At the time my finishing move was the piledriver, and in Memphis at least, the fans knew that if I gave someone a piledriver they were finished and the match was over.  Before our match I told Hawk that near the end of the match I would catch him with a piledriver and after he hit the mat, I would turn to the crowd and gesture that "I got him!"  Then I told him that as I turned around, I wanted him to be standing on his feet, staring me straight in the eyes and then to blast me.  I remember him saying in astonishment, "you want me NOT to sell your piledriver?!?"  And I said, "that's right, we want these people to think you guys are Supermen!"  We did just that in the match.  Austin and I sold for the Road Warriors almost the entire match and the fans had never seen that before, but when Hawk got the piledriver and then he beat me to my feet, the fans were in shock! It was something that had never been done before.  I gave up part of the credibility of my finishing move that I had used for years and years, and Hawk knew that.  And Hawk never forgot it.  I don't think a time ever went by when we were on the same show that he didn't remind me of that night. Hawk thanked me for that match every time we saw each other for the next nearly twenty years.  And over that period of time, Hawk and Animal never refused to make a booking for us. Even when they were making huge money and coming to Memphis would have meant a lesser payday, they would always go out of their way to come in and work for us.  I will really miss Hawk.  I have a poster with a picture of Hawk and Animal and Austin Idol and myself on it that has been hanging on the wall in my office since 1986.  I look at it every day and remember him.  I wish Hawk had taken better care of himself physically over the years, but sometimes in this business we think we are invincible.   I honestly believe the Road Warriors changed the face of professional wrestling.  Not many wrestlers can say that.
 

   November 29th is my birthday.  This past November we decided to promote a wrestling show at the Mid South Coliseum in Memphis on that date and bill it as, "The King's Birthday Bash!"  We brought back a lot of the wrestlers that had been big drawing cards over the years in Memphis...guys like, Dirty Dutch Mantell, the Rock 'n' Roll Express, Kamala the Ugandan Giant, Bill "Superstar" Dundee, The Moondogs, Jimmy Hart, and even the "Fabulous One," Jackie Fargo.  It shaped up to be a really fun event and I was looking forward to seeing some old friends I hadn't seen in awhile.  The night started out with a backstage birthday party complete with ice cream and cake for the guys and for fans that had purchased special ringside tickets, then it was time to start the show.  My partner, Corey Maclin was handling most of running the show, while I got to stay back in my dressing room and talk to Jackie Fargo.  I hadn't seen Jackie in about a year and we were catching up on old times.  I think it was about time for the fourth match when one of the Rock 'n' Roll Express came in and said, "We're on next and no one knows what we're doing in the match!"  I got up and went out into the hallway where Rick Morton and Robert Gibson were standing with the Moondogs and another tag team.  They were about to be in a match we called a "Concession Stand Battle Royal."  I explained to Rick and Robert, and to Larry Booker, who wrestled as Moondog Spot, that the match would be a tag team battle royal with the added ingredient of a table, in the middle of the ring, loaded with food and beverage from the concession stand.  I told them it should be a fun match that would basically consist of a food fight in the ring.  Everyone seemed fine with the idea of the match as the three teams headed to the ring, and I headed back to my dressing room to continue talking with Fargo.  Probably less than ten minutes had gone by when my dressing room door suddenly opened and Rick Morton was standing there with his face as white as a sheet.  He said, "King, something is wrong with Larry....he's either had a stroke or a heart attack in the ring...he's just lying there, not moving!"  I jumped up and ran out toward the ring, and as did, I saw the paramedics hustling toward the ring with a stretcher.  I remember one of them having a confused look on his face when he saw me as if he thought this might be part of the show and they may not really be needed.  I yelled to them that something serious was really wrong with Larry and that they needed to get him out of the ring as quickly as possible.  I waited in the back area and in just a few minutes the paramedics and several other people who were trying to help came running with Larry on the stretcher. He was lying on his back, his arms dangling down at his sides.  His body was limp and he was completely motionless.  As the paramedics worked to prepare the oxygen unit, Vickie Peale, who helps with promotions and advertising for our shows, administered mouth to mouth.  I held onto one of his hands and Brian Christopher was holding the other trying to feel for a pulse.  Everyone was yelling, "Hang on, Larry!"  "Hold on...don't leave us, Larry!"  John Rainey, who was our ring announcer for the show climbed up onto the stretcher and applied CPR.  As I stood there holding Larry's hand, I looked down at his face and it brought back a memory of another tragedy I witnessed in a wrestling ring.  The night Owen Hart fell to his death in Kansas City, I was one of the first people at the ring and the thing I remember most was the fact that Owen's face immediately turned a grayish blue color, and somehow, I sensed he was gone.  As I looked down at Larry, his face had turned that exact same color, and I just got a sick, feeling of hopelessness in my stomach.  The ambulance arrived shortly after and they worked on Larry inside the vehicle for a long time.  They did everything they could on the scene and then they headed off to the hospital.  I remember someone saying, "They think they got a pulse!" as the ambulance drove away, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief that there was still hope.  No one wanted to believe that one of our wrestlers could die in the ring at the Mid South Coliseum...it just couldn't happen.  We all knew Larry would be alright.  At least we all hoped and prayed he would.  A long time had gone by with no action in the ring, but the fans waited patiently because they all sensed something was really bad wrong.  We finally got the show back under way and got through the rest of the matches until it was time for the main event.  The last match was Doug Gilbert and "Dirty" Dutch Mantel, with Jimmy Hart in their corner against me and Brian Christopher, with Jackie Fargo in our corner. Just as our entrance music started playing and we were about to head out to the ring, someone came around the corner and said, "They just called from the hospital....Larry didn't make it."  Man, it was like getting hit in the stomach with a baseball bat.  I still don't remember much about our match.  Somehow we got through it.  I know we were all just pretty much going through the motions.  Our minds were on Larry and the fact that he had just died in the very ring we were wrestling in. Larry was a guy I had known for a long time.  He pretty much started out in our area not too many years after I did.  We teamed him up with Wayne Farris as the Blonde Bombers and they, along with Bill Dundee and myself, had one of the most memorable matches ever in the Tennessee territory.  It became known as the "Tupelo concession stand match."  Not long after that, he got a call from a friend of his who was wrestling in the WWF as a "Moondog."  The guy needed a new partner and thought Larry would fit the bill.  That was the beginning of a new life for Larry Booker.  He went to New York and had a run there as one half of the Moondog tag team, but he remained a Moondog for the rest of his days.  Larry came back to Memphis during the 80's, and along with what seemed like an endless list of partners, helped us draw a lot of money over the years.  Moondog matches were actually the forerunners to what everyone now knows as "hardcore" matches.  The great thing about the Moondogs and their matches was that you never knew what to expect.  Anything could happen in a Moondog match...anything could be used as a weapon...the action could go anywhere in the arena...and someone was uaually going to wind up bloody.  Larry wrestled, and trained young wrestlers, right up until the end.  At his funeral, the preacher said, "Larry died doing what he loved best."  He was right.  I guess that's something we can all hope for.  Every wrestling fan, especially the ones in the south, will miss Larry Booker and the Moondogs.

     In 1988 at the Mid South Coliseum in Memphis, Tennessee, I had what was probably the second most memorable match of my career.  (I still consider the most memorable match, the one I had with Andy Kaufman in Memphis in 1983.)  That night in May of '88 the Coliseum was sold out...it had been sold out for a week.  The Mayor, Dick Hackett, had officially declared it "Jerry Lawler Day" in  Memphis.  The Fabulous One, Jackie Fargo had been flown in as a special referee, and I was wrestling for the AWA World Heavyweight Championship.  Now the first World Championship match I had ever had in Memphis was against NWA Champion, Jack Brisco nearly 13 years prior to this night.  Over the years, I had challenged Jack Brisco, Harley Race, Terry Funk, Ric Flair, and Nick Bockwinkle in more World Championship matches than you can imagine throughout our Tennessee territory.  The matches had ended in disqualifications, countouts, time limit draws, and sometimes, I just got screwed.  But the fact remained, I had never won one of the three major World Titles.  (National Wrestling Alliance, American Wrestling Association, and World Wrestling Federation)  Ah, but that was about to change on that night in May of '88.  The AWA World Champion was Curt Henning.  He hadn't become "Mr Perfect" yet.  That came after he jumped from the AWA to the WWF.  On this night we was still carrying the gold for Verne Gagne's Minnesota based organization.  The AWA's ranks of illustrious stars was fast being depleted by defections to the WWF.  Hulk Hogan had gone.  Jesse Ventura had gone.  Sgt. Slaughter had gone.  Bobby Heenen had gone.  Mean Gene Okerlund had gone.  And Curt Henning was on his way.  I guess that's why the timing was right for me to win the title.  Nonetheless, that didn't make it any less special for me, or all the fans in Memphis who had suffered with me through so many title matches only to come up just a little bit short.