5 Most Insane Things Happening In Wrestling Right Now (Feb 16)

3. Dirty Old Men, Part 2

Strowman Double Bass
WWE

In 1993, Jerry Lawler was indicted on rape and sodomy allegations.

The charges were later dropped after, as has become the accepted version of events, one of the minors in question "fabricated elements of her story". Not so according to Deadspin's David Bixenspan, whose sensational and important revisit of the case yielded an interesting - and uncomfortable - implication. According to the case detective, Mike Redmond, neither girl recanted the story. They simply refused to testify. Redmond inferred that neither wanted to "get [Lawler] in trouble". Few doubted the mendacity of the entire saga - and Lawler hardly helped his known reputation, by reacting to the sight of cleavage like a toddler at Christmas throughout the ensuing Attitude Era - but this is conjecture.

What isn't is Lawler's begging letter to the prosecution, which Bixenspan exhumed alongside "the entire case file or close to it". In it, Lawler, with remarkable penmanship, assassinated the character of the girls in question. It was standard stuff, mostly, in that Lawler questioned their morality as a means of discrediting them. One of them was engaged in a sexual relationship. One of them even smoked! But Lawler then, in 1993 - a good 30 years after a certain real King's speech - chastised one of the girls for having been "caught having sex with a black man". Tell me he did not just write that.

The extent to which Jerry Lawler is a piece of sh*t is unclear. What we do know, now, if we didn't already, is that he definitely is.

Contributor
Contributor

Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!