I will throw in "Squire" Dave Taylor and Johnny Saint

but 45+ Lawler decimates 45+ Flair

Really? What does he have in the locker to rival something like Flair vs. Steamboat at Spring Stampede '94? Or Flair vs. Savage at Great American Bash '95?

I am a rare guy around theses parts who really likes Flair v. Steamboat from 94 (though I prefer the Sat. Night match). I also remember liking the Savage feud at the time, though I don't recall thinking any of the matches were off the charts and years later I remember nothing about any of them. There are Flair performances dotting the landscape that you could point to for sure, and I liked Flair's run as a glorified jobber worker in the WWE in 05/06. But by and large his post-45 years have not been terribly impressive and certainly have not been consistent.

 

I don't want to get TOO laundry listish because that ends up meaning little but here are some matches Lawler has had post-45 that I think are good/very good/great/worth watching because of the strength of Lawler's performance. This is by no means a complete list.

 

Jerry Lawler v. Dirty White Boy - SMW 1-28-95

Jerry Lawler/Brian Christopher v. Tommy Rich/Doug Gilbert - USWA TV 1996

Jerry Lawler v. Mark Henry - IYH (Henry's debut, not a great match, but a really strong performance by Lawler)

Jerry Lawler v. Tommy Dreamer - Hardcore Heaven 1997

Jerry Lawler/Bill Dundee v. Fabulous Ones - 1999

Every single Lawler v. Dundee singles match

Every single Lawler v. Funk singles match

Jerry Lawler v. Miz - TLC match Dec. 2010

Raw Rumble from Jan of this year

Lawler/local Dr. v. Dundee/local Dr. from this year

Lawler/Christopher v. Dundees from this year

Jerry Lawler v. Jack Swagger from Raw this year

Jerry Lawler v. Miz - Elimination Chamber this year

 

That's off the top of my head. There is more.

Flair has had some relatively awesome hardcore matches since leaving WCW.

 

TLC in '06 against Edge on Raw was pretty awesome. It puts Lawler/Miz to shame, honestly.

I Quit against Foley at SummerSlam '06 was very violent.

Lawler has been more consistent while Flair's best has likely been better than Lawler's best, although 1994-present is stretching it. I really have a tough time watching any Flair after 1999.

 

Tenryu is the answer, but it's also worth noting that Gran Hamada was 45 in 1995.

Bockwinkel was probably a better worked at 45 than he was at 30. He was having consistently good matches well into his 50s.

Bock is my immediate first choice as well. Consider that his 60-minute draw with Curt Hennig in Vegas happened when he was 52.

 

Aside from that, the sheer number of quality matches and opponents he had defending the AWA title for the most part from 79 through 87 is pretty astounding.

 

Bock's my choice too, for pretty much the same reasons. Not only his high-end stuff, but I was recently watching some AWA from '86 and even at his advanced age he made a match with Boris freakin' Zukhov interesting. I've never seen anyone at any age do that before.

He had a couple of good matches with Zhukov from the Showboat and they were both LONG. It is one thing to have a short sprint with Zhukov that is interesting, it is a totally different matter to go long. Bock is the best choice among U.S. guys, unless you count Finlay as a U.S. guy.

Lawler has been more consistent while Flair's best has likely been better than Lawler's best, although 1994-present is stretching it. I really have a tough time watching any Flair after 1999.

 

Tenryu is the answer, but it's also worth noting that Gran Hamada was 45 in 1995.

Flair had better years in 05 and 06 than he did in 97,98 and 99 going from memory. i doubt I would rate his 95 or 96 above those years either. Flair as death match worker is something I thought worked well.

 

Not sure Flair's best stuff is better than Lawler's though. smkelly mentioned that TLC match and while that match may have been better than the Lawler/Miz TLC match, it wasn't better than the Lawler v. Miz Elimination Chamber match. Some of those Lawler v. Funk matches are really great. Lawler v. Dreamer is a better brawl than any Flair match I can recall post-94. It's probably true that Lawler doesn't have anything like Flair v. Steambot from SN or SS, but he wasn't booked in a situation where matches like that were ever an option.

Flair also has had plenty of more chances to work tv matches/PPV epics since his second WWF tenture as he was booked as "the greatest of all time" where most of Lawlers stuff (sans Miz feud) hes been presented more as "secondary legend who has mini midcard programs now and then." Still, the Miz shit was fantastic and really prepped Miz for Mania more than anything Flair did in that run IMO. Miz vs Lawler from EC I'd put up there with the best of 2000s Flair.

If you check out the Wrestling Gold set, Bockwinkel's matches on there are all pretty good and they all fall in the 45-49 age range for him. Bockwinkel also had a fairly good UWFi match with Billy Robinson when he was pushing 60 and was still moving pretty well.

Has anyone else seen the Lawler vs Jarrett match from USWA TV in '96 that went 30+ minutes. I thought it was very good, but I suspect Dylan in particular would go crazy over it.

I've not seen it, but imagine it would be great.

Found it on YouTube!

 

 

Has commercials edited out, which makes it about 20 minutes and change.

Just watched it and "very good" seems about right. I liked the lay out a lot. Lawler's cheapshots off the knuckle locks looked sick. Lance did a good job putting over back body drops as potentially dangerous moves due to previoius injuries Jarrett had suffered. Thought the match built very well. Stretch run was quality. Loved the double drop the strap bit, the near fall segment was good and the finishing angle was good also. Teased countout was probably my spot of the match. Made me really wish their sixty minute match was on tape.

 

Comparing this to something like Eddy v. Flair from 96 which had it's fans, I thought this was easily better

Dylan have you see Lawler vs Funk from MLW? I think it was around 2003-04 which was supposed to build up Lawler wrestling in War Games before WWE pulled him out.

 

I'm going to add Solar and Dos Caras to the list. Dos is about 60 and can still go at times. And we all know how great Solar is with Navarro.

Lawler has been more consistent while Flair's best has likely been better than Lawler's best, although 1994-present is stretching it. I really have a tough time watching any Flair after 1999.

Yeah that about sums up how I feel, except that I like a lot of Flair's WWF come back run too

 

I like a lot of Lawler's 45+ stuff though I do think the Miz matches are hugely overrated (good but not great) but I haven't seen anything from him in that time period as good as the Flair vs Savage feud in WCW either or say some of Flair's New Japan matches in 95.

 

On the subject of Flair post 94 i'll randomly toss out him vs Bret in 98 at Sold Out as a match I really liked too.

I thought that match was okay. It was hyped by some people during the SC WCW poll and honestly I thought it was far from the best match on that show, let alone a great match. Not bad, but I don't even think I like that as much as Swagger v. Lawler from Raw this year.

Dylan have you see Lawler vs Funk from MLW? I think it was around 2003-04 which was supposed to build up Lawler wrestling in War Games before WWE pulled him out.

 

I'm going to add Solar and Dos Caras to the list. Dos is about 60 and can still go at times. And we all know how great Solar is with Navarro.

I have seen all the Funk v. Lawler match that have made tape. Love all of them. The stuff Funk and Lawler did in the first half of last decade was excellent considering their limitations.

 

Worth noting LA Park is 45.

Funk in MLW was pretty cool. Barbed wire matches with Corino and the passable War Games match.

I think the answer to this is clearly Black Terry and Negro Navarro since they've been better in their 50s than in any of the younger footage we have of them. Some of the Euro guys were awesome vets as well, but I can't be bothered working out how old they were when they were good.

 

Casas' work post '97 is overrated.