#HWETW Top 10 – Heat

7. “Memphis” Heat – Jerry Lawler, et al.

There’s an argument to be made that — in terms of overness in a specific territory regardless of size — Jerry Lawler has had the best career in the history of professional wrestling. A demi-god, or King, in Memphis for much of the last half century, Jerry Lawler’s sustained run in Memphis is the kind of cultural and community canonization that not even college football coaches get anymore. Following alongside Bill Dundee, Jackie Fargo, Billy Wicks and Sputnik Monroe  — who quite literally helped integrate the South by refusing to perform at Ellis Auditorium unless black patrons were allowed to sit wherever they wanted — Lawler is the torchbearer for a wrestling diaspora almost entirely unique to the area.

Other examples: Philadelphia-ECW, Full Sail University-NXT, Anywhere a show is-CHIKARA

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