JERRY LYNN - "OLD SCHOOL MESSIAH"
By Dr. Abner Mality

By my estimate, Jerry Lynn is the only man who has ever wrestled in the AWA, WCW, WWE, ECW and TNA. The man is one of the most well-traveled and cagey veterans in the wrestling game and I don't think there's a town that hasn't seen Mr. Lynn cracking heads for the entertainment of the masses.

Starting off in the small Minnesota indies, Lynn gradually worked his way up to the red hot ECW, where he finally broke out with a white-hot series of matches against arch-nemesis Rob Van Dam. ECW seemed to be the perfect home for the rugged but smaller competitor...a place where talent was recognized and not buried. The "burial" unfortunately came in the so-called "big leagues" of WCW and WWE. In the former, Jerry was put in a mask, given the embarassing name of "Mr. JL" and forced to lose to inferior competition while in the latter, he was given virtually no air time to show his many skills.

Now Jerry is active with upstart wrestling promotion TNA, where he acts as a road agent and part-time wrestler. I recently caught up with the soft-spoken Lynn to talk about his long and multi-faceted career...as well as his love for extreme heavy metal and horror films!


WORMWOOD CHRONICLES: Let me ask you this right off the bat. You've been in the wrestling business quite a while now. Do you feel physically as good as you've ever been right now?

JERRY LYNN: Physically? (laughs) I don't feel the best physically but in this business, I think you get better with age because you learn to think with your head when you're out there.

WC: It's become more of a chess game than just showboating?

JL: Exactly.

WC: Will you be getting some more TV time for TNA or other promotions?

JL: There's something in the works coming up here in the near future. They just shot an idea past me that we'll look at. I don't know if it's going to be full time but it looks like there might be some in-ring stuff coming soon.

WC: Do you think TNA will score a two hour time slot soon?

JL: I think that's a very good possibility. I know that after our first time on the Thursday night slot, our ratings went up, so that will help.

WC: That would be great. They could devote more time to the characters...

JL: We have way too many guys for just a one hour show.

WC: It would be a lot more entertaining than your major competition, the WWE...

JL: I tried watching their show a couple of weeks ago and I couldn't even watch it. It wasn't even a wrestling show, it was more like a caricature of a wrestling show.

WC: It's become a playground for one man's ego...

JL: Oh yeah, definittely!

WC: Let's go back to your start in Minnesota, in the indies there. How was that as a training ground for your later career?

JL: I don't know if it was that different from anywhere else, really, Back then, there weren't quite as many indies as there are nowadays, but every good sized city had its indy wrestling federation where you could get some ring time and some experience wrestling in front of a crowd. What I did was as many shows as I could and then compiled some video footage...some of my best stuff...and sent it out with a resume. It was just like applying for any job.

WC: It seems like Minnesota produces more talented wrestlers than just about any other state.

JL: Years ago, it really did, because Verne Gagne's AWA promoted so heavily there. It was one of the biggest promotions in the country and a lot of wrestlers came out of the Midwest. It was a wrestling "factory" because of the AWA.

WC: I'm calling you from Rockford, Illinois and I saw many AWA cards at Boylan Catholic High School through the years. Some of my favorite memories were seeing those old high school cards. Were you an AWA fan growing up?

JL: Oh yeah, that's all there was until the mid-80's when we finally got cable and then we could see every territory there was. I grew up watching the Crusher and Baron von Raschke and Nick Bockwinkel and Black Jack Lanza.

WC: Who was your favorite?

JL: I guess one of my biggest favorites was The Crusher.

WC: Yeah! I liked Baron von Raschke myself.

JL: Sure! He'd switch back and forth between good guy and bad guy. As a good guy, he was one of the big crowd favorites.

WC: I looked over some old results and see that you wrestled Larry Zbyszko on an AWA card early in your career. Now by chance, you're working for the same promotion again!

JL: Oh yeah, that was years ago, like 89. I'd go to both the AWA and the WWF when they started coming into Minnesota. I do a bunch of squash matches for them. I think I got to wrestle Larry twice back then.

WC: Did you have butterflies going against him and the other veterans back then?

JL: Always, always! I still got butterflies when I get out there.

WC: A promotion that doesn't get talked about as much as it should is the Global Wrestling Federation in Texas. You spent some time there. What was that like?

JL: It almost felt like doing an indy. At the time, I was living in Nashville and every weekend, we'd drive from Nashville to Dallas to do the show. It was a long nine, nine and a half hour drive, and after the show, we'd just turn around and head straight back to Nashville. It felt like a televised indy. What I loved about it was we got to wrestle in the Sportatorium and that building was just so nostalgic. I remember watching the von Erich-Freebird feud down there before I got into the business. It was a great feeling wrestling in the same building.

WC: Especially now that I understand it has been torn down...

JL: I hadn't heard that!

WC: I heard on some of the oldschool Messageboards that it had been torn down. That was a sad day.

JL: That's too bad.

WC: It was almost like the old bingo hall in Philadelphia...

JL: Yeah, definitely!

WC: Following from that, what were some of the highs and lows of your ECW career?

JL: As far as the lows, some of the injuries. It was pretty rough there. Especially when RVD (Rob Van Dam) and I would wrestle, because we wanted to push the envelope and do things that people hadn't seen before. So we just put ourselves through hell! (laughter)

WC: I cringed when watching some of that action.

JL: The thing was, though, the fans made that company what it was and the fans kept you fired up. No matter how much we put ourselves through, the fans kept us going and everybody loved what we were doing. It was a non-stop party, every show. And I guess that's the biggest high of ECW. We loved the company and what we were doing. We wanted to keep it alive and we were willing to do anything to keep it going.

WC: I don't think any promotion yet has captured the same atmosphere and feeling of ECW. Some are close, but it can't really be duplicated.

JL: A lot of promotions are trying and a lot of fans are copying ECW. But the real ECW fans were different. It didn't matter who was in the ring and what was going on, the fans were crazy and up the whole time. They weren't sitting there going "boring" or anything like that.

WC: Despite the reputation it had for crazy violence, there was a lot of very excellent wrestling going on. In some indies, it's more like a horror show, with a guy hanging from a hook or flying through plate glass...

JL: They forget to realize that ECW had a little bit of everything. It had your technical style wrestling, your high flying, your comedy ga-ga stuff, your gory stuff...it had a variety.

WC: Was there every a point when you seriously thought about leaving the business?

JL: That would be when I wrestled for both WCW and the WWF.

WC: Couldn't they come with a better name for your WCW masked character than "Mr. JL"?

JL: (laughter) When they did that, I could see the writing on the wall that nothing was going to be done with me and I wasn't going to be written into anything. At first, I was just glad to be there because everyone's goal when they get into this business is to make it to the so-called "big time".

WC: You wrestled in front of some enormous crowds then, that's for sure.

JL: Yeah, I wrestled in front of the biggest crowd for WCW. It was a Nitro in New Orleans at the Superdome. It was almost 35,000 people!

WC: Wow! And then you realize that five years later, they weren't even around. It boggles the mind! Did they get too big for their own good or was it suit-and-tie guys who dragged it down?

JL: Well, I don't think it got too big for its own good. A lot of it was, I think everybody thought Ted Turner had bottomless pockets. No one stopped to think that when they merged with Time-Warner that there were other people to answer to. Ted Turner always stayed very loyal to wrestling because for years, that's what kept him afloat.

WC: I know when things were bad for WCW in the early 90's, he personally told the wrestlers that they didn't have anything to worry about. I think Time Warner/AOL had the knives out for wrestling from the get-go.

JL: The sad thing is when there's some big wig executive that hates wrestling. Then that's the first thing they'll pull the plug on because they don't like it and they don't see the millions of people that DO like it.

WC: How disappointing was your tenure in the WWF?

JL: It was very disappointing. When you get in the business, your goal is to get to the WWF. And then when you get there, it's not a very good atmosphere at all.

WC: Do they deliberately bury talent that comes in from other organizations?

JL: Oh yeah. It's a real sad mentality there. They'll do stuff just for their own pure entertainment.

WC: I can't believe the first time he appeared on RAW that they put a wig on Goldberg. In that one move, they neutered him completely.

JL: Right. If they don't like you, they have no problem with spending money to bring you in just to destroy your career.

WC: I remember in the 80's, they specifically drew a bead on the AWA. They'd sign their wrestlers that had a lot of talent like Steve "Mr. Electricity" Regal, Brad Rheingans and the Orient Express. They'd sign them and do nothing with them, just to take them away from the AWA.

JL: That's what Vince did back then to every territory. He went to every territory, bought up talent and basically ran everybody out of business. And he was willing to spend that money to do that.

WC: That's why I hope TNA succeeds. A lot of people I talk to are looking for any sort of alternative to the WWE.

JL: I think Vince has put a bad taste in everybody's mouth for wrestling.

WC: He has enough zombie fans who will watch it no matter what it's like.

JL: Vince just keeps shoving his product down their throat over and over until they get brainwashed into liking it.

WC: Did you prefer to work face or heel in your career?

JL: It just depends. There haven't been a lot of opportunities for me to play a pure heel. One of the times when I really enjoyed it was years ago in Minnesota when Lightning Kid (aka X-Pac aka Sean Waltman) and I had a big feud that lasted over two years before we finally became a tag team. We were running a show once a month in a bar in Fridley, Minnesota. One night we turned all the heel fans against us and it was scary, because we didn't have any security at all. It was such a good feeling to make the heel fans turn on us. It gives you a great sense of accomplishment, like you're doing your job right. You don't see a lot of good heels these days.

WC: It's a different game today. Back in the old days, fans would get so riled up they'd actually try to attack Mad Dog Vachon or Dr. X. The days of kayfabe are never coming back...

JL: Well, it's still possible. I think the pattern nowadays is that the wrestlers aren't really wrestling for the fans, they're wrestling for the dirtsheets and the internet. They want to see their name next to that four star match. They don't want anyone to boo them deep down inside. They just want to run out there and show what flippity-flops they can do.

WC: Terry Funk said that the fun went out of wrestling for him when the fans didn't try to kill him anymore!

JL: Yeah!

WC: Let's play some name association here...

JL: (laughs) You want to get me in trouble, right?

WC: Well, that depends! Let me start with Paul Heyman...

JL: Paul Heyman...let me just say, great booker.

WC: Rob van Dam...

JL: One of the most gifted athletes in the business.

WC: How about Sting?

JL: A lot of charisma and I wish he'd go back to his old gimmick!

WC: The surfer with the blond hair and colorful face paint?

JL: I think it would get over huge now. I think "The Crow" thing is just played out.

WC: How about HHH?

JL: HHH? He'd make a great politician.

WC: Sean Waltman?

JL: Ummm....oh, what can I say? I guess I would say it was a great experience and a great honor moving up through the ranks with him.

WC: Samoa Joe?

JL: One of the best wrestlers nowadays without a doubt.

WC: We'll wrap it up with Jeff Jarrett.

JL: Jeff Jarrett? He's probably the most over heel in the business, because every time he goes to that ring, he's getting booed out of the building.

WC: I want to change gears now. You are quite the death metal head? Who's your favorite in that genre?

JL: I can't really pick a favorite. I'll just list a few, like Sinister, Dying Fetus, Amon Amarth, Suffocation.

WC: How about the new Cannibal Corpse?

JL: Haven't checked out the new Cannibal Corpse yet. My favorite album of theirs was "The Bleeding", Chris Barnes' last album with 'em. My favorite from Malevolent Creation is "The Ten Commandments" and favorite Napalm Death was "Harmony Corruption".

WC: The old school early 90's stuff...

JL: Back then I was just starting to get into it. I discovered a lot of this stuff later on, years later. I'm checking out everything I can. I love Dying Fetus...Carcass...I like some of the bands off of Corpse Gristle Records like Prophecy and Viral Load.

WC: Now you're really getting into the obscure! I just got the new Zyklon yesterday...

JL: Oh yeah, Zyklon is awesome!

WC: The new one is called "Disintegrate". One of the best examples of extreme metal I've heard this year is from a French band called Yyrkoon. It's like a mixture of early Morbid Angel and mid-period Carcass. Amazing riffs and solos. Are you into horror movies as well?

JL: Oh, I love horror movies.

WC: What's some of your favorites there?

JL: Obviously "Texas Chainsaw", "Texas Chainsaw II", "Dead Alive", "Night of the Living Dead", "Dawn of the Dead", "Day of the Dead", "Hellraiser", "Hellraiser: Bloodline". Let's see, what else? I like the one that Snider put out, "Strangeland"...

WC: Dee Snider from Twisted Sister?

JL: That's right. Also, I like Rob Zombie's stuff, "House of a Thousand Corpses" and "Devil's Rejects".

WC: "Devil's Rejects" was friggin' HARSH!

JL: It was awesome and the soundtrack fit it perfectly.

WC: I kinda come from a more old school background, like the Hammer movies.

JL: Oh yeah, I liked a lot of the old vampire movies that they did back then! I watched those growing up.

WC: Jerry, have you ever thought about what you will do after wrestling? Obviously there's got to come a day when you can't do this anymore.

JL: Right now I got a good start at that with being a road agent for TNA. But I'd love to have my own show on Sirius Satellite or something like that.

WC: Call 'em up and give it a shot. If Jericho can do it, you can do it!

JL: I got enough CDs in my collection, it's crazy!

WC: Have you ever thought about running your own promotion or booking a promotion?

JL: No, no. Every time I thought about running a show, I get halfway down the list of things you have to do and I say "Screw this!". (pause). Hey, here's another one of my favorite movies: "Killer Klowns from Outer Space"!

WC: (laughter) That's a classic of its kind!