20 Years Ago: Gilberts and Lawlers and Moondogs, Oh My!

Eddie Gilbert From John Cannon: The United States Wrestling Association was a combined effort, created out of the fading ashes of ...

Eddie Gilbert

From John Cannon:

The United States Wrestling Association was a combined effort, created out of the fading ashes of World Class Championship Wrestling and the Continental Wrestling Association. This put a stamp on the merger between the two once popular companies and the whole changeover was even carried out through storylines on television and arenas. To this day I can still remember the match in 1989 between Eric Embry and P.Y. Chu-Hi in the Sportatorium for control of the organization. With a roll up out of the corner, Embry got the win and the USWA was officially born! The company started with shows in Texas and Tennessee until the Von Erichs withdrew the WCCW part of the group, and from then on the majority of shows were held in Tennessee.

By 1992, the USWA was filling cards with an impressive mix of young talent, well known NWA stars, and via a talent exchange with the World Wrestling Federation. This would lead to not only interesting television, but some great regular cards at the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis. The event held on January 31, 1994, was just one of the great nights in USWA history, and featured three championship bouts involving two Gilberts, a pair of Lawlers, and a couple Moondogs.

the Moondogs (Rex and Spot)

In the sixth match of the night, the Rock & Roll Express (Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson), who had won the tag belts a week earlier against Ron and Don Harris, defended the USWA Tag Team Title against Rex and Spot, of the very expansive Moondog franchise. The Moondogs would take the win and hold on to the belts until April, when the titles were vacated.

The following match saw USWA Champion Brian Christopher (nee Lawler) retain his title against Doug Gilbert. Christopher had begun this, his ninth title reign, in December with a victory over Buddy Landel. Gilbert and Christopher would spend a good bit of 1994 swapping the title with occasional interruptions by the likes of Eddie Gilbert (no relation to Doug, nor any link to the more previously established Doug Gilbert), Tommy Rich, and the Dream Machine.

In the main event, Eddie Gilbert defeated USWA Unified World Champion Jerry Lawler to become new champ and kick off a feud that saw the two swap the titles back and forth, opening the door for Lawler’s final kick towards his record twenty-eight title reigns. Add that to his son Brian Christopher’s twenty-five USWA titles and you have a whopping fifty-three family USWA title reigns and that doesn’t even count tag titles!