Torch DVD review
RF Video Shoot with Jerry Lynn 2008
By Sean Radican, Torch Columnist
Jerry Lynn was one of my favorite wrestlers in ECW. Not only did I admire him for his matches against RVD, but around that time, I attended a lot of ECW house shows and Lynn always seemed gracious to fans that approached him at those shows. Lynn may not be a big name to most wrestling fans, but his work left an impression on me during my college years and his feud against RVD remains one of my personal favorites.
Fast forward several years and Lynn finally sat down with RF Video for his first shoot interview as he approaches 20 years of tenure in the wrestling business. This is a long shoot, as it clocks in at just under 3 hours, but it contains more relevant information about WCW, WWF, ECW, and TNA than I expected.
Lynn starts the shoot with a lengthy discussion of breaking into the business and working in Minnesota and Memphis. One of the people that broke into the business with Lynn at that time was Shawn Waltman. Lynn’s discussion of his matches with Waltman at that time are interesting to listen to, as he talks about their style being ahead of its time and comparing it to some of what we see in TNA’s X-division today. One of the sad parts of the shoot is Lynn’s revelation towards the end of this release that once Waltman went to WWE, he never heard from him despite their close relationship.
Lynn’s first major gig outside of working in the AWA came in WCW. He discussed negotiating his contract with Eric Bischoff in a hallway backstage at a WCW event and genuinely looks back in surprise at how loose things were in WCW back in those days. A pattern develops throughout the shoot where Lynn talks about how miserable things were for him working in every major company, save for ECW, which he has fond memories of.
One of the best stories on this release is Lynn talking about getting sent to Japan for a tour while working for WCW. During his first week there, Lynn ended up breaking his foot when it got caught in the guardrail after his opponent failed to catch him correctly when he attempted a dive to the floor. Needless to say the end result of Lynn’s injuries was him getting released. Just think about how crazy that last sentence reads!
Lynn prefaces his tale of woe in Japan by talking about how the other wrestlers on tour with him were using Alex Wright as a whipping boy, but he somehow got out of going on the tour, so Lynn was next in line, despite being older than the wrestlers he was going on tour with. Needless to say, Lynn offers up some insight on how childish wrestlers can be. At one point, Lynn even has a great line about how wrestlers are supposed to be so tough, but behind the scenes, they act like little boys.
Lynn covers a lot of territory about his tenure in ECW, including what it was like to observe Paul Heyman backstage. Lynn offers up the insight that during the last days of ECW, Heyman was simply exhausted and often booked things on the fly. Of course, when it comes to shoot interviews with wrestlers from ECW, there is always a good story about being owed some money.
Lynn estimates that he was owed somewhere near $75,000 by ECW when it folded and offers up a great story about going to ECW’s last PPV without his tights and fully expecting not to wrestler. Needless to say, it’s fascinating to hear Heyman’s reaction to Lynn’s stance on appearing on the PPV that night.
After ECW, Lynn eventually ended up in the WWF, which brings about more misery for Lynn. Lynn was relegated to wrestling on the most obscure WWE shows like Velocity and Heat. He talks about dealing with WWE management at that time and how different agents would tell him different things about his ability to put on good wrestling matches in these settings. Not only was Lynn given conflicting feedback, but eventually he was taken off television altogether and forced to wrestle dark matches against developmental talent. Once again, Lynn was put in a lousy situation that ultimately ended up with him sustaining and injury and getting his release.
My overall feelings are that Lynn would have never been a top guy in the wrestling business, but along the way, he was definitely mistreated and received a raw deal in most of the places he worked in terms of when it came to how he was treated by management. In fact, Lynn talks about putting on good performances only to become “Jobber Jerry” once again in each company he wrestled for.
The shoot closes with Lynn talking about his time in TNA and surprisingly it’s almost the same tale as his time in WWE and WCW. Lynn had some really good matches during the era of weekly PPVs in TNA, but ended up getting injured in a match against one of the more flaky characters in wrestling. Lynn also talks about an incident in TNA where he was suspended for several months after Jeff Jarrett overheard him saying some negative things about him.
Overall, I felt Lynn could have elaborated more about the dangers of wrestling and suffering concussions. The fact that he still wrestles independents is impressive and Lynn comes across as a genuinely humble guy. There’s even a great run in on the shoot by an old ECW favorite. Besides those small complaints, I highly recommend this shoot for fans of Lynn and people looking to learn more about the backstage politics in WCW, ECW, WWF, and TNA. Thumbs up.
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