Jerry Blackwell

By Scott Keith on 18 January 2019

Hey Scott–

In today's Hidden Gems review, you say that Jerry Blackwell's face turn saved the AWA for a while.

Can you go into a little more detail? From the stuff I've seen, his in-ring work wasn't particularly great, and he doesn't look like the "legit athlete" that Verne typically gravitated towards. He certainly doesn't look like a reasonable successor to Hogan.

I guess that's my long way of asking: How did he (temporarily) save the AWA when he looks like the only thing he could save would be a Cheesecake Factory?

Short answer, Hulk Hogan and all his friends left in January 84, so Verne turned Blackwell babyface and pushed him to the top along with the Road Warriors, and it was actually enough to maintain a pretty high level of crowd interest for whatever reason. I never really got Blackwell but obviously it worked. Of course it couldn't maintain and losing the Warriors really killed them.