Checked Out Memphis Heat

This is something I’ve been wanting to see for years.

Back in the day, as in before the WWF took over the wrestling world, everything was built around the idea of territories. Each one had its own identity and one of the most unique was Memphis, which had a style all to itself and could never quite be duplicated. You would see a lot of elements of it elsewhere, but only Memphis could do it right.

From the mid 60s to the mid 90s, just about everyone who was anything of note had at least a cup of coffee in Memphis. It’s almost a rite of passage in wrestling as you have to come into that strange little world down in west Tennessee. There are some people down there who are absolute mainstays of the territory and that’s where things pick up on this rather good but somewhat lacking film.

What we have here is a documentary on the territory, or at least some of the bigger parts of it. You get a look at the beginning, a big look at Jerry Lawler, a good look at Jimmy Hart, the Andy Kaufman stuff, a LOT on Sputnik Monroe (a very important name when it came to race relations in the south) and some random stories.

The problem is that’s about it, and there was WAY more to cover in all of Memphis. The main feature runs about an hour and a half, which felt like a good first third or even fourth of what should have been the whole thing. It was kind of weird seeing what felt like it should have been a much bigger film, but what you get is some very good stuff, mainly because of all the people they interview. Jerry Jarrett, Jerry Lawler, Bill Dundee, Jimmy Hart and a bunch of other people are included, as they have to be in something like this.

It’s definitely worth checking out if you’re a fan of this kind of stuff, as the classic footage and stories are more than worth it (the extras are some of the best parts of the whole thing). The biggest thing though was I wanted to see more, which is the sign of something being done right. At the same time though, there was SO much that it felt like they left out that it feels more incomplete than anything else.