My guess is you are the only one that specifically remembers a first round result from three years ago that has absolutely nothing to do with this match.
Wrestling was a regional business in Lawler's prime. Most guys were regional in those days. Lawler was one of the most successful ones. He was a Memphis legend that was big enough to unifiy the AWA & WCCW titles.
A roster full of stars? Kind of, I guess. All those guys were under contract but by the time DDP won his first world title in 1999 those guys with their guaranteed contracts and creative control didn't bother to show up to work half the time. I don't care if WCW was on national tv every week. In 1999 WCW became so bad I'd say any regional title Lawler held was at least as important as the WCW title was. Even then Page only managed to hold it for 29 days spread out over three reigns.
DDP had a nice career and deserves credit for his significant improvement so late in his career. Really though he only had two or three good years to the two or three good decades Lawler had.
So much this.
Between 96-98 DDP was actually very good. I won't take anything away from that.
But between about 75-90, Lawler was amazingly good. Like seriously, near best in the business, so good that everyone went out of their way to get the chance to work with him good.
It's actually a little unfortunate that most fans nowadays remember him as a wrestler most from his WWF run. He was in his mid-40's by the time he showed up in the WWF, and was past his prime.
Still that should say something. A middle aged, past his prime Lawler still worked one of the most memorable programs of that year with Bret Hart. That should give those who weren't privileged enough to have witnessed him in his prime an idea of how good he actually was at his peak.
There are some similarities between these guys ironically enough. I remember when the DDP/Savage feud won feud of the year in PWI, and being surprised by that at first. It wasn't the highest profile feud, but the intensity was off the charts, and both men did an amazing job with it. The first thing I remember thinking of, is this is like Lawler and Jarrett versus the Moondogs winning feud of the year. Or Lawler versus Idol and Rich. Feuds that didn't have the highest profiles, but were just so much better than anything else around.
Then there's the fact that DDP was the go to face for WCW whenever they had a celebrity that needed a partner. And of course, the fact that Lawler did the celebrity thing with Kaufman years before it became the thing to do (and still did it better than anyone since imo... seriously, go watch Kaufman/Lawler on Youtube. Now!)
The similarities make this an interesting matchup, but at the end of the day, I don't know how anyone can ignore how much more important Lawler was to history, and how much longer he was such an important part of history... unless the only thing they care to know about Lawler is that he got his dentist to wrestle before he remembered he was really the Undertakers brother, and that he used to really love puppies. And if that's the case... I'm sorry. There is SO MUCH you're missing. So much.