Jerry Lawler collapsed during Monday Night Raw tonight after participating in a match. This seems legit. At one point he was not breathing and CPR was performed. Lawler is one of the greats and I pray he’s going to be OK.
It is legit. Lawler was taken to the hospital, suspected heart attack or stroke. There are reports that he was breathing on his own.
Creepy show when they didn’t have commentators.
Checking around a bit, there are reports that the King is being prepped for a CAT scan, is responsive to lights in his eyes. Most reports seem to think it was a heart attack, but it might have been both a heart attack and a stroke.
I remember him best as slapping Andy Kaufman on David Letterman’s show. All a put on as everything was in Kaufman’s life, but I enjoyed it at the time.
Lawler is probably best known for his work with Andy Kaufman. Whatever one thinks of Kaufman, no one can argue that Lawler’s performance throughout the period was anything short of brilliant.
I met Lawler at an indy show a few years ago. A true professional when performing, and a very friendly, approachable guy in a non-kayfabe situation.
Holy cow. I’m watching the West Coast feed and we just finished the segment with his match. Then commercial, then Slater is in the ring being Slater.
The King is on commentary. I feel almost… cruel somehow, knowing that this is about to come.
Smith Hart (brother of Bret) is supposedly reporting on Twitter that Lawler was “clinically dead” for 20 minutes before being revived with a defibrilator.
Smith is a dubious source at best. I’m not sure it is possible to be clinically dead for that long, but we’ll see…
I DVR’d it. You can see Jerry slumped over during the Kane/Bryan tag team match. It was a good match, too bad this had to happen. Jerry’s a fighter, I’m counting on him to pull through. He had a look of joy on his face during his match earlier in the evening. He hasn’t had the chance to really wrestle like that for a while. I’m sure he has no regrets about doing it. One random report said they considered shutting down the show, but he was recovering in a short time.
As far as Smith and other reports from wrestlers, you can never believe anything they say. They mean well often, but they live their lives in a fictional world and exagerrate everything.
Hang in there Jerry, you are the King!
Toward the end of the show when Cole was making the announcements about Mr. Lawler’s conditions, I had the brief thought “Well, they wouldn’t announce during the show that he had died, because they would need to notify his next of kin. Besides the fact that, professionally speaking, it would be better if that news came out officially later on.”
Since the on air (PPV) death of Owen Hart they’ve never settled out what to do in such cases. I think in this case they were wise to assess the situation before doing anything. I’ll give rare credit to Michael Cole for carrying on while it all happened. They are performers, and I’m sure Jerry would have wanted the show to go on. It’s a sticky situation for them, this time they handled it well, though good fortune was on the King’s side, and as a result, theirs. This may end the use of older wrestlers doing physical work in the ring though. We’ll have to see what happens. Mae Young got put through a table by Bubba Ray Dudley when she was in her 80s. I’d hate to think that opportunity would be taken away from another wrestler.
Apparently, it was a heart attack. He’s had a stint inserted, and is not out of the woods yet.
Really hope the King can “drop the strap” one more time and make his comeback.
My understanding was that he does wrestle for Memphis and other places on occasion, so it’s not like it’s just the infrequent RAW match.
But that being said, I’m kinda of the opposite mind. I’m hoping this is his wake up call to stop wrestling and stick to commentary and special appearances so that he can live a longer life.
Jerry Lawler is still fucking wrestling??
Very limited. However, Lawler is such an icon he can still have a heavy influence on storylines.
The current CM Punk heel turn has not been overly accepted by the audience, so involving Lawler can help turn fans against Punk.
Didn’t he wrestle on Monday’s show?
Tazz had to retire from anything even close to wrestling because of his injuries; I wonder if he’ll try to convince Lawler that there’s nothing wrong with never stepping into a wrestling ring (other than with a microphone in hand) again. (I know I could have said Edge instead of Tazz, but I think Edge is still capable of the occasional “run-in” or “in-ring incident” without doing too much harm, whereas with Tazz, pretty much anything might cause irreperable harm.)
I just think it’s insane guys who were already old before i was born are still performing. I looked up the guys i used to watch back when i watched as a kid in the 80s and they are either still going or dead. Ric Flair looked like my grandad in the 80s, is he still going too?
I’m amazed too that a guy in his sixties is still wrestling. Jerry was lucky he was at a match where paramedics would be stationed.
Wrestling has always been a big cardio workout. Running around inside the ring and bouncing off those ropes can wear anyone out. I remember as a kid seeing older middle aged wrestlers pot bellies heaving as they struggled to keep their breath. Usually they’d resort to a headlock or arm bar as a way to rest for a minute and catch their breath. Wrestlers in the early 70’s were still just regular looking guys that had big cauliflower ears from wrestling. They weren’t the muscle bound, steroid dudes they have today.