General Pro Wrestling News and Discussion Thread Part Deux!

Shit, Lawler collapsed and is being given CPR at last report and now the last match just went silent as Cole, I dunno, heard the worst???? Hope he's OK.

 

When did this happen? Score just aired the tag team match, they're behind by an hour or so I guess.

 

During the Kane match.

 

Yep. We're behind. I've been reading twitter and apparently he's breathing on his own at the hospital.

 

It kills me to have to ask a question like this, but do we know for sure whether or not this was legit?

 

Oh it was legit. Cole was near tears when he first was reporting on it and looked extremely concerned and worried all through the rest of the show. He also made it pretty clear that it was not part of tonight's entertainment.

 

Additionally, there was no footage shown of any of it which would be odd for WWE and I don't know that "Lawler collapsed in his chair" is much of a storyline. I know where you're coming from though because it can be hard to separate this stuff sometimes when characters have their backs broken and what not all the time as part of the story.

 

The only other time I've heard those words uttered on WWF/E programming was at Over the Edge '99. And Bret Hart was the guest host tonight.

 

Yep. Which has made it eerie. Mr. Adventure is right....it took place during the match, and the camera went a couple of times near the announce table but didn't show any footage, you could see the front row of the crowd though turn their heads to look at what was going on and someone was talking to Cole then they started chanting Jerry's name a bit.

 

Also, I've been checking around, and I don't think I would have found the story on so many websites not connected to the WWE if it weren't true. Damn. Hope he indeed pulls through.

 

The entire show was pretty good...that was an incredible promo between Punk/Bret/Cena. Finally some emotion from Cena.

I think the last update we got was that Jerry's conditioned had stabilized, which is obviously encouraging news.

 

Cena was good and I'm not really a fan but they've made Punk a bit weak of late. Is he like Samson and all his power in his greasy hair?

 

RAW was incredibly surreal without commentary. For anyone who truly follows wrestling/sports entertainment, it's easy to tell what is or is not scripted, and this was as real as real can be. I love Jerry Lawler and seriously hope and pray that he is okay. It is very encouraging news that Lawler's condition had stabilized, but stabilized doesn't mean he's out of the woods.

 

The word online seems to be that Lawler suffered a heart attack. When people saw him on a stretcher back stage they'd thought a brawl of some kind had broken out, the entire locker room was asked to clear out for the EMT's.

 

Say what you will about Michael Cole's on-air persona and character, but it could not have been easy trying to continue to do his job in the midst of Lawler's medical crisis. It's remarkable that he managed to act like everything was normal through the remainder of the Kane/Bryan vs. PTP match and the Del Rio/Tyson Kidd match that followed.

 

Michael Cole is a pretty nice person in real life as reported in the other thread, he has actually despised his heel/pseudo heel role these past couple of years (also goes to show how damn good he has been at selling that role if this is the case). You could tell that tonight. I'm still surprised he didn't break down.

 

I missed Raw last night and didn't catch up with the Lawler story until this morning (it's just coming up to 8am over here). It does sound like a heart related incident, but whatever the case, I really hope that Lawler doesn't plan on getting back in the ring, if this indeed turns out to be heart related. He has nothing else left to prove as a wrestler, having cemented himself as arguably the greatest southern territorial wrestler of all time and one of the greatest of all time overall.

When I first read the reports, I immediately began to think of Mitsuharu Misawa who fell into cardiac arrest in a match (Misawa had wrestled much longer than he should have from a physical point of view, having elected to stay on to help raise the profile of his his promotion - Pro Wrestling NOAH and to build new stars) and died following attempts to resuscitate him.

From what everyone is saying, Michael Cole handled things brilliantly, despite being emotionally rocked, a true testament to his professionalism. I hope King gets well soon and also sensibly reflects upon this recent incident objectively in regards to his level of physical performance in the future.

 

Cole was classy tonight. The incident rightfully overshadowed otherwise the best Raw in a while. So much so that I pretty much watched all of it for the first time in the three hour format.

 

Cole did a great job last night kudos to him in all respects. Now might be a real good time to bring JBL back and just let Jerry retire to his throne in Memphis. JBL can take over the classic heal color spot and let Cole move into the face announcer role.

 

I wasn't aware that anything was amiss until Cole addressed the situation following the conclusion of the ADR/Tyson Kidd match and its aftermath. I don't know exactly how much physical time had passed since the incident happened, but it had to have been at least 5 minutes, if not longer.