Real side of wrestling: Jerry Lawler

Lawler speaking to Cole before collapsing minutes later
on WWE Monday Night Raw 09/10/2012

As you are well aware from a couple of my posts, I've mentioned I was a wrestling fan. Way back. One of my first matches I saw was Eddie Guerrero leaping off the top turnbuckle on WCW. I seen some pretty wild stuff since then, and I've also seen some horrific events. One of them being tonight on WWE Monday Night Raw.

Jerry 'The King' Lawler: WWE wrestler, commentator, and Hall of Fame collapsed on a live telecast of Monday Night Raw, and was stretchered out of the arena and taken to a nearby hospital in Montreal, Quebec. The show went on as schedule, but Michale Cole stopped commentating not only because of his own personal grievance, but to also get any news from the hospital. As the final segment went underway, the show went eight minutes over-live on USA, ending with Cole saying Jerry is breathing on his own, heart is beating on its own, and they're about to do a CAT scan on his chest and brain to see what caused this to happen.

Photo taken by a fan and shared on Twitter

My prayers go out to him, truly. But earlier, he just got done finishing a wrestling tag team match, which I'm more than positive that's what caused him to collapse. I really wish these wrestlers like him and Hogan would just get the picture that; after a certain age... its time to hang your boots up. I just hope this doesn't hinder his remaining life value. Because, if he leaves early because he wanted one more chance to wrestle... that would hurt.

This is especially weird considering Bret Hart made his appearance tonight 15 years later in the same town in which he was screwed over the then WWF World Championship at Survivor Series before leaving for the WCW the next night. Call it closure if you will, he finally got the chance in the spotlight in Montreal and not have to worry about who would back stab him. And for an incident like this to happen, I can't imagine how devastated he was when it happened. Considering this was suppose to be a night of joy and redemption for Bret Hart.

The part of this that truly pissed me off was this was smelling like Over the Edge 1999 all over again. A great man, Owen Hart died in the middle of the ring... and the show went on. Jerry Lawler was on the ground in pain in front of 20 some odd thousand fans... and the show went on. Whether it was Vince, or Paul, or Stephine, the fact is, someone in the back was a cold enough to say "There's money to be made. We must finish the show."

Whether he recovers in time to commentate Sunday night pay-per-view WWE Night of Champions, or sits back and recover, you can be sure that a lot of people, especially Michale Cole and Jim Ross will have a lot of tension and fright until next Monday. I just hope he can come back and make a full recovery, because its not WWE without The King.