10 Wrestlers Who Almost Died In The Ring

1. Jerry 'The King' Lawler

Minutes after working a throwaway tag-team match on the 10 September 2012 episode of Raw, Jerry 'The King' Lawler clutched his chest and fell to the floor behind the commentary desk. Suffering a very-real heart attack, he received CPR at ringside before being taken to hospital for further treatment.

Later, Lawler underwent an angioplasty to improve blood flow to his heart. It's frightening to think that the King could easily have had a heart attack when he was teaming with Randy Orton to face Dolph Ziggler and CM Punk earlier in the show. Thankfully out of the ring by the time it happened, being at ringside also meant WWE doctors were able to tend to Lawler quickly.

Lawler said during interviews that his heart stopped dead for 22 minutes that evening, and he was fortunate to recover. To this day, Jerry's incident remains one of the closest calls in WWE history. The legend very nearly died on air.