Jerry Lawler started out having a pretty good night on September 28, 2012. Even though he was in his early 60s, he still teamed up with Randy Orton to defeat CM Punk and Dolph Ziggler. After that, he went back to the announcers table to call the rest of the show with Michael Cole. Then during a match with The Prime Time Players and Team Hell No, he suddenly stopped talking. It sounded like someone was gasping for air. As the camera angles changed, we could see The King slouched over in his chair. Now both announcers were silent. The crowd began standing up, ignoring the match and looking over off camera. What was going on? Referee Charles Robinson looked distracted, as did Kane and Titus O'Neil. Cole tried his best to continue as the crowd began chanting "Jerry! Jerry!" After commercial break, a visibly shaken Cole informed us that his co-host passed out and collapsed. As the show went on, we were given updates about King, but the possibility of his death seemed very real. It became impossible to be entertained by Raw as fans feared for the worst. To add to the surrealness, Cole stopped announcing out of respect for his partner. It was silence, except for the wrestlers in the ring doing their best to work through the very real and scary situation.
As Rust Cohle from True Detective said "Life's barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you're good at."
Sadly, I can't solve a murder like Rust...or change a tire, or even tie a tie. But I do know all the lyrics to Hulk Hogan's "Real American" theme song and can easily name every Natural Born Thriller from the dying days of WCW. I was once ranked 21st in the United States in Tetris...on the Playstation 3 version...for about a week.
Follow along @AndrewSoucek and check out my podcast at wrestlingwithfriends.com
