Why Jerry Lawler Was Kept Off WWE Raw This Week
'The King' was nowhere to be found on Monday night.
Jerry 'The King' Lawler was missing from this week's WWE Raw broadcast, leaving Tom Phillips and Byron Saxton (whose testicles have seemingly healed from last week's Steve Austin assault) to work the announce booth alone.
Why was 'King' kept off television? Because of the ongoing global situation.
The latest episode of Wrestling Observer Radio saw Dave Meltzer confirm that WWE thought it'd be too risky to have him work on Monday night, given what's currently happening around the world. Lawler is 70-years-old and therefore classified as a "higher risk" person when it comes to the infection.
Adding to this report is PWInsider's Mike Johnson, who has stated that Lawler was in Orlando, Florida on Monday, but just wasn't used.
AEW appears to be taking a similar approach with their own veteran announcer this week. The promotion has confirmed that Tony Schiavone and Cody will call this week's episode of Dynamite, with Jim Ross sitting the broadcast out, his situation presumably similar to Lawler's - though Ross is two years younger at 68.
Good on WWE for looking out for their employee's health here. These are weird, unprecedented times requiring weird, unprecedented measures.