Jerry Lawler suffered a medical emergency while staying at his condo in Florida on Monday, according to Mike Johnson of PWInsider. Lawler was reportedly out for lunch with his friends before becoming ill and was rushed to the hospital. According to Action News 5 in Memphis, Lawler is recovering in the hospital after undergoing surgery.
This is not the first medical emergency for “The King” as he suffered a stroke in 2018. And on Sept. 10, 2012, the 73-year-old suffered a heart attack while working on WWE Raw. Ten minutes before the heart attack, Lawler competed in a tag-team match, partnering with Randy Orton against CM Punk and Dolph Ziggler. In a 2017 interview, Lawler talked about what happened that night.
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“I have alluded to the fact that 10 minutes before I had cardiac arrest – cardiac arrest and a heart attack are two different things. A heart attack, a lot of times, is caused by clogged arteries or something like that, plaque in your veins and that sort of thing. And you usually feel some pain because it’s restricting the blood flow,” Lawler said, per the New York Post. “Cardiac arrest is when your heart – it’s usually sort of like an electrical-type thing – your heart just stops. And only seven out of 1,000 people who [suffer] cardiac arrest survive. Usually, those seven out of 1,000 people survive because they’re in a hospital or get immediate care.”
“And just fortunately, our ringside doctor was right there with the paramedics up in Montreal, started CPR immediately. It was still 22 minutes before my heart beat. And then they got the paddles and shocked me seven times. The crazy thing was, my heart had been knocked off-rhythm, I believe by the elbows. By Dolph Ziggler. And it took about 10 minutes for it to just freeze up and stop. Once they got the heart back on the correct rhythm, I haven’t had one minute’s problem since. I’ve been fine, knock on wood.”
Lawler has been in the professional wrestling business for over 50 years and is known for winning multiple championships in multiple territories. He joined WWE in 1992 as part of the commentary team and worked with Jim Ross. The duo called many classic moments in the “Attitude Era,” which featured “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Lawler was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2007.
