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Ocala's Funk wishes WWE legend Lawler well after on-air heart attack

Posted: Sep 17th 2012 By: CMBurnham

As they do pretty much every week, Dory Funk Jr. and his wife Marti settled in at their Ocala home last week to watch Monday Night Raw on the USA Network.

Marti was in front of the television, while Dory wandered from the kitchen to the living room, glancing up and listening to World Wrestling Entertainment's flagship show while he made a snack.

About two hours into the broadcast, something was different.

?I noticed there was no commentary and I wondered, ?What the heck is going on?' ? said Dory Funk, a WWE Hall of Fame inductee in 2009. ?Then, things started coming out and it didn't sound good.?

Affable longtime color commentator Jerry ?the King? Lawler had suffered a heart attack during a match where Daniel Bryan and Kane were taking on Titus O'Neal (former Gator football player Thaddeus Bullard) and Darren Young.

Soon after, lead announcer Michael Cole somberly alerted the viewing audience to his broadcast partner's precarious situation. Cole cautioned this was no storyline, that is was very real. And the concern shown on his face made it clear he was very worried.

?I was looking at my monitor, (and) Jerry was looking at his monitor,? Cole told ?Fox and Friends' on Wednesday. ?And all of a sudden, I heard snoring on the air. I thought he was out ? like, sleeping. For a split moment, I thought it was part of the entertainment. Then, I looked over and I realized that his head was on the table and his arms started to shake. I knew at that point there was an issue.?

Meanwhile, back in Ocala, Marti and Dory ? Lawler's friends for more than three decades ? began to fear the worst.

?When I saw Michael deliver the news, I texted one of the people closest to Jerry, a promoter in Nashville (Bert Prentice),? Marti said. ?I asked if we should be praying. He said ?yes.' ?

As time went by, it became evident that Lawler, 62, was fortunate he was at a WWE event instead of one of the small-town independent shows at which he often performs. EMTs at the Bell Centre in Montreal got to him within 90 seconds of his collapse, reviving him backstage after what has been reported as anywhere from seven to 15 minutes where his heart was not beating and he was not breathing, according to a detailed account published in the Wrestling Observer newsletter.

?There was no better place for him to be,? said Dory Funk, whose father, also a professional wrestler, died of a heart attack in 1973. ?The WWE and the McMahon family do a wonderful job of providing protection and care for their wrestlers. They did, as they always do, make sure medical help was in place in case something like this were to happen.

?They did a terrific job, and I'm very thankful Jerry is here today.?

Dory Funk estimates it was 1970 or 1971 when he first met Lawler.

Funk was the touring NWA world heavyweight champion from Feb. 11, 1969, through May 24, 1973. One of his stops early in the run was Memphis, where he was to face a charismatic young star who was one of the first wrestlers ever to use theme music.

?He was such a big deal he even came to the ring on a horse one time,? Funk said of Lawler, whose wrestling feud with comedian Andy Kaufman was a major storyline in the biopic ?Man on the Moon.?

?And Elvis Presley was a big fan of Jerry's who would go backstage to watch the matches at the Mid-South Coliseum,? Funk added.

Funk and his challenger wrestled to a one-hour draw, with Lawler pulling his singlet strap off his shoulder ? an action that still gets fans excited more than 40 years later.

?I heard stories about this up-and-coming kid when I was coming in, and he lived up to everything I had been told,? said Funk, who estimates he and Lawler worked together five or six times. ?He was a great wrestler and just a fabulous, tremendous showman. And the people of Memphis ... they loved him.?

That soon also became the case with Dory and Marti, whom he met 32 years ago and married five years later.

?I've known Jerry as long as I've known Dory,? Marti Funk said. ?And Jerry is just the sweetest guy in the world. He just brings so much life to every room he enters. He's like the life of every party, and he makes everyone there feel like they are a big part of that party.

?Jim Ross (Lawler's longtime broadcast partner prior to Cole) said when Dick Clark passed away that Jerry was now the oldest living teenager in the world, and I think that is right on.?

Lawler has been a major supporter of the Funk family's Funking Conservatory Wrestling School and !Bang! TV program, traveling to Ocala to entertain, meet with fans and offer advice to aspiring grapplers.

?When he was here, everybody in the building had the opportunity to meet him,? Dory Funk said. ?He made everyone there feel like he was just as excited to spend time with them as they were to spend time with him.

?He truly understands and loves his fans and the wrestling business. Behind the scenes, he gave of himself to every person, whether it was talent or production. He knew people came to see him, and he wanted to give back. That's just Jerry.?

On Friday, Lawler remained in a hospital cardiac care unit in Montreal. Reports were that he is recovering nicely.

Lawler's girlfriend, Lauryn McBride, posted on Facebook that he was no longer in need of ventilation tubes to breathe and had been resting, per doctor's orders. She said he was anxious to get back to Memphis.

?I will be bringing the King back home before you know it,? McBride wrote.

On Thursday, Lawler addressed the public in a short video on Tout, a company in which the WWE has a partial ownership stake. He was the one-liner-delivering guy wrestling fans have known for years, joking that he had more wires coming out of him than AT&T.

It is too soon to speculate when or if Lawler might return to announcing or if he will ever step foot in a wrestling ring again. But, to many of his friends, that is of little matter.

?We're just glad it sounds like he is doing better,? Marti Funk said. ?We used to text him frequently, but we haven't tried in the last few days because we know he needs his space to make a full recovery.

?But he knows we love him, and if he wanted us there with him, we would be there. We would always be there for Jerry.?