Source: Yahoo Sports

Jerry Lawler returning to the ring eight months after heart attack

By Marcus Vanderberg | The Turnstile

 

Long live Jerry “The King” Lawler.

On May 25, the 63-year-old wrestling icon and WWE commentator will wrestle in his first match since suffering a near-fatal heart attack last September.

Lawler will team up with 72-year-old WWE Hall of Famer Dory Funk Jr. in a tag team match for the !Bang! wrestling promotion.

(Yes, Dory Funk Jr. is 72 and still wrestling.)

It’s been quite the recovery for Lawler, who collapsed on-air during a live broadcast of WWE Raw in Montreal shortly after wrestling a tag team match with Randy Orton. Fortunately for Lawler, Dr. Michael J. Sampson, the WWE ringside doctor, was sitting feet away from the announcers table and sprung into action, using CPR which ultimately saved his life. Two months after that scary incident, Lawler was back at a WWE announcers table as his heart attack was mocked and re-enacted as part of a storyline segment with wrestler CM Punk.

Getting back in the ring has been on Lawler’s mind since his heart attack. The man even cut back on eating fried chicken five (!!!) times a week in order to get cleared by his doctors. Lawler told WMC-TV in February that his ultimate goal was to eventually wrestle once again:

“The one thing I’ve not done since the heart attack is get back into the ring and wrestle,” he explained. “And, Lauryn says that I’ve been, the one thing that’s different about me since the heart attack, she says, ‘You’re depressed. You’re going through depression.’ Which I don’t feel it. I don’t think it. But, yeah, I certainly do miss the wrestling and I do want to go back and do it some more.”