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It's been several weeks since I last wrote a column, but I knew that after the night we had yesterday, I had to write one. We've all heard the old TV cliché, "Anything can happen on live TV," and that statement was true last night. I'll recall the events as they meant to me as they happened.
RAW started down that emotional road with Bret Hart coming out to an ovation that won't be matched for quite some time. I had goose bumps watching what was unfolding in front of me. There's so much history with Hart and Montreal. It's a shame that there were people watching who had no idea about any of it, my girlfriend being one of them. Without getting into some history lesson, I just told her there was, "So much history, so much."
Then RAW took a sharp turn down the road of "ho hum" like every RAW does now that it's three hours. I can't even remember what happened between the Hart promo and the CM Punk/Dolph Ziggler tag match.
It started out as CM Punk against Randy Orton, but some interference later, it turned into a tag match. Randy Orton and Jerry Lawler then took on CM Punk and Dolph Ziggler which saw, in my opinion, a very good ending. If you missed it, Paul Heyman came out to the ringside area, he and CM Punk had a conversation, and they casually left.
My mind goes blank on what happened until the Kane/Bryan and PTP match. Now, I'll admit that during this match I was doing other things so my eyes weren't fixed on the screen; however, I noticed after a while that Lawler wasn't talking. It's then that I started seeing live reports on my Twitter feed.
Then before I know it, Michael Cole is on my TV letting me know what Twitter users were reporting. Scary. Cole then said to honor his friend, he was going silent and no longer doing commentary, and that's when the severity of the situation set in. Honestly, I just sat there. I kept checking my Twitter feed to see if there were new reports, and if I wasn't doing that, I was just watching RAW. However, I wasn't "watching", if that makes sense. I was just staring at the TV.
Now I must admit I'm no fan of Lawler. I've said some mean things about his past on Twitter over the last several weeks, but he's a human being. He has a family; he has loved ones. I respect humanity. There's only a list of a very few that I truly wished death upon and a name on that list is Osama Bin Laden, so the list contains some heinous people. Jerry Lawler is not on that list.
Michael Cole needs to realize the standup job he did with all the events that happened. He didn't skip a beat and kept everything on track despite the obvious. The wrestling business is different than other entertainment/sports. These guys/girls are on the road most of the year, some two hundred days a year, so their bond is strong. I can't even fathom what Cole was going through. The stream of emotions that were flowing through him must have seemed like time was standing still, and it was killing him. When they fixed the camera on Cole for him to make the initial announcement, my first thought was that this is what people watching Over the Edge '99 must have felt like. I didn't watch the PPV the night Owen Hart tragically died I did watch the night after. I've seen Jim Ross making the announcement on YouTube; it gave me goose bumps, and I knew what was coming. I went back and watched the match where Lawler had his heart attack. I was able to pause. I was able to see Cole struggling to try to not only continue the show as normal but help a friend who was in dire straits. It was incredible. I posted stills on Twitter (@FordDenny) of what I saw: Cole leaving his seat to try to help Lawler, all the while calling what was happening. There were moments when there was no talking but didn't seem like anything out of the normal unless you knew what was happening. Great job, Michael Cole; you deserve a lot of credit.
I've spent most of my life watching RAW, and when you're used to constant talking while you're watching, the silence was extraordinary. Honestly, that's what was killing me the most -- just sitting there, watching, waiting, silent. It's something we may never experience again; who knows? Just silence. Unbelievable.
#PrayForLawler
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@FordDenny or Ford@TheFordShow.com
