WWE Hall of Famer Jerry “The King” Lawler found himself in yet another controversy during this week’s edition of Monday Night Raw. During a match between Austin Theory and Akira Tozawa, Lawler referred to Tozawa’s diving senton (also known as a cannonball) as a “Ramen Noodle Moonsault,” which many WWE fans instantly called out for being racially insensitive given Tozawa is Japanese.
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WWE hasn’t commented on Lawler’s comment, though the company did remove the line from the YouTube highlight video and the Hulu replay.
Meanwhile Lawler has spent Tuesday morning blocking critics and favoriting a tweet of a person defending his comments.
At 70-years-old with previous heart problems (including a nearly-fatal heart attack on a 2012 episode of Raw), Lawler is considered high risk during the coronavirus pandemic. However he has brushed off any concerns over the virus in multiple interviews and on his podcast.
“What are you gonna do if you get it? They say there’s no treatment for it, there’s no cure for it. What are you gonna do? I’m not gonna hold myself inside a room here and quarantine myself like an idiot for who knows how long,” Lawler said in an interview with Cerrito Live in mid-March.
“You go on and live your life and if you get sick then you go and get some kind of treatment. As they are saying now, the people that say they don’t recommend air travel they say they don’t have a treatment for this,” he added. “Now more and more people are coming out and saying ‘well I got it but then I got over it.”
Back in December Lawler talked about how WWE still considers him to be a liability in the ring following that heart attack, even though he has wrestled plenty of times since then.
“Still, to this day, the people in WWE still feel like that’s not the case [Lawler being cleared to wrestle]. They keep me on the no-touch list and all of that kind of thing. We’ve talked about this before on the podcast. The doctors told Lauren, ‘We can’t clear him to go back in the ring because he’s a liability to the company,’” Lawler explained.
