WWE Hall of Famer and one of the all time greatest professional wrestlers of all time, Jerry Lawler is no longer with World Wrestling Entertainment, PWInsider.com has confirmed with multiple sources.
PWInsider.com is told that WWE quietly declined to renew Lawler’s broadcast contract, ending a relationship between the two that began back in December 1992 when he shockingly appeared on an episode of WWF Prime Time Wrestling. Sources close to the matter have confirmed Lawler’s WWE deal expired at the onset of 2024.
Due to the nature of Lawler being out of the public spotlight as he recovered from his February 2023 stroke, news of his departure from WWE only started to make the rounds in recent weeks. Given the lengthy history Lawler had with the company and the fact Lawler literally died on camera on Raw before being resuscitated, word of his exit (as you might imagine) was met with surprise among those we spoke with over the weekend as PWInsider.com worked to confirm his departure.
One source commented that under the previous ownership, Lawler would have always been “taken care of” and connected with the company in some way contractually, but this is a “new era.”
“The old company is dead,” they remarked. “People can say they hate Vince [McMahon] and Kevin [Dunn] all they want, and they’d be right to do so, but certain people would have been taken care of. Lawler would have been one, but this isn’t the old WWE. Howard Finkel, God bless him, wouldn’t have had a job for life here anymore, either.”
Now I’m just saying…👀…I could see something funny happening…
Edit:
even if he’s not on commentary, i think it’s a huge mistake to not use him in some way - especially when you’re pulling in lots of people with no experience to fill out nxt and expecting them to progress in a few months. he can still teach a lot about psychology and promos.
On the one hand, that sucks, not only is he in his twilight years, he’s been in bad health from the strokes. You would think somebody who actually died and had to be revived on their flagship TV show would have had that iron-clad lifetime contract, I very much dislike Vince McMahon, but I doubt he would have let this contract lapse.
On the other hand, Vince has caused them to rethink their associations with some less-than-savory people, and King’s alleged preference for underage people in the past makes him a sticky situation if they want to allegedly “clean house.”
Deep down though I’d guess this is all really Endeavor asking TKO to make the books look good.
