Dustin wishes a speedy recovery to Jerry Lawler and considers a few possibilities as to how something like this happened.

During this past Monday’s taping of “Monday Night Raw,” WWE Ring Announcer and Hall-of-Famer Jerry ‘the King’ Lawler collapsed at ringside while calling a match featuring Kane and Daniel Bryan taking on Titus O’Neil and Darren Young.

It was quickly made apparent that this was not a part of the show, but that Lawler had suffered a heart attack and was rushed to the hospital unable to finish the broadcast. It’s important to note that Lawler is reportedly breathing unassisted and his heart is beating unassisted, suggesting he will be able to complete a full recovery but little else is known at this point.

Countless WWE Superstars and Legends have already poured out support on Twitter, sending their wishes and prayers to the beloved announcer.

What I can’t get past is the thought that this could be a result from the last few weeks of Raw episodes that have seen Lawler, definitely a former wrestler, in a feud with current WWE champion CM Punk as the company looks to push Punk towards the heel side.

Announcers are often used as a quick-fix for pushing a superstar teetering on the brink to full heel-status; Undertaker attacked Jim Ross, Kane set Jim Ross on fire, Stone Cold attacked Jim Ross among others.

With the Punk/King angle though, we’ve seen Punk kick Lawler in the back of the head, we’ve seen him bloody and batter King inside a steel cage and minutes before King’s heart attack, he was in a match teaming with Randy Orton to take on CM Punk and Dolph Ziggler. In this match, he was the target for the majority of Ziggler’s offense, which amounted to little more than a beat down meant to further Ziggler’s show-off persona and the obvious heel-status of both he and Punk.

I’m all for turning stars heel, it keeps things fresh and sometimes the best matches and performances come from a star’s push to the heel side, but dragging a retired ring-announcer to the ring week after week to push the current (and beloved) WWE champion as a heel even though he’s become almost all of your marketing just so you can justify giving the title back to John Cena is a step too far.

Hopefully, if anything can come from this, the WWE will realize that there are things more important than making sure the crowd knows to boo the champion.

Get well soon King, all of us here at HefferBrew and throughout the world are pulling for you.