The wrestling world was shocked on July 29 after the death of Brian Christopher Lawler. Lawler, who performed as Brian Christopher and Grandmaster Sexay, is the son of wrestling legend Jerry “The King” Lawler.
Brian Lawler was found hanging in his cell at the Hardeman County Jail outside of Memphis, Tennessee. Lawler was arrested on suspicion of DUI after leading police on a chase.
Brian Lawler was a mainstay of the WWE (then WWF) in the late ‘90s early ‘00s when he wrestled beside Scott “Too Hot” Taylor” as part of the Too Much and, later Too Cool, tag-team duo. Too Cool would go on to earn the coveted WWF Tag Team Championship belt in May of 2000.
To pay tribute to his son, Jerry Lawler wore a ring vest belonging to Brian prior to a match against James Ellsworth on Sunday, August 5 in Jackson, Tennessee. Jerry Lawler later posted of himself wearing the vest to his “Dinner with the King” Twitter account. “Dinner with the King” is a popular podcast hosted by Lawler.
.@JerryLawler wore his son’s vest to the ring as a tribute tonight for his match with @realellsworth. #RIPBrianChristopherLawler pic.twitter.com/Da5Cxf3iMv
— Dinner With The King (@DinnerWithKing) August 6, 2018
His opponent, Ellsworth, also tweeted about the match.
Just wrestled the most emotional match of my career
Words can’t describe the amount of respect I have for @JerryLawler
It’s a true honor and pleasure to share the ring with him always .. pic.twitter.com/cCHoUGLwD4
— James Ellsworth (@realellsworth) August 5, 2018
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who was close with Brain Lawler in his early career, wrote a touching tribute to the fallen wrestling star on Instagram.
A post shared by therock (@therock) on
*swipe left. RIP brother.
Spent all week trying to process the hard loss of my good bud, Brian Christopher Lawler.
He became a great friend the day I stepped foot in the small wrestling territory in the south known as the USWA to start my pro wrestling career.
We rode together daily (1500 miles per week) trained together at any gym we could find, ate together at any Waffle House off the highway, wrestled together in flea markets to state fairs, shared motel rooms together, and would always dream (and talk shit;) about what life would be like once we made it to the big leagues of the WWE.
Once we both finally made it to the big leagues of the WWE, nothing changed… we still did everything together. Including having nightly Madden tournaments after our wrestling matches in our motel room and then we’d extend our competitive spirit to a rowdy game of Wiffle Ball. Imagine us acting like crazy Wiffle Ball idiots at 2am in the parking lot of the Motel 6.
Our jaws would hurt from laughing so hard.
Then we’d finally take our butts to bed, hit the gym in the morning, drive 200 miles to the next town to wrestle and start the night all over again.
I’ll miss these times now even more.
Hurts my heart to know how Brian decided to check out.
I never knew him to be suicidal, but I guess sometimes the pain just gets to be too much for one to take.I’ll miss you man and the times we had.
Thanks for being a great friend.
Thanks for being my boy.My love, light, support and strength to Brian’s father, Jerry Lawler and Brian’s mother, Kay as well as Brian’s family and friends. ~ DJ
