Jerry Lawler Collapses Live on WWE RAW

The first thing I'll say is that what happened live tonight on RAW was not a part of a WWE storyline...

During a match involving Daniel Bryan and Kane vs. The Prime Time Players, and shortly following his own match against CM Punk and Dolph Ziggler, 62 year-old commentator and WWE Hall of Famer Jerry "The King" Lawler became short of breath and collapsed at the announce table, falling to the floor. During this time, the cameras did not show what was happening, but viewers at home could see the crowd watching off to the side as a medical team came down to attend to Lawler.

Michael Cole, Lawler's co-commentator, understandably shaken, continued to call the match on his own while Lawler was placed on a stretcher and taken backstage. Twitter erupted, with everyone wondering what had happened to Lawler. The rest of the night was a surreal experience as Cole came back on intermittently to give the viewers health updates throughout the night. After receiving CPR backstage, Lawler was taken to a local Montreal medical facility where he was placed in an isolated ER and given oxygen through a tube. The final update, before RAW went off the air, was that Lawler was now breathing on his own and responsive to light. He is to undergo a CT scan on his head and chest. The doctors have listed him in "stable" condition.

The final hour of RAW's three-hour broadcast from Montreal went commentary-free as a tribute to Lawler.

Get well, Jerry.

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PAX: Gears of War: Judgment -- Free-for-All Madness

Normally, playing a match of Gears of War’s multiplayer involves taking a lot of cover. But in the recently announced free-for-all mode for Gears of War: Judgment, it just doesn’t work for me. When nine other players barrel down on me from every angle I find I become paranoid, constantly spinning around and looking for the next chaotic gunfight.

The average life in free-for-all Judgment match is short. With no teammates around to chase off a would-be executioner, you’re dead when you get downed (and in the case of the PAX build, you died immediately). Free-for-all matches thus end up making you feel much more vulnerable than you do in other Gears gametypes. No one is there to pick you up when you fall, and the other nine people are out for blood as much as you, so they aren’t going to watch your back or protect your flanks.

Maps have specifically designed for Judgment’s free-for-all mode as well. Unlike past Gears games, where they basically adapted various maps to whatever game mode you were playing, these maps have been tailored for 10 player insanity. If the match at PAX was any indication, they're also a bit smaller than you’d expect. The result is that you never go more than a few seconds without running into someone to shoot, and more often it’s the third player who rushes in to clean up two wounded fighters than scores big.

If you want to play team-based matches Judgment has those too, but free-for-all looks like the most approachable option for someone looking to learn Judgment’s mechanics. Anyone who’s hopped into an older Gears multiplayer match knows how hard it can be to get into. What often happens is that you queue up, you finally join, you run to cover and then you’re summarily blasted into pieces by a super-skilled player with a shotgun and get to be a spectator for a few minutes before repeating. In free-for-all, though, you can respawn a few seconds after being killed. Thus you can play a bit more reckless and experiment more, learning to use weapons you might normally try, or even going for melee kills just for the heck of it. Sure, you might not be the one who comes out on top in the end, but you’re not going to have to wait for long respawn timers or let down a team.

Even if you're a super seasoned Gears player you'll have a few new control changes to get used to in Judgment. While Epic hasn't messed with the now-iconic Active Reload, they have basically eliminated the need for you to use the D-pad. Switching between your two weapons has been moved to the Y button, and throwing grenades is now as simple as tapping the left bumper. As obvious as these changes sound to anyone who plays other competitive shooters on the Xbox, it's a bit odd to never reach awkwardly with your left thumb to switch beween your gear. It makes Gears combat feel a lot more flexible and makes reacting to different situations much easier, and fits perfectly with the amped-up pacing of free-for-all mode.

With many more modes yet to be announced, Gears of War: Judgment already looks like it has something for longtime fans and newcomers alike. Judgment releases March 19th, 2013.

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CM Punk: "I’m Not Out There Pandering Anymore"

A lot has transpired for CM Punk in the past year, as the pro wrestler has skyrocketed to the top of the WWE. As he goes into a big match against both John Cena and The Big Show this Sunday at SummerSlam, I had the chance to briefly speak with Punk at the recent WWE Be a STAR / SummerSlam party about what to expect at the Pay-Per-View and his recent shift into a more ambiguous persona, straddling the line between heel and face.

IGN TV: I was at SummerSlam a year ago and since then, it’s been a very eventful year for you. You’ve had that championship belt for most of it. What’s it been like for you to experience so much in the past 12 months?

CM Punk: You know what, it’s cool. And doing an event like this kind of settles it in for me. Because I walked this same red carpet, the same Be A STAR promotion, same pay-per-view, SummerSlam, last year. And I was WWE Champion, and I’m WWE Champion still. So it’s exciting for me. It’s been one hell of a ride.

IGN: On RAW, you haven’t been completely excited for this match. But going into Sunday, are you looking at it at this point as an opportunity to show up these two other guys?

CM Punk: Well, you know, the funny thing about me is that no matter how many times I show people, there’s still going to be the detractors. The world isn’t black and white. The world is shades of gray. A lot of people see John Cena as being some big boy scout, but the guy wouldn’t shake my hand. So am I going to beat him again on Sunday? Absolutely. Is that going to change anybody’s perception of him or me? I don’t necessarily think so, but it will be interesting come Monday to see what happens.

AJ Lee Talks SummerSlam, Becoming RAW’s GM and Scooby-Doo

IGN: You’ve had a bit of a shift lately as far as your persona and how some of the fans are taking to you. What’s it like to feel that ebb and flow of the crowd?

CM Punk: As a fan of what we do, I think it’s way more interesting than going out there and being, like, cheesy, smiley guy - like, “Oh, I’m smiling, so you have to cheer me.” Or tongue-out, mean-face guy that makes people want to boo. I like where I’m at right now because where I’m at is me, 100 percent. I like some decisions AJ makes, and sometimes I don’t like a decision AJ makes. And I’m going to be vocal about it. And if somebody doesn’t like that I yell and scream at AJ and they want to boo me, well, you know what? More power to them. If some people like the fact that I tell off Miz on live TV and they want to cheer me, then more power to them. But I’m not out there pandering anymore. I don’t want to try to influence anybody in one way or another. I want people to come to our shows, boo and cheer for who you want -- and in regards to me, if you don’t like me, awesome. If you do like me, hey, even better. Have a good time.

IGN: You have this distinctive approach when you have something serious to say, where you sit down cross-legged. Where did that come from?

CM Punk: It came from -- everybody’s standing in the ring and delivering interviews and they all look the same to me. When I get down to business, I like to be comfortable. Sitting down, to me, is being comfortable. And getting a load off, I think it just helps me focus more.

IGN: I was a big advocate of the “We Want Ice Cream” campaign. Will it ever succeed? You’ve got the t-shirt, at least!

CM Punk: I don’t know. We got a t-shirt, and you can actually get the t-shirt if you pre-order WWE ’13 at GameStop. Are there ever going to be ice cream bars? Maybe. Do a lot of people in the WWE Universe need to be eating ice cream? Probably not, myself included. I’m a fatty! So you’ll just have to cross your fingers, and wait and see.

Check out our other pre-SummerSlam interviews with RAW General Manager AJ Lee and Smackdown General Manager Booker T.

Eric Goldman is Executive Editor of IGN TV. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN.

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