Dave Meltzer provided more details on what was going on with Brian Christopher Lawler before his passing. During a breaking news audio update, he said that Brian was in jail for the last 3 weeks after he was charged with a DUI and evading police. His father Jerry Lawler had done everything possible to help him over the years but this time opted to let him stay in jail so he could learn a lesson. He hoped that this recent jail stay would be a wake-up call for him. As previously noted, his issues date back many years and the story was that he was fired by WWE in 2001 after being caught with meth and steroids at the Canadian border.
“Brian hung himself in prison, I guess last night or today and was pronounced brain dead,” Meltzer said. He said that he heard early this morning via text messages from Lawler’s friends that he was pronounced brain dead and was not expected to make it. Meltzer noted that Brian would get into trouble in the 90’s and oftentimes it was drug-related. Sadly, he never cleaned himself up despite attempts by his father to help him.
“He was on $40,000 bond and Jerry has been doing stuff to get him out of things and just felt that he needed to learn and he wasn’t gonna get him out this time.” He continued, “Jerry is good with grief. He’s a unique person but still, could you imagine? You have a kid. Even if the kid goes wrong, you’re gonna always love the kid. He did what he thought was the right thing. He’s 46 years old [and] he should have grown up a long time ago and you can’t keep bailing him out of his trouble. So sad. Brian couldn’t handle it in prison, I guess. Whatever it was, he hung himself today. It’s like a Von Erich story. Very much like one. [He was] a second generation wrestling trying to live up to the name of the father.” Meltzer noted that Brian recently talked about wanting to be just like his father.
Jerry tried to help him through the years. Meltzer said, “Jerry had told him many times ‘if you can clean yourself up for a year, I’ll get you a job, whether it’s a trainer at the Performance Center or something but you’ve got to clean yourself up for a year. There would be periods where he would get clean to a degree but it never lasted a year. One of his friends told me it was a couple of months and another friend told me that his version of clean was him on methadone and things like that. Which is not my version or probably your version of clean but I guess it’s the wrestler version of clean.” It’s similar to what people said about Eddie Guerrero. Guerrero was “clean” from alcohol but was still taking a lot of pain pills up until his death. Brian had periods when he wasn’t messed up and he was a cool guy when he was “clean” but when he was messed up he could come off as obnoxious.
Meltzer added, “There was a suicide attempt before that not too many people know of. I didn’t even know of about today.” He said that the suicide attempt was 3 or 4 years ago.
Brian Christopher Lawler was just 46 years old.
