Jerry Lawler has revealed that neither he nor Michael Cole knew the finish of their WrestleMania 27 match was going to be reversed.
Speaking on Notsam Wrestling Live, Lawler looked back at his battle against Cole at WrestleMania 27 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, which served as the seventh match on the card. Stone Cold Steve Austin served as the guest referee for the bout.
Lawler scored a submission victory over Cole, and in the moment he had every reason to believe the match was over and that he had won. What he did not know was that backstage, the decision had already been made to pull the rug out from under him.
“He and I, Michael Cole, had no idea what the finish was gonna be to our WrestleMania 27 match, and we did the thing and I got my hand raised and I said, well, that’s nice, way it should be. I just kept thinking, I mean, this was good, we did the thing. Hand raised. Drank beer, well, I didn’t drink it but I pretended to, and then, nobody told me that they were going to reverse the decision. A lot of that stuff happens,” Lawler said with a laugh.
The reversal came via the anonymous Raw General Manager, one of the more polarizing ongoing angles of that era. The GM determined that Austin’s actions during the match warranted a disqualification ruling in Cole’s favor, negating Lawler’s victory. Austin responded to the decision by stunning Cole and the anonymous GM’s laptop-reading mouthpiece Jack Swagger, which allowed Lawler to at least enjoy the last laugh visually even if he did not walk away with the official win.
The commentary rivalry between Lawler and Cole had been building throughout late 2010 and into early 2011, making WrestleMania 27 the natural blowoff for the feud. The reversal at the time drew criticism from fans who felt Lawler had earned a clean victory after months of Cole’s heel commentary antics, and the decision to rob him of the win via the anonymous GM stipulation.
Lawler, who turned 76 in November, suffered his third stroke in the fall of 2025 but has said he is not ruling out a return to the ring.
H/T to Fightful for the transcription
