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The Rock posts an emotional tribute to Brian Christopher; Jerry Lawler says goodbye in the ring

By Sean Rueter

The wrestling world continues to process the death of Brian Lawler, aka Brian Christopher and Grandmaster Sexay. He died on Sun. July 29 after being found hanging in his Tennessee jail cell the night before in an apparent suicide which is being investigated by state authorities.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who came up in with Lawler in Jerry Jarrett’s USWA before the fellow legacy wrestlers went on to become WWE Attitude Era Superstar, posted an in-depth remembrance on his Instagram:

*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

A post shared by therock (@therock) on

Meanwhile, the show must go on, and Brian’s father, WWE Hall of Famer Jerry, went ahead with his planned match against James Ellsworth at USA Championship Wrestling show in Jackson, Tennessee just 24 hours after his son’s memorial service. The King wore a Grandmaster Sexay vest to the ring:

and shared a moment with frequent rival Ellsworth after winning the match with his signature piledriver:

UPDATE: Pro Wrestling Sheet found some video of the whole match, including The King promo-ing about his son and the family’s emotional weekend:

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