Elvis Presley agreed to wrestle WWE legend Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler just weeks before his death

Elvis Presley and Jerry Lawler very nearly had a wrestling match to crown the one true King.

The rock ‘n’ roll icon was very close to stepping into the ring against the WWE legend, who has always been a huge name in Memphis and carried the royal nickname for much of his career.

John ‘Bradshaw’ Layfield brought up the story his week, which Lawler has discussed in the past on both his Dinner With The King podcast and his 2002 autobiography It’s Good To Be King… Sometimes.

In the latter, he detailed his conversation with his own manager Mickey Poole, whose brother just so happened to be the president of the Elvis International Fan Club at the time.

One thing led to another, and after a few missed calls, Jerry ended up on the phone with Elvis’ dad Vernon Presley.

He wrote: ‘I was in double shock. For one, here was Vernon Presley on the phone. And that also meant Mickey’s brother Eddie was really the president of the Elvis Presley fan club.

‘Vernon had talked with Elvis about the idea. He said Elvis would like to do it. But he said Elvis was not really in very good shape.

‘He’s started to work out because he’s got a tour coming up. When he comes off the tour, Vernon said he’d call me back and we’d figure out the details.

‘He said it would be a lot of fun. I said cool.’

Unfortunately, that tour never took place, as Elvis died weeks later in August 1977.

‘It would have been great to have set up a program with Elvis,’ Lawler added, pointing to the legendary musician’s passion for karate.

Just a few years ago, the Hall of Fame grappler once again recalled the story and noted he’d have happily taken the loss to let Elvis stand tall at the proposed clash at the Mid-South Coliseum.

‘We would’ve done anything that would have made him happy,’ he laughed.

Celebrity crossovers in the world of wrestling are nothing new.

As recently as WrestleMania 38 earlier this year, WWE brought in Bad Bunny for a high profile match teaming with Damian Priest against The Miz and John Morrison.

Of course, Elvis was on a whole other level – and this really would have gone down in history as one of the greatest moments of all time.

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