Former WWE champion John “Bradshaw” Layfield aka JBL was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame last year but the event could not take place because of the Covid-19 pandemic. The event will take place this year.
JBL earned fame as a tag team wrestler as Bradshaw along with Farooq in the attitude era. Their tag team was known as the Acolytes Protection Agency or the APA. In 2004, he got a gimmick change and was named John “Bradshaw” Layfield or JBL. He won the WWE championship very fast after the gimmick change and retained it until WrestleMania 21.
JBL Wants To Play Manager Role
JBL’s millionaire businessman persona was really praised by the fans and the critics. Dave Meltzer listed him as the best gimmick holder in 2004. He was often regarded as ‘The Wresting God.’
Recently, JBL hosted a Q&A on his Youtube channel where he answered some really interesting questions. Given below are some highlights;
He says he’s interested in a managing role:
Yeah, I’d love to [manage a talent], of course I would. It’d be a lot of fun. I’ve actually told them I would be interested.
He calls Michael Cole the best play-by-play man:
I loved it with Michael Cole. People always ask me [who’s] the greatest play-by-play guy, I really didn’t get to work with JR. So, no disrespect to JR. I guess you’d probably consider JR the greatest of all-time. He was in the greatest era I think, with the Attitude Era. Michael Cole to me was just head and shoulders better than anybody I ever worked with and remember, I didn’t work with JR so no disrespect. But I’d love to do something with Michael Cole.
On drawing heat overseas:
We used to improvise all the time. One thing that I really regret not improvising, I was in Portugal one time and man, when JBL was really rolling, it had a lot of heat, especially overseas and this is crazy, I got this from Iron Sheik.
I got up there one day and I told the crowd, ‘Now don’t boo me. I’m gonna sing the National Anthem,’ or, ‘I’m gonna sing God Bless America.’ I thought people would just sit there and watch. They got furious. They’re throwing stuff, then I decided as a rib on Tony Chimel, the ring announcer, that I would have him carry the American flag and I would sing God Bless America.
Well they wanna throw stuff at the American flag so they would just bomb Chimel with Cokes and beer and everything else. He used to hate it, so I’d sit up there and sing God Bless America over and over. It’s the old Iron Sheik gimmick and it got tons of heat. The whole crowd in Portugal that day, Lisbon, Portugal, drowned me out. They’re singing some national — it was awesome. They’re singing some national song.
As soon as they got done, they sing another one. It goes on for probably 12, 15 minutes, just singing. It was insane. Bob Holly comes to the ring, I’m wrestling Bob and I go over. As soon as I did, I thought, ‘Man that was a house show. I should’ve just gave the people what they wanted and changed the finish’ and I regret that because that place would’ve gone banana. Banana, as Pat Patterson would say.
The way JBL drew heat from the audience back in the day was really praise-worthy. Even though his gimmick was often compared to ‘The Million Dollar Man’ Ted DiBiase’s gimmick from the early 90s, he did an amazing job to play his character. After he dropped the WWE title to John Cena at WrestleMania 21 he never won the WWE championship but his legacy continued.
(H/T and transcribed by Post Wrestling)