On the latest episode of the Something To Wrestling With podcast featuring JBL and Conrad Thompson, several notable topics were discussed, including JBL addressing Vince Russo’s claims about the creation of the controversial Brawl for All tournament and additional insights into JBL’s experiences during the event.
Gerald Brisco, President of the Hall of Fame Board, announced that WWE Hall of Famer Ron Simmons will be the recipient of the 2025 Frank Gotch Award, honoring his contributions to professional wrestling. The announcement highlighted the importance of preserving the history and legacy of wrestling through institutions like the George Tragos/Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame.
Vince Russo has long claimed that he created the Brawl for All tournament to disprove JBL’s alleged backstage bragging about being able to defeat anyone in a real fight. JBL strongly denied this on the podcast, calling Russo’s claims “100% bullsh*t” and pointing out the absurdity of the idea given the presence of legitimate tough competitors like Ken Shamrock and others in the locker room.
“That’s 100% bullsh*t,” JBL said. “He said that for years. Nobody at that time thought that was true. Talk to Bruce, talk to Bob Holly, talk to Butterbean. No one at that time thought that was true. We had two UFC champions in our dressing room. If I’m saying I can whoop the whole world, I don’t doubt I said it. We said all kinds of crazy stuff back then. We loved to talk smack. We loved to talk sh*t in the dressing room. Shamrock was sitting right there. There’s no way I’m meaning something like that. You got Undertaker, you got Godfather, you got the Harris boys, you got Blackman, you got Bob Holly. We didn’t know Bart could knock out the entire world. We knew Bart was a tough guy, so none of that as far as being real, no. Good Lord, no.”
“I think what happened is that Russo left and went to WCW. After he left WWE, WWE went through the roof, WCW went bankrupt, and he spent the next 25 years of his life in, there’s nothing else you could say, but abysmal failure. Nothing he’s touched is still around. Everything he’s touched has gone either bankrupt or gone under. He’s not welcome back at any place he has been. My thought is that he came up with this idea of the Brawl for All like he came up with Viagra on a pole match, Judy Bagwell on a pole match, and Dave Arquette to be champion. He came up with some of the worst ideas in the history of wrestling. He’s done it consistently. Eventually he just said, ‘Oh, I’m gonna blame it all on Bradshaw. Oh, I did that just to get Bradshaw’, so that’s what I think. Nobody at the time thought that was the case, and I don’t think anybody now really thinks that’s the case. Russo, he makes Bobby Jaggers look truthful. The guy can’t tell the truth. That to me is 100% preposterous.”
JBL on his fight with Henry Godwin in the Brawl for All:
“Before we went out, me and Henry both said, ‘Hey, listen, no takedowns. Let’s just fight. Hit each other in the head a bunch of times and try to get the crowd in.” Now, Henry double-crossed me, like the second round or something, he took me down. You bastard, which I thought was funny. We’re friends. We are to this day. I loved it. I tell you something else about you can’t get it passed with the state commissions. Henry had a broken neck. Henry Godwin had a broken neck. The Road Warriors dropped him on his freaking bean and broke his neck. He shouldn’t have been in that fight. That was incredibly dangerous, and that big, tough bastard never said a word when got in the fight. We hugged right before the fight. We hugged right after the fight.”
On the commission being a joke in wrestling:
“The pirate had one eye. Carl had one eye. You can’t put a guy with one out there. Carl is a tough dude. PCO, who’s in TNA, is a wonderful guy. Tough, tough guy. I mean, Carl’s a tough dude, man. We always called him the pirate because that was his gimmick. He wore the patch because he had a fake eye. You can’t get past a boxing commission with one eye. How do you put somebody out there like that? If this is Russo’s idea, I mean, what the f**k are you doing?”
JBL on the Brawl for All may have been created by an idea he pitched to Vince McMahon for a Hardcore Division:
“I don’t know how this ever played out. Right before this happened, they wanted us to pitch some ideas. We were losing badly to WCW, and Vince was wanting to change some stuff. He asked for feedback from the guys. My feedback was, let’s create basically the Hardcore division with all these tough guys. So I always wondered if this was part of the impetus for it. You know, Russo claimed something completely different, which, you know, I told you, I don’t think there’s any truth to that, just like there’s nothing truth to anything else Russo says, but it was a Hardcore division which they ended up creating afterwards, but all these guys submitted ideas. So I had no idea. At the time, I thought maybe that’s where they got the idea to make it into a shoot.”
You cna check out the podcast below:
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
