WWE Hall of Famer JBL appeared on Something To Wrestle With, where he talked about a number of topics including why Vince Russo hates him.
JBL said, “I told you last week. He hated — you know, he said ‘the Texas thing.’ He hated that thing. He tried to get me to talk without a Southern accent. Ed Ferrara sat down with me and tried to teach, because he thought anybody who talked with a Southern accent sounded stupid. And so he didn’t want to let me do any promos. We used to go out there on live TV, and he’d give us promos. Ron would do one line, and then hand me the microphone. Because Russo didn’t want me to talk, because he hated Southern accents. I guess he hated JR and Stone Cold, too. I had no idea. But there was this bias against the South, because he’s the New Yorker. I mean, you can read it in his statement.”
On Russo saying he created Brawl for All to see him get beat up:
“As far as that being true, that’s 100% bulls**t. 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. Now, if it was true, Conrad — first of all, let’s address the statement. Okay, there’s so much that’s in this that’s bro. There’s so much that’s in this, bro, that we gotta talk about, bro. So, the statement itself, 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 all said all kinds of crazy stuff back then. We all loved to talk smack. We love to talk s**t in the dress room, Shamrock’s 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, but we knew Bart was a tough guy. So none of that, as far as being real? No, good lord no. I think what happened Conrad, is this. You know, Russo left and went to WCW. And after he left, WWE went through the roof, WCW goes 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. And so what I might what 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 and Judy Bagwell on a Pole Match, and Dave Arquette to be champion. He gave us of the worst ideas in the history of wrestling, he’s done it consistently. And eventually, he just said, ‘Oh, I’m gonna blame it all on Bradshaw. I did that just to get Bradshaw.’ And 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. You know, Russo — he makes Bobby Jaggers look truthful. The guy can’t tell the truth. So no, that to me, is 100% preposterous. I will tell you this though. If Russo did this for me? I had never had a home. And I told you this before; I had never owned a home. I’d worked a lot of places, didn’t have much money. That Brawl for all, I was in three fights that the judges say I won. Whether I did or not, the judges said it. You know, they’re my friends, three tough guys. Made to the finals, so I made $5,000 a fight. I made $25,000, my losing share of the final match with Bart. So that $40,000 I took down to the bank, and my house was $84,600. So I bought a house, paid on, and put almost half of it down because the Brawl for All. It was one of the best things ever happened to me. I had that house for 20 years. You know, when Russo was going bankrupt with these different companies, when I was winning the WWE Championship and going to the Hall of Fame, I still had that house. So he got me.”
On why Vince Russo has heat him with:
“For years, Russo has been trying to make a living off saying stuff about me. And I’ve never said anything about him. I’ve never talked about the guy. I don’t bring him up, I don’t bash him in public. He goes on the Dark Side of the Ring and makes all this up. It was so bad. Godfather called me and said, ‘Hey man, you won’t believe this. What is Russo got against you?’ You know, Godfather never heard any of that. And he called me and told me the whole thing that Russo had said. He tried to make this whole spill and make me out to be the bad guy to cover-up for his failure. And I don’t know, I guess it’s his way of dealing with it.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
