The JBL Bullying Allegations Thread

[classiq.]

Related.

 

WWE is coming under increasing pressure from fans to take action against WWE SmackDown Live Commentator John "Bradshaw" Layfield (JBL) who is at the center of bullying claims from his fellow and former colleagues.

 

The allegations came to light when it was suggested by Dave Metlzer of The Wrestling Observer that JBL had bullied Mauro Ranallo, forcing Ranallo to take time off from WWE as he is suffering from depression and bipolar. It has since transpired that Ranallo will not be returning to the company and has removed all references of WWE from his social media. The situation is now hitting mainstream media outlets and his is throwing serious doubt on WWE's anti-bullying "Be A Star" campaign.

 

The subject of JBL and bullying is not something new, many stories of questionable backstage behavior have surfaced over the years with some of these coming to light in recent weeks. Former WWE ring announcer Justin Roberts recently revealed in his new book that he was on the receiving end of "hazing" from JBL while on a WWE tour in the United Kingdom.

 

Today, two more stories of bullying have surfaced, a reddit user by the name of WigglingCaboose posted an article summarizing an interview with former WWE referee Billy Silverman who appeared on Get in the Ring back in 2001:

 

"According to Silverman, Robinson is chief target of the "boys" and their "harmless ribs", and Billy continues to go into detail about one rib in particular that disturbed him. While preparing in the arena hours before a show, some of the boys snuck up on Robinson, held him down, stripped him of all his clothing, bound him with tape and gagged his mouth. Robinson was then attached to a cart and wheeled into the middle of the arena and paraded around in front of the ring crew while everyone laughed heartily.

 

Silverman brings up Bradshaw next, and explains how Bradshaw threatened him with violence if he didn't oblige to carrying large amounts of Bradshaw's liquor across the Canadian border. Robinson suffered back injury from carrying all of Bradhsaw's bottles and the boys forced him to serve them the alcohol as well when the plane landed. Robinson calls Bradshaw a self-appointed "chief of police" in the WWF, while I call Bradshaw a bully, extremely overrated, and a pretty *censored*ed up human being. Robinson took this matter to a member of management who's exact response was "Just do what Bradshaw tells you too."

 

In addition, a story from WWE Hall of Famer Edge's book "Adam Copeland on Edge" revealed that JBL would walk into the showers of new wrestlers, soap them up as a way of "weeding out" the new guys. If they complained about a guy touching them in the showers against their will they were labeled "prima donnas" actions which could be viewed as sexual harassment.

 

In 2004, IGN Sports interviewed Edge about his claims and asked:

 

IGN Sports: What does Bradshaw think about the part where he's soaping your ass in the shower?

 

Edge: Like I said in the book, no knuckles disappeared. It was simply a gentle caress. [laughs] I actually haven't seen him or talked to him since the book has been out. He doesn't even know it's in there until he reads it, so it should be pretty interesting to see his reaction. I think he'll get a kick out of it. He loves doing stuff like that. It's like his way of weeding out the prima donnas to see who is going to be a cool kid and who is going to have an attitude. I just laughed along with it and joked around with him. It was one of those things where I knew I was starting to belong. If they were willing to have fun with me like that, then I knew they must like me, so I just kept doing what I was doing.

http://www.wrestlingnewssource.com/news/46027/A-Concerning-Story-In-Edges-Autobiography-Provides-Damning-Evidence/

[Creepia]

That's not how you determine if someone is cool. That's how you determine if guys don't want to be touched by soapy dudes in the shower, that's how you determine that JBL seems kinda like a pervert.

 

These reports are genuinely kinda pissing me off. Why he's allowed to take such a position in the company still is beyond me. I mean I know why he's still there, but damn.

 

Get *censored*ing rid of him.

[EJ!]

I'ma miss Mauro. He made me cringe sometimes with his references but I grew to love em, and beyond that, dude is just a helluva play by play guy.

[Generations]

That shower story is disturbing as *Censored*...especially being published in a book and sold.

 

In no way is that anything short of "JBL likes touching soapy men".

[Willows Way]

I really dont even care i hope to god JBL gets Bill Demotted.

[Generations]

I really dont even care i hope to god JBL gets Bill Demotted.

 

Same, tbh.

 

Especially since Demott was hazing rookies (doesn't make it acceptable), but...it seems even worse when a guy like JBL is harassing people that he shouldn't even have any authority over...

[Creepia]

Bill DeMott didn't sexually assault colleagues in the show. WWE is the only company in the world that JBL could get away with that. Imagine being young and signed by WWE from a foreign country. Imagine moving your life to America to start your dream job only to be rubbed down in the shower by some giant dude just to see "whose a boy and whose a wimp". *Censored* that guy. He should be fired and he deserves to be publicly slated.

[King RyderFan]

Since it's being discussed right now here's the quote directly from Edge's book:

 

That wasn't the first experience I had with the world of Bradshaw. Let me explain. The site was once again Copps Coliseum, and I was showering after having worked Glenn Kulka in the opening match. I had yet to make my TV debut, but by now enough of the guys knew me, so I was fairly comfortable. That is, until the light shining into my shower was suddenly blocked out. I looked over to see Bradshaw standing there in his full cowboy wrestling garb. In any other situation, a six-seven, three-hundred-pound man in chaps and a cowboy hat might be strange, but in this industry it's really not. So I went back to soaping myself until I felt a large, calloused hand placed on my tush. I knew both of my hands were in front of me, and I had a stinking suspicion I knew what crazy Texan was lathering my ass (let me stress that there was no insertion and no disappearing knuckles, if ya know what I mean). I turned to see Bradshaw's evil, ten-gallon-hat-topped grin looked at Glenn (who was showering and avoiding eye contact nearby), and said, "He's actually soaping my ass!" At that point everyone listening outside the shower burst out laughing and ol' Adam was the butt end of another rib. Ahh, to be the new kid.

 

In s strange way, because of things like thus, I knew that Bradshaw liked me, and I was becoming one of the boys. It's his self-appointed job to test the guys coming in. Weed out the prima donnas. After working a dark match in Phoenix, Arizona, and not coplaining about having my head clotheslined into the fourth row, I knew I passed the Bradshaw Exam.

Source: Adam Copeland on Edge, pages 115 & 116.

[Lil' Kazu]

I'ma miss Mauro. He made me cringe sometimes with his references but I grew to love em, and beyond that, dude is just a helluva play by play guy.

 

Best one since JR. Hearing his calls made it so clear that he really loved what he was doing, and it was awesome to see him go crazy on the announcers table even when he wasn't calling the match.

[Beardd]

Sounds like you guys are more mad about it than Edge was.

[Creepia]

I'm just mad he is allowed to get away with it.

[Beardd]

Probably because Edge isn't calling it sexual assault. Not saying this to argue but that excerpt appears to be going for comedy. Not a cry for help. It's being taken out ot context to support this bullying thing. He also mentions that the boys knew him by that point.

 

However, yeah, if JBL is doing that to all the new talent and not just people he considers friends, I certainly see the problem.

[EJ!]

What if JBL was out here caressing soapy asses like "you knew what this was when you signed that contract pal. Now jiggle it a little"

[Beardd]

Lol I said that's different. If it's to people he doesn't know, sure, that's disturbing.

 

...but come on. Just picturing him trying to do that to Farooq gives me hilarious thoughts. I can see why buddies would think it was rib and not somebody being sexually assaulted.

[Creepia]

Probably because Edge isn't calling it sexual assault. Not saying this to argue but that excerpt appears to be going for comedy. Not a cry for help. It's being taken out ot context to support this bullying thing. He also mentions that the boys knew him by that point.

 

However, yeah, if JBL is doing that to all the new talent and not just people he considers friends, I certainly see the problem.

I know it was taken out of context. I wasn't really reacting to the Edge thing. I was just finishing reading multiple articles.

[EJ!]

Oh I wasn't arguing with you, that was just a gross ass thought I had

[abhunter]

Everyone calling JBL a bad wrestler are idiots. And maybe there is something we don't know? Because I've heard of other wrestlers bitching about Styles, Specifically Taz, and Taz had mentioned issues with Justin Roberts as well.

 

JBL is just the guy that handles the shit so the rest of the boys don't have to.

[EJ!]

Everyone calling JBL a bad wrestler are idiots. And maybe there is something we don't know? Because I've heard of other wrestlers bitching about Styles, Specifically Taz, and Taz had mentioned issues with Justin Roberts as well.

 

JBL is just the guy that handles the shit so the rest of the boys don't have to.

How did you come to that conclusion? JBL is the guy that soaps booties and steals passports so the others don't have to?

[abhunter]

No, he is a long time locker room big guy, and like all locker rooms like that; guys will bitch to one dude about another, and there will be one dude, in this case JBL, who will attempt to weed them out. It's nothing new for locker rooms of all kinds, especially wrestling locker rooms

[Lil' Kazu]

Oh I wasn't arguing with you, that was just a gross ass thought I had

 

But it's all soaped up...

[EJ!]

Sorry if I find it hard to believe Roberts was just that insufferable that JBL had to take one for the team and harrass him on multiple occasions. Roberts is an adult, if he was that bad, I would think one big bad rib would be enough to straighten him out before he got fired.

 

Edge's word sounds more believable than that.

[Lil' Kazu]

Other people have confirmed that JBL bullied Justin Roberts constantly. It's amazing to me that there are still people trying to defend JBL...

[Papa Paul]

 

 

 

 

What it all boils down to, is that people are upset that Mauro Ranallo is off TV and leaving WWE and because JBL delivered the trigger and because Ranallo's fans are a mixture of those who think he's too good for WWE and the best thing since sliced bread and those Twitter/Tumblr-types who like to unify as some kind of personal army/defense league in their admiration for the guy and in their outrage, they want to get revenge by seeing the same thing happen to JBL. So now we have this quasi-massive movement against JBL that we would not have seen if the main "victim" was someone who was not rated or massively backed online like Tom Phillips or Byron Saxton. It's a personal issue. In large, people aren't objective, but more vindictive it's more about who is involved in this incident than this incident on its own, because when you look at the incident on its own, nothing springs out about blatant bullying based on what we know.

Hmm, this is hard to disagree with.

[PaperThinWalls]

Renamed the topic. All the JBL bullying/harassment claims can go here.

[Beardd]

Because I hate this "try to get everybody fired" phase that is going on through social media. It's not going to stop with JBL. I'm also not going to start hating him for it.

 

People try it by going through the tweets of every new talent (Perkins, Aliyah etc). Hell, people (not here) were recently trying to get Xavier and Paige fired for having sex and filming it. JBL bullied Roberts years ago. So we...get him fired? Get him arrested? Find out who the other boys were? I'm just trying to understand what the end game is here.