WWE Hall of Famer JBL appeared on the podcast Something To Wrestle With, where he discussed various topics, including comparing Triple H to UFC’s Dana White as the face of WWE.
JBL said, “You didn’t want Vince as the face. You saw what happened with — was it Bob Costas that he slapped the stuff out of his hand? So you never knew what was going to happen with Vince. He could be very volatile, and he did not suffer fools. If somebody said something he didn’t like, he would — that was just beyond him. He’d rather be working. Vince didn’t want to do that. I don’t know if he didn’t see the value, or if he just thought he’d rather be working. But you know, Vince came from such an old school that when you go in front of a reporter, you really regarded that they’re going to take some type of veiled shot at you. And you were waiting for it. I mean, literally every single time you’d go out there and go, ‘Okay, let’s see how they’re gonna try to get us this time.’ It was that bad, or at least that was our mindset. It’s different now. I watched some of these Triple H interviews. He’s fantastic. He is such a good interview. He does the rare thing that people do in interviews, he listens. And he actually answers questions, and his questions change depending upon the question asked, which shows that he’s a very smart guy, obviously. I think he’s brilliant at what he’s done. But there wasn’t that option before, and we do have that option now. You’ve got a guy that’s running everything there that can actually get in front of the microphone. And not that Vince couldn’t. Vince would have been a great interview, he just didn’t want to do it. But Triple H fortunately does, and I think it’s a huge help to WWE. We have a representative like Hunter out there in front of people. And he is so freaking smart. Those interview — when you’re interviewing a guy, you know this, Conrad. You’ve interviewed a lot of people. You can tell when a guy can hold his own, and you can tell when a guy is very smart. And you can tell when you’re just going to have to lead him and kind of take care of him. Interviewers can tell, especially the smarter ones, they can tell that this guy can stand on his own, and [he] is a very smart guy. That is a good representative of WWE.”
On WWE being more open than ever:
“I’m mixed on this. And I’d like to ask you as well, what do you think because I don’t know the answer. I remember when they did the Curtain Call, I held back. A lot of guys were very mad about, I held back saying, ‘I don’t know if it’s bad or not. We’ll see next time we go to the Garden, if the crowd is bigger.’ And it was. And Hunter famously told Vince, ‘Hey, that was the biggest pop of the night.’ And Vince said, ‘I’m not ready to get there yet. We may one day.’ You know, this all according to Hunter telling the story. And I don’t know the answer. I don’t know the answer, if saying, ‘I gave the creative to John Cena to be a heel, and he said I love it.’ I don’t know if — you know, I’m so much from the old school that it does bother me some. But I’ve also seen so much that I know enough to be open to it, that maybe this is what’s best. I don’t know what’s best.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
