WWE Hall of Famer JBL appeared on “Something to Wrestle” with Bruce Prichard to discuss various topics, including the experience of having former WWE Chairman Vince McMahon produce him live through his headset.
JBL said, “Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. He’s the best producer I’ve ever worked with by far, and it’s not even close. No one else is in his stratosphere; he’s that good. Now the thing about it is, Vince would have an idea of what creative is going to do [or] say in a couple of weeks. So Vince would feed me some stuff sometimes that didn’t make any sense for the current storyline, but made sense in hindsight because Vince knew what we were doing in a couple of weeks. So having insight into the guy that owned the company was terrific, because he’d tell you stuff that he wouldn’t tell a lot of people. Now it’s just you and him on the headset, and he has to help direct you toward where you want to go.”
On how succinct McMahon Was:
“Commentators and producers, the big mistake they make — and I’ve been produced by a lot of people — the biggest mistake they make is they’ll say something like, ‘Hey, you need to say that Finn Balor had a great run in NXT, and that he won a bunch of titles down there, and that he’s got a real great future.’ They’re telling you this while it’s live and you’re talking at the same time, and you’re trying to hear this. And Vince would say something so succinct it wouldn’t even be a full sentence. Like, ‘Finn Balor came from NXT, he’s going for the championship.’ Whatever it was, while you’re talking, you’re able to say it. I trusted Vince enough — I’d be one word behind him. He was that good with his producing.”
On never being yelled at:
“Now, the legendary stuff that he would do — what Jim Ross says about Jerry Lawler, same thing with me, same thing with Booker. Vince never yelled at us one time. Not one time, not once. Not one single time, and I worked for him for I don’t know, hundreds if not a thousand or more shows. Now, did he yell at Michael? Oh my God yes, absolutely. Did he yell at JR? Absolutely, yeah. But he treated me, Booker and King completely different.”
On why he thinks they got treated differently:
“One of the boys, I think, is more of it than anything else. And plus, it’s color. Vince told me one time not to say something. I said it; it just slipped. And as soon as we went to the first break, I said, ‘Vince, I’m sorry.’ He told me not to. And Vince goes, ‘Not a big deal.’ If that had been Cole? Oh my God, he’d have gone nuts. But no, he just treated — I think it’s something that we’re one of the boys, especially guys that worked for him.”
On Booker T apologizing for a joke Vince fed him:
“One time Booker said a joke that Vince made. Vince gave him like some dad joke to say and Booker said it, and somebody got in Vince’s ear. And the thing about it is, Vince isn’t crazy. He’s just doing a million things. So somebody said, ‘Hey, did you hear the joke that Booker said?’ And Vince gets on the headset and he says, ‘Hey Booker, you might want to apologize for that.’ Vince had forgot he fed it to him. So Booker apologizes for the joke that Vince had fed him. And I’m sitting there listening to the whole thing. It’s just amazing. And Booker doesn’t say a word. Booker goes to the back and Vince goes, ‘Hey, I appreciate you doing that, Booker.’ Booker goes, ‘No problem, boss.’ It was great. Vince was awesome. Vince was fun. I’ve told a lot of crazy stories about Vince on the headset. Those are all true, at least the ones that I’ve heard. But Vince was fantastic to work with.”
You can check out the complete podcast below.
