WWE Hall of Famer JBL appeared on the podcast “Something to Wrestle With,” where he discussed various topics, including Vader’s communication issues with Shawn Michaels at SummerSlam 1996.
JBL said, “Leon was deaf. Leon couldn’t hear nothing. I rode with him. You know, Leon told me when he was married, he had turned his TV up so much that his wife had literally told him how much he could turn it up on his number level. Because Leon would have it so high because he was deaf, Leon couldn’t hear nothing. There were two problems. One, Leon is used to calling the match. I was the same, and I’m not used to people calling spots to me because I was always calling the match. The heels were like that, especially back then. But when you’re working with a great babyface, a lot of times they would call their own stuff. A lot of times when you’re calling a match, it’s kind of a consortium of the heel maybe leading it, but the babyface is calling a lot of stuff too. It wasn’t always 100%, but Leon used to call the matches so he wasn’t used to listening to other people. But plus he was half-deaf. That was the biggest issue.”
On how Vader hated to work with Hulk Hogan in WCW:
“It wasn’t frustration [Vader working with Hogan]; it was way past that. He hated it, I absolutely hated it. When he came to WWE, he said, ‘I’ll never let anybody Hulk up on me again.’ He said that a few times; he hated it, absolutely. Now, Hogan — by the way—people have bashed Hogan — Hogan was a tough guy, too. The training with Hiro Matsuda, what Hogan did — you know, people have given Hogan a bad rap on that. But at that point in Hogan’s career he was older, and I don’t think he wanted to go out there with the freaking monster and have the monster try to kill him. So, I know Leon talked about it a lot. Leon hated, absolutely hated it. He did not like working with Hogan. I don’t think he thought Hogan took advantage of him; he simply thought he was put in a bad spot. Here you have the guy who helped create WrestleMania, who’s creating the biggest storyline, maybe of all time with the NWO, or about to do. And Leon was put in a terrible spot, and he absolutely hated it. In fact, it bothered him enough, he brought it up many times over the next few years.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
