John Bradshaw Layfield has weighed in on Tama Tonga being fined by WWE, saying the company was fully justified—and even suggesting termination would have been warranted.
Speaking on the Something to Wrestle podcast with Conrad Thompson, JBL reacted strongly to reports that Tama Tonga was fined a “significant” amount for posting backstage rehearsal footage from a recent WWE SmackDown.
“I completely agree with WWE for the fine, for whatever the amount was, and if they’d have fired him, I’d have agreed with it,” JBL said.
JBL emphasized that leaking backstage content was historically treated as a serious breach of trust during his time in WWE:
“This was always a fireable offense. You release something like that, you release secrets of your company,” he said.
He also drew a clear line between WWE-controlled content and talent independently sharing footage:
“The company chooses to release that in a way that is canned in their WWE Unreal, which is the prerogative that they have to be able to look at that, edit that, figure out what they want to put out, what they don’t,” JBL said. “You can’t have talent just putting out stuff like, ‘Here’s a rehearsal, here’s what’s going on backstage,’ and just letting stuff out like that.”
At the same time, JBL acknowledged that generational differences may play a role in how such actions are understood:
“A fireable offense in my generation, yeah, you should fire a guy, because we knew better. 100% knew better,” he said. “I don’t know that the talent today knows better. And that’s a matter of education, not a matter of intelligence. You don’t know unless somebody tells you.”
Despite his strong stance, JBL ultimately believes the fine should be the end of the matter:
“I think it’s appropriate to give a slap on the wrist, a pretty big fine. I don’t think it should carry forward anywhere in his career or be held against him in any way,” he said. “That’s one thing Vince McMahon was very good about. When Vince would fine somebody or punish somebody, that was it, and it was over, and Vince forgot about it after that. I think that’s what should happen with this young man.”
