JBL Denies Being The Reason Why WWE Fired Employee
JBL has made it clear that it wasn’t his fault that WWE fired another announcer.
As a pro wrestler who competed in the ring for over 20 years, John Bradshaw Layfield had a very successful career as a former WWE Champion and Tag Team Champion who ended up being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.
After retiring as a wrestler in 2009, Layfield would go on to have a lengthy run as an announcer from 2011 to 2017. Since he was a heel as a wrestler for most of his JBL run, he continued to use that heel persona as an announcer as well.
On an old WWE Network show called “Bring it to the Table,” it was mentioned that fellow WWE announcer Mauro Ranallo won the Wrestling Observer Newsletter’s award as the Best Announcer in pro wrestling. That led to a rant from Layfield and shortly after that, Ranallo was taken off television. There was speculation at the time that Layfield’s comments affected Ranallo and it was JBL’s fault that Ranallo was taken off TV.
During an episode of the Something to Wrestle podcast about his career as an announcer in WWE, JBL made it clear his comments didn’t lead to Ranallo’s departure.
“I’m a heel commentator. I did this rant on Bring It to the Table, which literally was a one hundred percent work about a poll that I had never seen before. Certainly wasn’t upset about it. Well, then, all of a sudden, all this stuff came out that I ran off Mauro Ranallo out of WWE, which WWE, to my benefit, did a big, long study about why Mauro left, internal, from what they told me. My name was never mentioned in it.”
As he continued, Layfield spoke about an interaction he had with Mauro.
“I saw Mauro later. We were in New Orleans. I went across the street, I saw him, I shook his hand just to let him know that there were certainly no hard feelings from me to him. He got me UFC tickets before. I think Conor McGregor in Vegas. Really nice of him.
I thought we were, I don’t know about friends, but decent acquaintances is what I thought. To my knowledge, I never did anything mean to Mauro and I didn’t think we had a bad relationship.”
JBL Teases Big Plans In 2025
In the second half of 2024, the 58-year-old Layfield made appearances at multiple pro wrestling companies like TNA, GCW, AAA, and others. On the same podcast, JBL spoke about his plans for 2025.
“I got some really cool plans that are starting to come to fruition starting fairly soon,” JBL stated, adding, “I think I have a really cool idea and some good people to do it with. This year, it’s going to be attempted. I can tell you that. 100% sure it’s going to be attempted, and whether it works or not, we’ll see. I think it will. I’m working my ass off right now to make it happen.
In 2025, I have a couple of really big things, not only tentatively planned, but scheduled and in the calendar planned that I’ve got down. I’m building stuff around it right now to try to get to those two different places.”
And so, yes, there’s I got something huge that I’ve been planning, as you know, for the better part of a year of wanting to do stuff, and that it’s going to all come to fruition. And either it’s going to work big, or I’m going to go down in flames. One of the two, I don’t care. I’m I’m going all in.”
On social media, JBL has posted photos after workouts about how he was in great shape due to stem cell treatments.