Bruce Prichard on Undertaker saying JBL might be the most underrated wrestler of the past 30 years – PWMania

WWE Senior Vice President Bruce Prichard recently spoke on an episode of his podcast “Something To Wrestle With” about a number of topics, including WWE Hall of Famer JBL’s incident at a house show in Munich, Germany, in which he stepped out of line and made Nazi signs during a match with Eddie Guerrero, which led to him being fired by CNBC in 2004.

Prichard said, “I remember a lot of it. And yeah, let’s make no mistake about it. It’s not crazy. It’s — especially true for the German population and the Jewish population, that’s very, very sacred to them. And it’s not something they want to relive. And they take it very seriously, rightly so. That’s why for years people have portrayed German characters and Nazi characters on television in wrestling and entertainment, who weren’t even of German descent. And doing that, and portraying a villain in entertainment, was done. To do it in Germany, it had been done in Germany forever. Bad taste? Very guilty of bad taste. Not the right time to do it.”

“What’s interesting is the reports. The Dave Meltzers of the world had reports of people living in the arena and being very disgusted and all that stuff and they blamed it all on John Layfield. So his reports were so accurate that he didn’t get the other reports of other people who were at the same event, even the same game, doing the exact same thing. But because he didn’t like John Layfield, and John Layfield was probably the biggest star and had something to lose at CNBC, it was focused on John and everything was put out there. That’s the part of — you know, where I call bulls**t. But John did it. John was guilty of doing it. And it was in bad taste, and especially in his position outside of the company in his other job. Look, not a good look. And I think they knew what they were getting into, CNBC. And they had a bad guy on a TV show doing things. They are what they are, you know what I mean? They fired him, great. Whatever. Did it help him to be a bad guy for us? Yes. But I hate to say that because of what he did in Germany. Because I think what he did in Germany was in bad taste and probably shouldn’t have been done. Probably not, it shouldn’t have been done. But the general reports and everything, they didn’t report everything. And also right, wrong and otherwise, it was something that was still being done in Germany, in wrestling. Otto Vons group and other groups there, they were doing it regularly. So John was singled out because John wasn’t really — I would hazard a guess, and this is my speculation. He’s not that well-liked by the Dave Meltzers of the world. So let’s get him.”

About turning it into something good:

“We were already there. We were already there with John and America, and we leaned heavily on that. Because America at that time, you know, look at everything with the border. That got more and more intense during the George Bush administration. And you had Bush on the border; you look at John when he was wearing the windbreaker and all that stuff. That was George Bush on the border. And yes, we leaned heavily on that, because that was what was current in America at that time.”

On Undertaker’s statement that JBL might be the most underrated wrestler of the past 30 years:

“I couldn’t agree with him more, because it’s true. You took a man who had done a lot of different gimmicks, and he came in to emulate Stan Hansen, that’s fine. Again, if you’re trying to be something else. John Layfield is a very smart businessman. He’s very controversial in his beliefs and everything, but he’s a financial genius. And he studies; he’s very intelligent as a human being. And all we did was take the man, turn him up 100 times louder (in terms of) volume, and said, ‘Here we go and here’s JBL.’ He was turned up 100 times louder himself. Because that was the man. The man who wakes up at five in the morning, he reads all the trade papers and studies all his financial affairs. He watches all the world news. But he studies it and goes to all the different sources. That doesn’t make his opinion based on one. I’d say he reads about four to five newspapers now; he’s on the Internet, that’s for sure. But every morning, starting at five in the morning, he would start making his trades and he would know what he was going to do financially that day. And he would watch the stock market, but he would also prepare for things on CNBC and later on Fox Finance. He’s just a smart guy. That was JBL. We just cranked it up and gave him a head start. That’s the way it was — people don’t like successful people. Especially when successful people throw it in your face.”

You can listen to the full podcast in the video below.

(Thanks to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)