Several Past WWE Employees Reach Out About JBL’s Bullying

In today’s edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer, who has been covering the JBL bullying story closely and passionately, pretty much goes off on JBL.

Meltzer said that in the past two days, several people who previously worked with JBL have contacted Meltzer to tell him their own stories about JBL’s bullying. Meltzer says that some of the people were only in WWE for the past couple of years, which seems to contradict the arguments from some people who have been defending JBL by saying that he has “changed” and the bullying only occurred 10-15 years ago. It seems that it is still very much alive and well and JBL is still a giant meathead “frat boy” piece of shit at 50 years old.

Dave Meltzer:

“The last two days, I have heard from one person after another… formerly in the company, announcers, stories… people who didn’t know Mauro Ranallo, but it happened to them. Or they’ve seen it happen and are very, very upset that it still goes on. These aren’t stories from 15 years ago like Justin Roberts, or 8 years ago or whatever it was. These are people who… they were there in the last couple of years. It’s more of the same. Just the typical culture there. It really needs to go away. It should have gone away before this.

“By the way, a lot of his broadcast partners said he was the absolute worst guy to work with. If he was really good at his job, it would be one thing. I used to really get a kick out of him when he first started. But I didn’t work with him. I didn’t know anyone who worked with him directly and I thought it was just his gimmick and everything like that. I didn’t realize just how much those people hated working with him and how he was all about himself and not about the broadcast. Obviously he buried his broadcast partner, which is so incredibly unprofessional. It almost boggles my mind that he did it, but he did it. We’ll see what happens with him. But yeah, what a freaking gutless guy is all I can say.”

“I don’t wish ill, but I do wish that this never happens again. And I wished it didn’t happen again years ago. I wish that I didn’t have item after item from the Blue Meanie to Joey Styles to Matt Hardy to Edge to Brian Lawler to Mark Henry. One person after another for years and years and years, coming forward with these stories. It’s like, some of these guys are just fine with it. Some people are furious at it but they knew that they were too low on the totem pole and couldn’t do anything about it and they just took it. Some, who are no longer with the company, were just, ‘you need to be going after this,’ and I am. And then there’s this one where a guy [Mauro], who they knew going in… It’s just very upsetting that they did it to that guy.

“I hope it just stops. And if it doesn’t stop, you know what, I do wish ill for the company at that point. And I very much do. So there you go. Now people are gonna get on me for that, but it’s like if you don’t learn from this… And there’s some people who need to apologize real bad. We’ll see what happens.”

On Friday, Meltzer criticized ESPN for not covering the story, which lead to Jonathan Coachman saying that he is giving up on covering WWE.

Nothing is likely to happen to JBL unless it picks up steam in the media, which is why Meltzer has been pushing for ESPN to cover the story. He says, “Vince McMahon would get rid of his best friend if it became an issue. If it’s not a big media story, [JBL]’s safe.”