The JBL Bullying Thread

briany

JBL making WWE's anti-bullying campaign look a total joke at the moment. Here's a tweet of his from today.

Itssoeasy

briany wrote: »

JBL making WWE's anti-bullying campaign look a total joke at the moment. Here's a tweet of his from today.

[URL=]"

https://twitter.com/JCLayfield/status/850314743306833921"]https://twitter.com/JCLayfield/status/850314743306833921[/URL]

This the Justin Roberts tweet ?

Edit: sorry your link wasn't working but I see it is now.

gerrybbadd

JBL has to go and soon. Theres a lot coming out about him and bullying. He should be seen in the same light as Bill DeMott if not worse

gerrybbadd

Mauro has removed all references to working for WWE from his Twitter. He's removed all his posts about Wrestlemania, and he's unlocked a pile of wrestlers too.

JBL to thank for that too.

Vile piece of sh1t

Lithium93_

gerrybbadd wrote: »

Mauro has removed all references to working for WWE from his Twitter. He's removed all his posts about Wrestlemania, and he's unlocked a pile of wrestlers too.

JBL to thank for that too.

Vile piece of sh1t

I was just about to post the above, and going on all WWE references being removed from his Twitter, I think he's gone as well. Which is a shame as I really enjoyed his commentary on Smackdown..

briany

Picking on fellow wrestlers is one thing, but having a go at a relatively defenseless guy like Ranallo is quite another. There's not even a defense like he was an as*hole. By all accounts, Ranallo's a decent chap.

sky88

I've been saying since he joined wwe that I'm not a fan of mauro at all but this situation is horrible.

kksaints

Thats a real shame about Mauro. Thought he was a decent commentator.

briany

kksaints wrote: »

Thats a real shame about Mauro. Thought he was a decent commentator.

First guy in a long time who made me say, "Whoa, who's that?". Instantly distinctive voice and style. Proper commentator with a proper pedigree. Really, it's only Gorilla, Heenan, Ventura, JR, King, Heyman, Tazz and Mauro who've done anything for me as full-time WWE commentators. The rest have been interchangeable jabronis.

sky88

Honestly I'd put mauro only slightly of the likes of todd Grisham and todd matthews as a commentator who were the terrible. Never liked his voices it seems forced a lot of the times.

Agent Coulson

JBL going with Steph's line "I play a heel" on TV.

PTH2009

So the heavy drinking/tough man bradsaw character is actually the real John Layfield ???

Maybe JBL is just angry at himself cause he has no kids AFAIK and takes it out on weak people ???

ERG89

sky88 wrote:

Honestly I'd put mauro only slightly of the likes of todd Grisham and todd matthews as a commentator who were the terrible. Never liked his voices it seems forced a lot of the times.

Loved him with Pride, Strikeforce & a LOT better doing NJPW on AXS than a bored JR ever was.
Grisham actually did better with the one UFC show than he ever did with WWE. Matthews? only Pope is a worse announcer, a poor man's Michael Cole.
Preferred Mauro to Phillips who is pure robotic & generic for me.
He was totally undermined when Phillips was shoved in to do all lead announcer responsibilities bar calling a match.
I hope his health is ok as everyone who knows him knows that he deals with it. As terrible as it is to say the WWE would have probably only joked about it like they do with everything else they can't exploit or gain good publicity out of.

briany

PTH2009 wrote: »

So the heavy drinking/tough man bradsaw character is actually the real John Layfield ???

Maybe JBL is just angry at himself cause he has no kids AFAIK and takes it out on weak people ???

Plenty of stories about JBL being one of those guys, along with Bob Holly, who'd routinely 'test' new talents in the company, under the banner of earning respect. My guess would be that he's still partly in that mindset and partly in the shurimonlyhavindacraictwitcha mindset, but with no conception of, or just a dismissive disregard for, boundaries.

That said, I have not seen any direct evidence linking JBL to Mauro's absence. It's all speculation, but speculation based on mounting rumours about JBL continuing to be a bully well into his broadcasting career. He's a tenured guy, but WWE may well start feeling the pressure.

sky88

JBL always struck like the guy who thinks everything he does is funny and doesn realise or care if someone else thinks it's bullying.

PTH2009

briany wrote: »

Plenty of stories about JBL being one of those guys, along with Bob Holly, who'd routinely 'test' new talents in the company, under the banner of earning respect. My guess would be that he's still partly in that mindset and partly in the shurimonlyhavindacraictwitcha mindset, but with no conception of, or just a dismissive disregard for, boundaries.

That said, I have not seen any direct evidence linking JBL to Mauro's absence. It's all speculation, but speculation based on mounting rumours about JBL continuing to be a bully well into his broadcasting career. He's a tenured guy, but WWE may well start feeling the pressure.

Didn't they do all the wrestlers court stuff

Still laugh over the plane incident that lost a few there jobs and could easily have caused the plane to crash

J. Marston

Doesn't Mauro have some MMA pals? If JBL has been picking on Mauro, they might sort him out!

briany

J. Marston wrote: »

Doesn't Mauro have some MMA pals? If JBL has been picking on Mauro, they might sort him out!

Saw some talk of Mauro being friends with Bas Rutten.

martyos121

briany wrote: »

Saw some talk of Mauro being friends with Bas Rutten.

They've been mates for a long time, they even do a podcast together though I'm not sure if it's still going. Worth a look for any fellow MMA fans in here.

I'd pay good money to see JBL on the end of one of Rutten's trademark liver shots. Very good money.

Monokne

Mauro lived with Frank Shamrock for a period of time and he's very close with Bas.

Lord TSC

Splitting this into its own topic.

Reddit have a good summary of events so far.

On the March 13th episode of "Bring it to the Table", JBL made comments about Mauro Renallo receiving the Wrestling Observer Announcer of the Year Award and a tweet Mauro made about it. In response, Mauro tweeted a response and retweeted numerous fan tweets about the comments JBL made. At the same time, Mauro was also tweeting about the snowstorm that had hit the northeast.

https://twitter.com/mauroranallo/status/841498699117158400

The next night on Smackdown, Tom Phillips and JBL were at the desk and informed the audience that Mauro was going to miss the show due to the storm. Mauro also stated the same from his twitter the night before the show

After that, Mauro went radio silent for weeks. After not appearing on Smackdown or using his twitter which he frequently used, attention became drawn to it. This silence caused a swirl of rumors including Mauro Renallo having mental health problems and that the cause for absence was due to the comments JBL made on the show. The only activity on the account was retweets of Mental Health Awareness type of tweets among other various tweets related to Boxing.

3/17/17-3/18/17 - Bas Rutten, longtime friend of Mauro, alludes that this absence involved JBL somehow.

https://twitter.com/BasRuttenMMA/status/843227026253385729

3/24/17 - Ranallo had tweeted, “I’m deeply touched by your tweets of support. My doctor wants me to stay off social media for now but I wanted to thank you.†This has since been deleted.

4/1/17 - Mauro tweets for the first time since his absence began.

https://twitter.com/mauroranallo/status/848214724642615296

4/6/17 - JBL responds to fan tweet, stating that he isn't involved and wishes Mauro the best. Also, in a later tweet he states he had nothing to do with Justin Roberts stolen passport.( /u/inmynothing mentioned in this thread that it was a misquote)

As of 4/7/17, Mauro Renallo removed all references to WWE on his Twitter account including removing his follows to other wrestlers. This potentially indicates that his time with WWE is over. Also worth noting, Mauro is retweeting boxing and MMA content since 4/6/17 at roughly 10pm EST.

Mauro Tweets about Starting a Podcast with Bas Rutten

Unconfirmed Statements and Rumors

During this period, Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer has made numerous indications that this is indeed related to comments JBL has made on camera AND backstage.

(Thank you /u/AnnaKendrickPerkins) Full direct quotes from Dave today on THE BOARD, in reverse order:

-Vince won't fire him unless it becomes a mainstream story and he's a corporate liability. Then he'll drop him, no matter how close they are, faster that you can say Pat Patterson. It will have nothing to do with what he did or didn't do.

-Justin Roberts wrote about it in a book that just came out. Blue Meanis incident was on a live PPV show. Mauro Ranallo incident played out on a WWE network television show and Twitter. Joey Styles is a well known story. Palmer Cannon is a well known story. Several others came to me, I didn't come to...

-I have gotten texts and DM's as well as spoken personally to 15 different Justin Roberts who all contacted me after the article I wrote. Justin was the only one without any interest in going back who would speak publicily. The rest were just thanking me because they went through the same thing. It's..

Justin Roberts recently did an AMA where he made remarks about JBL's history of bullying

Dave also made a tweet stating that JBL wouldn't be released unless it became a mainstream story.

https://twitter.com/davemeltzerWON/status/850402369661575169

Detailed Deadspin article covering more of JBL's history backstage while making the connection to the current situation.

Mauro with another Tweet yesterday evening

https://twitter.com/mauroranallo/status/850510459866198016

CSF

Honestly, the best way to bring this into the light is for the fans to give JBL the Roman treatment. But really, you've got to be looking more prominently at the silently complicit environment that allows this kind of thing to go on until it becomes a PR incident.

Lord TSC

CSF wrote: »

Honestly, the best way to bring this into the light is for the fans to give JBL the Roman treatment. But really, you've got to be looking more prominently at the silently complicit environment that allows this kind of thing to go on until it becomes a PR incident.

Thats the scary part of the Deadspin article. To quote...

As for Roberts, though, there was a moment in Tuscon, right after he returned to the States from the passport mess, where it became clear to him that what he was going through was a lot bigger than John Layfield. “I was sitting in the production meeting, Vince [McMahon] is running the meeting, and when it ends, he’s the first to leave,†Roberts recalled. “I was sitting there, and as he walked by me, he just whispered to me: ‘Don’t forget your passport! Ha-haa!’ and walked away. That’s when I knew there was no sympathy in that company. This stuff is encouraged.â€

Anyone who has followed the backstage antics of wrestling for a while knows Vince seems to love this sort of thing; that he wants people to get into fights against bullies, and thus condones bullys.

sky88

I think that's the thing it's an old school wrestling thing were vince loves it. How many times has someone said that vince loved the shawn/hbk heat and basically helped fester it cause he loves the confrontation. Honestly I think loves the bullying and more if someone stands up for themselves like joey styles did.

I'm suprised nothing has come on what JBL has supposedly said/did to mauro.

Mr.Nice Guy

Lord TSC wrote: »

Anyone who has followed the backstage antics of wrestling for a while knows Vince seems to love this sort of thing; that he wants people to get into fights against bullies, and thus condones bullys.

Wasn't there a storyline recently where Tozawa had his passport stolen by Kendrick? I wouldn't be surprised if that was a subtle shot at Roberts.

Lord TSC

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

Wasn't there a storyline recently where Tozawa had his passport stolen by Kendrick? I wouldn't be surprised if that was a subtle shot at Roberts.

Don't watch the shows, but yeah, reports say they had a story like that. Would be some coincidence.

briany

To play devil's advocate for a moment, JBL comes from a generation of wrestlers where horseplay, verbal jousting and 'ribbing' were seen as the norm. People new to the business were to be 'tested' in various ways. Also, JBL seems to really come from that fraternal, college jock world where this behaviour was considered acceptable as well. He's a big hoss who's been entrenched in that mindset for most of his life and probably finds it difficult to get out of. As JBL has his detractors, he also has friends in the business who say he's a great guy. Cornette just stuck up for him on this week's edition of the Cornette podcast, saying that if he had 10 of Bradshaw back in the day, he'd have been a happy promoter. So there is this thread of thought that JBL's of the mindset that respect is to be earned by giving back some of the abuse you take.

/devil's advocate

At the same time, I really don't know where JBL's self-styled joshing mentality ends and his genuine dislike of someone begins. In wrestling, that seems to be a fine line. It's blurrier now with the whole 'I play a bad guy on TV' line because that essentially gives him carte blanche to say what he likes on TV without you knowing what his true feelings are on the matter. As well as that, Ranallo's not the kind of guy who would need 'testing' if that's what JBL was trying to do. His pedigree is pretty well-established at this stage.

And if this story does get picked up in more mainstream circles, you could end up having HHH/Vince/Stephanie going on some news program talking about how they absolutely do not condone this kind of behaviour. One thing I have learned about wrestling is that it doesn't so much try to clean up its act as shove things under the carpet, and no matter how much Vince tries to make his product something other than wrestling, the carny mindset is still very much there, and all the backstage behaviour that gave rise to scandals in the past is only suppressed by the WWE to the point that they think the organisation can get away with it.

Monokne

The whole thing is a huge black eye to the company and totally exposes them, if it gets anything remotely approaching mainstream attention.

They want to sell themselves as this coroporate, well behaved, modernised entity. Yet they still have a bull**** hazing culture that isn't accepted anywhere else in 2017.

Lord TSC

Coach and Meltzer seem to be having spats on Twitter.

Coach claims he never saw any examples of bullying in his time in WWE.

Meltzer calls out ESPN (and thus Coach) as cowardly, in terms of only ever wanting to do puff pieces for them.

Coach seems to be threatening to never report on WWE stuff again (so desperate is he to avoid covering a negative story)

Pentecost

Lord TSC wrote: »

Coach and Meltzer seem to be having spats on Twitter.

Coach claims he never saw any examples of bullying in his time in WWE.

Meltzer calls out ESPN (and thus Coach) as cowardly, in terms of only ever wanting to do puff pieces for them.

Coach seems to be threatening to never report on WWE stuff again (so desperate is he to avoid covering a negative story)

Ooh Coach please don't stop your tremendous stories. That makes no sense and it's Vince he'd be pissing off.

sky88

Bit rich from meltzer given out about espn not covering stuff when he does it himself when it's friends or rumoured sources stories are about.

But I think at this point everyone knows espn pieces might as well be written or produced by wwe