10 Most Infamous WWE Ruthless Aggression Era Controversies
4. The JBL Character
If you lived through the rise of John Bradshaw Layfield, you had an opinion on the character.
JBL divided opinion because he was a basic power guy who had been stigmatised over the years as a career midcarder. He could talk, and his braying, obnoxious personality felt big. He was probably more loud and confident than effective, but the presentation of the character and the performance of it worked in the context of 2004. WWE felt smaller than it had in years, allowing JBL to feel like a big deal against a rather bleak curve. His promotion was almost insultingly sudden: did the prior eight years mean nothing?
Some enjoyed JBL's throwback bellowing heel work; others were appalled that Eddie Guerrero's reign had been cut short in favour of nepotism of a tedious, one-dimensional stripe.
That John Layfield was a career bully who had never drawn money and was only rewarded through his size and buddy-buddy relationship with a toxic office was less controversial than the fact that he could not perform a dazzling sequence of moves.
How can he be a wrestling God - he can't wrestle very well at all! was the intended fan response.
Isn't this guy a bad person and terrible example for the locker room? probably should have been the actual one.