10 Things WWE Wants You To Forget About John Bradshaw Layfield

9. Former Referee Billy Silverman Quit Because Of His Hazing

Billy Silverman was a referee that worked for WCW in the 1990s and into the early 2000s. When WWE bought WCW in March of 2001, they brought some of the WCW refs in as well. Silverman was one of them. By late 2001 he was out of WWE. The story goes that people in WWE found out that Silverman was upgrading his plane tickets from regular airfare to first class. Apparently that's a big no-no. People in WWE were only supposed to fly first class if it was provided by the company and they didn't want their employees doing it. It seems like a silly rule, but apparently it was something that WWE made sure their employees knew about. The way people in WWE look at it is if you buy first class tickets then you think you're better than the people you work with since you're not sitting with them. That's a bad idea. When the locker room found out what Silverman was doing, he had a lot of heat. JBL was known for hazing new employees in the company and apparently took to ribbing Silverman regularly. Whether it ever got physical or just verbal, we don't know for sure. However, it was so bad in Silverman's eyes that he ended up quitting WWE and suing the company. The details of the lawsuit are unknown. We have no idea if WWE paid him or JBL did. Maybe it was thrown out. The hazing that JBL did over the years has been a topic of conversation for a long time, but it was usually something that was settled in the locker room. In Silverman's case he took it to the courts with other wrestlers apparently testifying against JBL. It's definitely something WWE wants us to forget.