10 Things WWE Wants You To Forget About JBL

John Bradshaw Layfield had a rather improbable rise to the upper echelon of WWE.

For years, he played a cowboy character; then, he was paired with Ron Simmons and the two became The A.P.A., satanic minions turned muscle for hire. In neither of those roles did JBL particularly thrill anybody or turn any heads, but in 2004, he was repackaged as a rich Texan and immediately levelled Eddie Guerrero for the WWE Championship. Many fans resented the quick turn of fortune, and his 10-month reign with the belt severely hurt interest in what had been a white-hot Smackdown product. Eventually, JBL settled into a cushy job as a color commentator, where he remains today.

This article is about none of that.

Though there are undoubtedly a good deal of embarrassing and better-off-forgotten moments in JBL's career, this article focuses solely on John Layfield the man - the man who has been at the center of much controversy over the course of the past 15 years, to put it politely. A more accurate statement would be that JBL has been derided repeatedly for bullying and hazing coworker after coworker, making WWE a miserable working environment for many...

Recently, all of JBL's past actions have come back to haunt him. Mainstream media outlets have been publishing articles about the SmackDown color commentator's history of bullying, while WWE fans have gotten #FireJBL to trend on Twitter. Some have even cancelled their WWE Network subscriptions in response to Layfield's continued employment.

The reason for the surge is JBL's latest unconscionable act: his verbal harassment of Mauro Ranallo. Since joining WWE in early 2016, Ranallo has won widespread acclaim as a play-by-play announcer who sounds less homogeneous than WWE's usual style. For far longer than he's been in the company, though, Ranallo has been a mental health advocate who's been open about his own battle with bipolar disorder.

JBL was always rude to Ranallo on TV, but that was just the tip of the iceberg, as the former WWE Champion's bullying has caused his broadcast partner to take a (possibly permanent) leave of absence from WWE. After tweeting about his win in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Awards' Best Announcer category, Ranallo was excoriated by JBL on a WWE Network show. Even after Ranallo first took his hiatus, this continued on Twitter, as did JBL's pokes at Ranallo for being absent from commentary.

Making the story more than conjecture is the fact that Ranallo's close friend, MMA legend Bas Rutten, has alluded to the fact that Layfield is indeed responsible for the announcer's health battle.