15 Exact Moments Failed WWE Ruthless Aggression Gimmicks Actually Got Over
9. JBL | May 16, 2004
“Over” has a slippery definition.
JBL was not a draw as World champion, a level to which he was pushed mostly because WWE was desperate, having done such a dismal job of handling the WCW invasion. Well, it’s not as if WWE “handled” the invasion angle; if anything, Vince McMahon picked WCW up and smashed it against the wall full-force. His petulant power trip led to an era in which a former Acolyte drew In Your House numbers on pay-per-view. And people call him a genius.
Bradshaw had enjoyed a decent level of fame in Chris Kreski’s chapter of the WWE Attitude Era; the APA as goon brutes for hire benefitted from Kreski’s signature overlapping narrative approach, and JBL was genuinely witty as the hard-drinking badass. The man floundered big-time when the good times drew to a close. In 2002, WWE presented him as Steve Austin’s mate, which was just sad, before hurriedly reforming the APA in what was only a diminished return. Bradshaw was closer to getting released than becoming a headliner, which was genuinely inconceivable - until it happened, and in record time.
By objective business metrics, John Bradshaw Layfield was a definitional failure - but measured against the standards of a dismal era, his boorish, nasty persona was strong enough heel material. He was the loudest and most insistent voice in the room, which counted for something. His promos were deafeningly vile, and he was a credible bully through his size and gruesome Clothesline From Hell finish. Programming him against Eddie Guerrero put him over the top.
2004 was the year in which great matches were so rare and valuable that Eddie and Chris Benoit were pushed to the main event; JBL embodied the death of sacred workrate, and at Judgment Day 2004, it was a particularly bloody murder. Beating a technical god so violently that Eddie needed a blood transfusion was how to get heat in the era before banger fatigue.