During the umpteenth battle between Kevin Owens and Dolph Ziggler, Owens started to get a little chatty. Trash-talking Ziggler and mockingly encouraging him to fight back, the former NXT Champion added an element of rudeness to an already heated encounter. His behavior prompted JBL to comment that Owens was being particularly damaging to Dolph - after all, there are wrestlers who will beat you up, and wrestlers who will beat you up and talk to you while they're doing it. It was a nice nod to earlier days in JBL's career - specifically Breakdown 1998, when the future WWE Champion wrestled the legendary Vader. An up-and-coming brawler with a mean streak, JBL repeatedly cursed at Vader during the bout, calling him a "son of a b*tch," among other insults. That led announcer Jerry Lawler to remark that he never minded being beaten up, but he didn't like being cussed at while it was happening. Michael Cole, who's worked for WWE for nearly two decades, then helpfully pointed out that JBL was referring to himself.
Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried.
*Best Crowd of the Year, 2013
