JBL Disagrees That Diesel Was the Worst Drawing WWF Champion

On the latest episode of Something to Wrestle, JBL looked back at the WWF in 1996 with Conrad Thompson. When Thompson brought up the label Kevin Nash picked up during his run as Diesel, that he was the worst drawing champion in WWF history, JBL said he disagreed completely. He blamed the business at the time, not Nash, and also explained why he thought Shawn Michaels blew up at Vader at SummerSlam 1996. You can check out his comments below:

On the Notion Of Diesel As the Worst-Drawing WWF Champion:

“Absolutely not. And for people to say something about Kevin, I disagree with that completely. I was there; I got there in ’95. We couldn’t sell any tickets. You had Bret, you had Taker. You had Shawn, you had Kevin. You had all these guys who were going to be the biggest stars in wrestling history, as far as the ratings and the Attitude Era. They were just in the wrong characters.

“And you talk about ’93, ’94, ’95 — none of that. WCW wasn’t beating us during all that time. In ’93, they couldn’t beat themselves, they were so bad. Eric Bischoff came along and changed the dynamic, so it wasn’t like WWE was simply going down, WCW just took off. Business was terrible. All during that steroid trial, Vince suffered significantly and suffered badly. Everybody wants to be champion in a hot territory. Nobody wants to be champion in a down territory, and that’s what Kevin had to do. And we had a great roster. It’s not on Kevin, believe me, because he became one of the biggest draws of all time when he went to the other company. So it’s obviously not him. Obviously not Shawn. Shawn became one of the biggest draws of all time once he got the platform.”

On What Led Michaels To Blow Up at Vader:

“I think Shawn’s problem was one, WCW is now starting to ascend. WWE is still down, and all of a sudden he’s the guy. He’s been wanting this forever. He’s finally the guy, and you’ve got this huge monster coming over that was absolutely incredible. Vader was maybe the biggest, greatest big man of all time. Incredible performer. And when you get him, you realize you don’t have what you thought you were getting.

“And Shawn is now sitting there with that on every house show, all around the loop, and now in the SummerSlam main event. I think that’s why Shawn boiled over. And again, people want to get on Shawn. It’s simple; Vader didn’t move. I can understand it. Should he not have done it there? Vader should have moved. People want to get on Shawn, ‘Oh, that was just Shawn. He was petulant back then.’ No, I think Shawn expected a guy in the main event to be on his main event level, and Vader may have been, but he wasn’t that top main event guy like we thought we got.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Something to Wrestle with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.