JBL On WWE Is More Patient With Talent Now Than In Vince McMahon’s Era

On the latest episode of Something To Wrestle With, JBL responded to CM Punk’s recent comments comparing the old and new regimes, pointing to how differently talent arrives in WWE today. McMahon would famously lose patience with acts and give up on them quickly if they weren’t getting over, something that is happening less often since he left. You can check out JBL’s comments below:

On WWE Being More Patient With Talent:

“I think they’re more accommodating now because the learning process is different. By the time a guy got to Vince, he’d had a couple thousand matches in different territories. You expect the guy to know how to work and be pretty good at what he does. You might want to refine it — everybody got refined to some degree, and everybody got overwhelmed to some degree. Because all of a sudden you have this huge WWE product and that’s not where you’re used to working. So there was a little bit of leash there that you got with Vince, no matter who you are. But I think Vince had a shorter patience leash on them, because he expected them to be able to do things.”

On Current Talent Lacking That Experience:

“Now they’re coming up from NXT. They don’t have thousands of matches, or even a thousand matches, in different territories around the world — at least not 90-something percent of them. So you have to have more patience. I think that’s been more of it than anything else. The learning process keeps going in WWE. It kept going for us too but we came with a much easier, better base than what guys are coming from now.

“It’s much harder on guys and girls today. We had it much easier because by the time we got there, we’d had so many matches in so many different territories. They don’t have that, so I think you need to have that patience with them once they get there, and I think that’s what you’re seeing.”

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