JBL on How Eddie Guerrero Helped Get His Heel Gimmick Over, If Anyone Was Against His Title Run

– WWE Hall of Famer JBL was a guest on The Angle Podcast, and he discussed his run as WWE Champion from 2004 to 2005 and how Eddie Guerrero helped get his heel JBL character over. He specifically highlighted the angle at a WWE live event in El Paso, Texas involving Eddie Guerrero’s mother. Below are some highlights (per Wrestling Inc):

JBL on becoming WWE Champion and if anyone was against it: “I don’t think there’s anybody against it, but I don’t think there are a lot of people for it. You know, you needed a character at that time. You had a confluence of events. You had Big Show, I think was hurt. Kurt Angle was hurt. Brock had just left the company. You needed a guy to go against Eddie Guerrero. So it was just kind of, ‘hey, let’s try to this’. So I don’t think anybody was against it. I just don’t think a lot of people were for it. I know before that first match in the Staples Center, Pat Patterson came by and goes, ‘hey, hey, have a good one out there, kid’. And I said, ‘thanks Pat.’ He goes, ‘I hope it works out for ya.’ And I just kind of remember thinking, ‘you know, this is a one-off if this match doesn’t work.’ And I knew it was. So you know, and like that, Pat was not against me. He’s a good friend of mine, he was. But he wasn’t like, super like, ‘hey this is our guy who’s going to be a champion for a long time,’ either. It was, ‘let’s wait and see what happens.'”

On Eddie Guerrero helping get his JBL gimmick over: “It was all Eddie Guerrero. When the day the character debuted, I thought I had pretty much retired. I had a torn bicep. I had two hernias operations, I really thought I was done. I thought, ‘you know, that’s okay, I had a good career, I got to tag with Ron for a number of years. And I’m happy with what happened.’ They called me out of the blue and said, ‘hey, we need somebody to face Eddie in about six-seven weeks in the Staples Center and the character didn’t work right away. They still saw me as the APA and they still saw me as this guy was Ron Simmons.”

On the angle with Eddie’s mother in El Paso: “And Eddie and his brother Chavo came up with the idea of giving his mother a heart attack in El Paso. And filming it like it was a security camera filming it, so it looked like it was legit. That’s the whole thing that made the character. Without that, it would’ve been a one-and-done. After that video aired, that’s when we started seeing crowds increase. That’s when ticket sales started selling, we ended up selling out, we don’t if we could sell tickets to the Staples Center, we ended up selling, I believe at the time, an attendance record at the Staples Center. But it was all because of Eddie and his brother Chavo coming up with that idea.”

On how the angle with Eddie’s mother played out: “I’m four feet from his mother or closer, about arm’s length away. You know, I reached like I was, put my hand on her. What she was doing, she was, she grabbed my hand and guided herself down, that way she could fall. You know, she was I think 74 years old at the time. I’m that close to her and I’m thinking, ‘this woman has just had a heart attack.’ It was that good. Oh my God, is there anybody in this family that can’t work? Eddie’s on the mat and he goes, ‘you better get the eff out of here.’ I say because he knew that it, it was unbelievable how well it worked. It was, it was so good. They got me to the back and literally, the police told me, ‘you don’t need to stay in El Paso tonight. We can’t guarantee your safety.’ So they escorted me out of town, literally gave me an escort out of town, told me to drive all the way to Odessa. To fly out the next day because they thought somebody would try to get a hold of me. Eddie actually smartened you a few of his buddies because he said one of them would’ve come over the rail.”