Kevin Sullivan, the New York Times best-selling author of such books at “The WWE Championship”, is featuring an interview with former WWE star John Bradshaw Layfield where JBL discusses his lengthy reign as WWE Champion.
“Many times around ’97 or so, you had a guy who was head of creative at the time who just didn’t like me. Didn’t like the persona… didn’t really see much value in me. He stuck me and Ron Simmons together because his quote was “what else do they have to do?” So if that had stayed the same, then there’s no way I would have ever had that run and at that point, I thought I was just going to be relegated to what I was relegated to and not move up at all. So there was a real point there around ’97 or ’98 where I wondered … and again when I got hurt, I was getting ready for my big push and I was going to do a storyline with Steve Austin, then Steve quit the company. After that, I was getting ready for a push again and I blew out my biceps. So I just thought “you know what I’m too old, I’m probably past my time.” So when the run came, it was very surprising and appreciated. I think I appreciated it more so than if it would have happened earlier in my career.”
Full interview:
JBL’S UNEXPECTED WWE TITLE REIGN