During a recent appearance on the “Something To Wrestle With” podcast, JBL shared his experience as a commentator while having Vince McMahon feeding him instructions in his ear.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On working as a commentator in WWE with Vince McMahon in his ear: “Michael Cole and I were on the headset with Vince and Kevin Dunn. And you know, a lot of other people were on headsets, but Vince a lot of times would talk to us during the show. Sometimes he’d talk to us about the show. Sometimes, he talked to just me about the show. Because he had no one to talk to back there because he’s got his headphones on, so he’s not really got a chance to talk to somebody. So he would talk to us. And so we got an insight into Vince for years that nobody had insight into. I mean, we heard the stuff that went on all throughout the backstage area that literally nobody else heard. Now, there are other guys who had better access and things like that, but we heard all the stuff directly from Vince.”
On working with Vince: “The big misnomer is that Vince dictated everything. 100% not true. Vince was the best producer I’ve ever worked with. He would give you very succinct phrases. And sometimes I’d be one word behind him, because I trusted him so much. And he would lead us to a place… Vince used to give us notes directly to me and Michael Cole, which is cool because he opened everything up. He would tell us about creative going forward because he knew he could trust us. In the creative meetings — which was the production meetings they called, but they’re also a mix of creative — Vince wouldn’t do that, because there are always stooges in the production meeting. So Vince wouldn’t open up everything. So when Vince would give you commentary a lot of times, sometimes he’d say stuff — and I know this is not going to be a shock — that made no sense whatsoever. But it would make sense a week later.
“People get him all kinds of credit for not making sense on some stuff. Vince nearly always had a plan. And sometimes he’d tell you something, I would just say it. For one, it’s his sandbox. It’s his company. We’re not real commentators, by the way. Michael Cole used to always say, ‘If I get into the Hall of Fame-‘ which Michael Cole will one day would say. He said, ‘I’m gonna get up there and say, I’m a fake wrestler calling a fake sport with a fake name, thank you, and that’s it.’ We’re not real commentators. So when Vince would say something, I would just repeat it. A lot of times, it’d play out a week later sometimes. Because Vince knew what was coming forward. It was pretty cool when you sometimes say something that was disconnected, and you know something’s coming up that’s pretty cool.”
On whether Vince will do something else in pro wrestling: “I don’t know about wrestling. But I will tell you what I know. And you know, Black Bart used to always tell me, ‘You can only go by how guys treat you, not by what else has happened or hasn’t happened.’ So I’m not responding to anything like that, just about how Vince has always treated me. Which is, you know, almost like a son. And Vince, I saw him at WrestleMania right before they made the announcement that they’re selling the company to TKO. And I found him back in a dressing room and it was unmarked. It was way back down there, and I found him. And I walked in, and you know, hugged him and shook his hand. And I said, ‘I’m so glad you didn’t go quietly into the night.’ And he looked at me with this fire in his eyes like I hardly ever seen. He goes, ‘You f**king knew I wouldn’t do that’… I don’t think Vince is done. I don’t think he wants his last act to be what it is now.
“And I’m speaking for him, which is something you shouldn’t do. I think he’s gonna do something else. And I don’t know what that is. He’s doing something in Hollywood, it sounds like. I have no inside information on this whatsoever. Just a knowledge of knowing him and his competitiveness over the years that — you know, he didn’t want to go quietly in the night.”
