JBL says the reports that he ribbed Buff Bagwell about his mother during the 2001 Invasion are untrue, and that he and Ron Simmons did not try to hurt Bagwell when they powerbombed him.
JBL addressed it on Something to Wrestle, in an episode marking 25 years since the Invasion. Conrad Thompson read from the Wrestling Observer’s report at the time, which said that after a SmackDown taping in Tacoma, the WCW wrestlers were set up to be run off, leaving Bagwell alone in the ring for a hard powerbomb from the APA. The Observer also reported that Bradshaw was ribbing Bagwell about his mother, Judy Bagwell, calling the office to complain about his travel.
“There’s some bullsh*t in that. I never had much interaction with Marcus, and as far as ribbing him about his mother, I didn’t know. To my knowledge, none of that, the ribbing, none of that was true about his mother. I mean, you know, I don’t think we heard that his mother had called the office at that time. And we heard later, but not then.”
JBL said he may have told Bagwell beforehand that the office wanted the powerbomb, and that it was meant to look good because it was being filmed to air later.
“As far as being a hard powerbomb, there was no malice intended. He later said that I tried to hurt him, or me and Ron tried to hurt him. That’s bullsh*t. None of that’s true. If you want to hurt a guy and you got him up in the air, you throw him on his head. You throw him on his shoulder. That, you know, that’s a real chicken sh*t thing to do, and that’s something that certainly I never did… We throw him down hard. Yeah, that’s how we played.
“Our style was different. Our style was pretty rough, and the APA was pretty rough. We expected it to us the same way, and we certainly gave it the same way… When something doesn’t work, sometimes you look for somebody else to blame, and I think that’s what it was. But as far as trying to hurt him, no. Threw him down hard? Yeah, of course I did. I threw everybody down hard. Threw Eddie Guerrero down hard.”
JBL said he was not around Bagwell enough to rib him, but admitted he would have if he had known.
“Now, that’s something that I might have done. I mean, of course, 100%. Oh my God, if I’d have found out his mother called the office, would I? Of course I would have. But I didn’t, because I wasn’t around it.”
Bagwell, whose real name is Marcus Bagwell, came to the WWF from WCW in 2001. He faced Booker T for the WCW Championship on the July 2 Raw in Tacoma and was released shortly after, with reports at the time citing complaints about his attitude and an altercation with Shane Helms.
JBL also said the Invasion was doomed from the start because neither side had its top stars.
“We didn’t get their main event guys. They didn’t get ours… Look at what we did with ECW. Look at how we ran ECW, how bad it was. This was one of the greatest companies in the history of wrestling, and we turned it into some watered-down version that didn’t work… WCW was a great company, what a terrific company. ECW was a great company. WWE ran them terrible.”
You can listen to the full episode of Something to Wrestle below.
