JBL says he would take a wrestler who can fill an arena over one who can have a five-star match, and he names Logan Paul as someone with that ability.
JBL was backing Triple H’s stated preference for superstars over wrestlers on Something to Wrestle With, and said the number of people who have it is small.
“There are a few guys that are like that, and there aren’t many,” JBL said. “Logan Paul is like that. That young man is a star. He created it through a lot of hard work.”
The choice, as he framed it, is not close.
“Would you rather have a guy who goes out there and has these quote five-star matches, or a guy who can fill arenas?” he said. “I think Logan Paul is a guy that either now or in the future is going to be able to fill arenas, because of the ticket-drawing ability that he has.”
JBL said he cannot fully explain where it comes from.
“I don’t know if it’s innate, I don’t know if he learned it. Most of these guys, it’s just innate. It just happens to them,” he said. “I don’t think you could ever ask Kerry Von Erich why are you a star. I don’t know if you could ask The Rock why are you a star. But when those guys walk in a room, if you didn’t know him at all, you would know that guy’s something.”
His example was a man decades past his prime.
“Bruno Sammartino was like that. Even when he was an older man and not big, when he walked into a room you realised this guy’s a freaking star,” JBL said. “Was he a great wrestler? People would argue whether Bruno was. I would say he was. There might be some disagreement over that.”
He traced his own thinking to the locker rooms he came up in.
“When I broke into the business, I was down there in Texas. A lot of guys just wanted to be wrestlers, just wrestlers. You get back to reunions and they talk about wrestling and wanting to be wrestlers,” JBL said. “Booker and I broke in at the same time. We didn’t want to be just wrestlers. We wanted to be stars, and we wanted to figure out what that pathway was.”
His conclusion was unequivocal.
“I think what Triple H is saying is right. Do you want a bunch of guys who are just going to be wrestlers, or do you want a bunch of guys who can fill arenas?” he said. “I want guys that can fill arenas.”
The record behind the claim is real enough. Paul signed with WWE in June 2022 and has worked with Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, Rey Mysterio, Kevin Owens and AJ Styles since, took the United States Championship from Mysterio at Crown Jewel in 2023, and won the World Tag Team Championship with Austin Theory as part of The Vision. He beat Styles at WrestleMania 41. Styles said in a separate interview this year that Paul may be the best celebrity athlete WWE has brought in, and pointed at his work rate rather than his following.
What JBL is describing is the distinction Triple H has drawn publicly for years, between wrestlers and the smaller group WWE calls superstars. It is also the argument sitting underneath TKO’s celebrity strategy, which has brought Pat McAfee, Jelly Roll and others onto WWE television alongside Paul, and which Mark Shapiro has defended as deliberate rather than accidental.
The Sammartino comparison is the one that carries the point furthest. Sammartino held the WWWF Championship for a combined eleven years across two reigns in the 1960s and 1970s and sold out Madison Square Garden repeatedly, in an era when nobody was rating matches out of five at all.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/42pA2aGwhKZyvGBRp1kvOf?si=2a644a7a24014dd0
