JBL and Ron Simmons have sat down together for a joint interview on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, and the episode drops this Thursday. The conversation runs more than 60 minutes, and it is believed to be the longest interview the two have ever done together.
A full sit-down interview featuring both members of the APA has basically never happened before. The two have appeared together on convention panels, including Pensacon in 2022 and Nickel City Con in 2025, and they shared a panel appearance on WWE’s The Bump in 2021, but a long-form interview with both men in the same room has not been part of the record. JBL interviewed Simmons for an episode of Legends with JBL on the WWE Network back in 2016, though that was JBL in the host’s chair rather than the two of them answering questions side by side.
Simmons is the reason these are so rare. We do not hear from him often, and he seldom does long interviews at all, which makes an hour of Simmons talking about his life and career something wrestling fans almost never get.
There is a lot of career to cover. Before wrestling, Simmons was a legendary college football player at Florida State, an All-American whose number was retired by the school. In WCW, he made history on August 2, 1992, defeating Vader to become the first Black World Champion recognized by a national wrestling promotion, a moment that still stands as one of the most important in the industry’s history. He later founded the Nation of Domination in WWF before joining forces with the man who would become his best friend.
Together, JBL and Simmons formed the Acolytes and then the APA, one of the most beloved tag teams of the Attitude Era, winning the tag team titles three times while turning beer, cigars and a card table into one of the most recognizable acts in the company. The team ended in 2004 when WWE moved JBL into a singles run that produced a WWE Championship reign of nearly a year. Simmons was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2012, and JBL joined him in the class of 2020.
Both men have stayed busy. JBL can be heard regularly on the Something to Wrestle podcast, where his comments made news this week when he weighed in on the Avery Styles ring crew debate, and both he and Simmons work the convention circuit. The two also reunited in a ring at a Wildkat Sports event in November, the first time the APA had appeared in a ring together since 2012. During that appearance, JBL hit a Clothesline From Hell on a wrestler who tried to hire their services, proof that some things never change.
Simmons’ football story alone covers one of the great college careers of his era, and his path from Florida State to Doom, to the WCW World Championship, to the Nation of Domination, to the APA touches nearly every corner of wrestling from the late 1980s forward. JBL went from the APA to a WWE Championship reign of nearly a year to the announce desk to the Hall of Fame.
The Acolytes debuted as enforcers in 1998, and once the beer and the card table arrived, the Acolytes Protection Agency became one of the most reliable acts in the company, protecting clients for cash on screen while the two built a real friendship on the road that both men have called one of the closest in the business.
The full interview drops this Thursday on Insight with Chris Van Vliet on YouTube.
