JBL says he retired because his back and neck left him no choice, and that he picked Rey Mysterio for his last match out of affection for Mysterio and for Eddie Guerrero.
The match took place at WrestleMania 25 in Houston in April 2009. JBL lost in 21 seconds, then took a microphone and quit on the spot.
Speaking on Something To Wrestle, JBL said the choice of opponent was his.
“I chose Rey because I chose Rey. I mean, that was a definitive choice that I made because of my love for both Rey and for Eddie, and I couldn’t do much more. My back was hurt, and that’s about all I could do was get the ring, get out. I couldn’t hardly work out. I couldn’t do much.”
The condition was spinal stenosis, compounded by a neck injury he had picked up in London.
“It was all stenosis in the back. I just couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t hardly get up and down off the floor. I couldn’t hardly move. I couldn’t train very well. I was having problems with my neck as well. I broke my neck in a match in London, and it was not recovering very well.”
“I couldn’t lift weights because of the pressure on the lower neck, and then the lower back. I couldn’t do squats. I couldn’t run. I couldn’t hardly do anything. I was just a mess.”
He said the location mattered to him as much as the opponent.
“I just was hoping to make it to Texas because that was a big deal to me. I believe that’s the weekend that the Von Erichs went in the Hall of Fame, and that was really cool for me. Growing up watching the Von Erichs, watching them go in the Hall of Fame, and then going out there and wrestle my last match in Texas. That was really important to me.”
He was direct about why he stopped.
“I didn’t want to retire. I retired because I had to, not because I was choosing to.”
The last thing he did before leaving the building was watch The Undertaker beat Shawn Michaels, in the first of their two WrestleMania matches.
“I remember sitting there before I left. It was Shawn and Taker in the ring, and I’m just sitting there just watching, thinking, I’ve just watched the best match I’ve ever seen. It’s a good time to go home. And I remember how proud I was to see that match.”
He said the instruction to quit came from Vince McMahon.
“Vince wanted me to have the promo at the end. Vince wanted me not to say anything, just say I quit, and that was his idea. And I had no issue with that. He came out, told me thank you, and I hugged him and got my car and went home.”
He left before the rest of the card.
“I remember driving home afterward. I didn’t stay for the rest of the show. I just was kind of depressed.”
JBL held the WWE Championship for 280 days between 2004 and 2005, the longest reign in SmackDown’s history, and worked as a commentator after retiring. He returned to the ring occasionally in the years since, including a brief run in 2012.
Mysterio is still active. He is 51, works as General Manager of AAA following WWE’s acquisition of the promotion, and wrestled Chad Gable for the Intercontinental Championship on Raw this month.
Guerrero died in November 2005, seven months after JBL dropped the WWE Championship to John Cena. The two had worked together for most of 2004, including the match in which JBL won the title at The Great American Bash. JBL was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2020.
