JBL said WWE was right to fine Tama Tonga for posting a video of rehearsals and that he would have agreed with firing him over it, calling the leak of backstage content a serious offense, speaking on the Something to Wrestle podcast with Conrad Thompson.
Reports indicated that Tama Tonga was fined by WWE for posting a video of rehearsals from a prior week’s SmackDown, with the fine described as “significant.”
“I completely agree with WWE for the fine, for whatever the amount was, and if they’d have fired him, I’d have agreed with it,” JBL said.
JBL said releasing backstage content without authorization was considered a fireable offense during his era in WWE. “This was always a fireable offense. You release something like that, you release secrets of your company,” he said.
JBL drew a distinction between talent releasing content on their own and WWE’s decision to air behind-the-scenes material on their own terms through programs like WWE Unreal. “The company chooses to release that in a way that is canned in their WWE Unreal, which is the prerogative that they have to be able to look at that, edit that, figure out what they want to put out, what they don’t,” he said. “You can’t have talent just putting out stuff like, ‘Here’s a rehearsal, here’s what’s going on backstage,’ and just letting stuff out like that.”
However, JBL acknowledged that younger talent may not have understood the severity of the breach. “A fireable offense in my generation, yeah, you should fire a guy, because we knew better. 100% knew better,” he said. “I don’t know that the talent today knows better. And that’s a matter of education, not a matter of intelligence. You don’t know unless somebody tells you.”
JBL said the fine should be the end of it and should not follow Tama Tonga going forward. “I think it’s appropriate to give a slap on the wrist, a pretty big fine. I don’t think it should carry forward anywhere in his career or be held against him in any way,” he said. “That’s one thing Vince was very good about. When Vince would fine somebody or punish somebody, that was it, and it was over, and Vince forgot about it after that. I think that’s what should happen with this young man.”
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