"They didn't show much respect at all" - JBL on two former WWE Superstars who were difficult to work with

John Bradshaw Layfield (JBL) recently recalled that The Public Enemy was difficult to work with during their short spell in WWE.

The Public Enemy (Johnny Grunge and Rocco Rock) competed in six WWE matches in 1999 after previously working for ECW and WCW. Their most memorable WWE moment came when they tried to change the finish to a match against The Acolytes (Bradshaw and Farooq) at short notice.

Speaking on Stories with Brisco and Bradshaw, JBL said the four-time ECW World Tag Team Champions had attitude problems backstage.

“They came in that day and they walked in the building at 5:30. The show started at like 6:30 or doors at 6:30. They wouldn’t even come on time. They’d come late, they’d come walking in, they’d make a grand entrance coming in. They flaunted the rules. They didn’t show much respect at all when they came in. I think we kind of thought that was an outlier but we didn’t know because we didn’t see a lot of ECW because we were on the road every night,” JBL said.

The Acolytes were supposed to defeat The Public Enemy on Sunday Night Heat by putting either Johnny Grunge or Rocco Rock through a table and the latter refused the planned finish. Hence, JBL and Farooq legitimately beat them up until the referee ended the match.

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JBL busts myth about hurting opponents

Although The Acolytes took matters into their own hands against The Public Enemy, incidents like that were not commonplace in WWE at the time.

JBL clarified that WWE Chairman Vince McMahon never asked hi to deliberately hurt an opponent in the ring.

“The one thing that never happened, you know people talk about, ‘Vince sent us after people.’ That 100 percent never happened. They never said go after this tag team or beat these guys up or do this or do that. We were never, not one time, told anything like that by anybody in the WWE, as far as agents or anything else. That became a myth later. Everybody has revisionist history. They start changing things over time,” JBL said.

JBL was regarded as one of the most physical WWE Superstars of his generation. In 2005, he caused The Blue Meanie’s face to bleed after punching him several times during an in-ring brawl. The two men have since buried the hatchet.

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