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Chris Dunn, a former WWE writer, recently recalled how The Viking Raiders pitched an idea to become a modern-day version of The APA.
John Bradshaw Layfield (JBL) and Ron Simmons (Faarooq) were known as The APA during their WWE tag team run between 1998 and 2004. The three-time tag team champions often interacted with superstars in backstage poker games, which allowed them to constantly feature in storylines.
Speaking on The Universal Wrestling Podcast, Dunn told JBL that he wanted The Viking Raiders’ idea to come to fruition.
“We had a lot of tag teams pitch that [APA idea]. The best one I heard that I tried to advocate for was for The Viking Raiders to have one. Those guys are so entertaining and, for my money, arguably the best tag team going right now. Unfortunately, it kind of got scrapped. So many tag teams wanted to be The APA,” Dunn said. [15:32-15:52]
The Viking Raiders’ last televised match came in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal on WrestleMania SmackDown. They also recently lost a two-on-one handicap match against Omos on WrestleMania RAW.
Why Bradshaw and Faarooq had so much fun in WWE
While the majority of WWE feuds are decided in the ring, The APA regularly settled their differences with rivals by participating in bar fights.
JBL, known simply as Bradshaw during his APA days, went on to explain why he enjoyed his partnership with Ron Simmons so much.
“We had fun. We got to do cool stuff also. We had the office, but we also got to do the bar fights, and so we got to do some really cool stuff that was not centered in the middle of the arena. Because of that freedom that we had, we really got to do some things that were memorable,” JBL said. [15:53-16:13]
The APA were widely regarded as one of the most physical tag teams of their generation. Simmons joined the WWE Hall of Fame in 2012, while JBL received his induction in 2021 as part of the 2020 Hall of Fame Class.
Check out 5 scripted WWE matches that turned into real fights:
Please credit The Universal Wrestling Podcast and give a H/T to Sportskeeda Wrestling for the transcription if you use quotes from this article.
