JBL has told a lot of road stories over the years, but ask him for his favorite Eddie Guerrero story and he doesn’t even have to think about it. Sitting down with Chris Van Vliet alongside old tag partner Ron Simmons on the latest episode of Insight with Chris Van Vliet, JBL opened up about just how much Guerrero loved the JBL character, right down to calling him in the middle of the night with new ideas.
The 2 A.M. Phone Calls
“Oh my God, he used to call me all the time,” JBL said. “Eddie loved the JBL character. He called me one time, it’s like 2 o’clock in the morning. ‘Ese, I got something for you.'” The bond went well beyond the storyline. “He’s a groomsman in my wedding. Ron was my best man, and Eddie was a groomsman in my wedding with Undertaker, a bunch of other guys.”
Not every 2 a.m. idea was a keeper, at least not by JBL‘s first reaction. “And I go, what is it? He goes, ‘Tell them my ancestors come over here in a boat, not an inner tube.’ I said, ‘Eddie, you’re gonna get me killed. You’re actually gonna get me killed.’ He goes, ‘No, no, no, good stuff, good stuff, good stuff.'”
“Eddie used to give me the craziest stuff,” JBL continued. “He came up with the idea of the throwing the guy back across the border. That was Eddie‘s idea. Eddie came up with the idea of his mother having a heart attack in El Paso.”
That last one was serious enough that WWE brought in extra state troopers to ring the arena for the segment, and JBL had to drive out of town still in his ring gear to get out safely afterward. Two years later, when the company went back to El Paso, he wasn’t even booked for the show. Officials were still worried something might happen to him.
“They Made the Character for Eddie Guerrero”
The heat between the two wasn’t just for a segment or two. It ran all the way to JBL winning the WWE Championship from Eddie Guerrero at The Great American Bash in 2004, and JBL is adamant it never happens without Guerrero on the other side of it.
“I knew I’d have the opportunity,” JBL said. “I knew because they made the character for Eddie Guerrero, so I knew I had the opportunity. They called me specifically for the match at the Staples Center in six weeks, eight weeks, whenever it was, and I just got lucky. Yeah, Brock had left the company to become UFC champion.”
Ron Simmons wasn’t having the “lucky” part. “No, he didn’t get lucky, man,” Simmons said. “Listen, he didn’t get lucky. Too humble. Well, he had put his work in. Germany, Japan, traveling all around, doing the things that people don’t get to see, living in and out of a car, sleazy hotels and motels and that kind of thing.” He pointed to the timing as much as the work. “It was an absolute perfect moment for that. Any other phase, I believe, would have altered that run that he had. The timing was perfect. He was prepared for it.”
The Chicago Promo That Changed Everything
JBL traced it back further, to a promo that had nothing to do with wrestling on paper. After getting fired from his job at CNBC, he cut a scorched-earth promo in Chicago instead of playing it safe. “I went the opposite way and said, ‘Anybody who doubts me as a great American would be like calling Mother Teresa a whore.’ It’s about as strong as it could be. You couldn’t say anything I said back then now.”
Undertaker was standing next to Vince McMahon when it happened, and has told the story himself since. “Taker says, ‘You think?'” JBL recalled of the moment McMahon asked whether he should put the title on him. “That was what did it. That was that promo in Chicago. I knew that was sink-or-swim night, and then I had the right guy with Eddie Guerrero. The perfect guy.”
JBL‘s title reign ended at WrestleMania 21, when he dropped the belt to John Cena. But two decades later, the story he still leads with isn’t the win itself. It’s the guy on the other side of the ring, calling him at 2 a.m. with another idea that was probably going to get him killed.
