The Blue Meanie was a recent guest on the Prime Time with Sean Mooney podcast where he opened up about a backstage incident with JBL. Tensions began to brew after The Blue Meanie left the WWE the first time when the former ECW star gave an interview and said, “JBL was a bully when he was Bradshaw.”
Word of the interview spread through the WWE locker room until a version of what The Blue Meanie actually said made its way to JBL, “You know how wrestlers are. I just said something simple like, ‘I thought he was a bully,’ and you know the telephone game where you call somebody, and you have to tell somebody else, and I’m sure people added their own….in there, and I’m sure by the time it got back to him they said that I said something far worse.” JBL believed what he heard and The Blue Meanie would soon become a target of his animosity.
The Blue Meanie was eventually brought back to the WWE as part of the One Night Stand pay-per-view. When he arrived, everything appeared fine between he and JBL. The two Superstars even exchanged pleasantries and sat next to each other in catering, however the apparent goodwill would not last long.
During the ECW run in, things quickly escalated between the two, “We’re just looking at each other, ‘Come on I’m gonna kick your butt..,’ I’m looking at everybody, ‘I’m gonna kick your butt.’ I look at John, ‘I’ll kick your butt, too.’ He just stopped and looked at me. I was like, ‘Oh, boy.’ I thought I was the matador with the red sweater on and he’s the bull.”
A melee soon broke out in the ring and The Blue Meanie felt a blow to the back of his head, in the same location that he had been ‘hard-wayed’ by The Sandman the night before. The perpetrator of the vicious blow was none other than JBL, “I turn around and there’s JBL. He starts throwing live rounds to the point where he does the hockey thing. He puts the shirt over my face and starts swinging. I’m not gonna stand here and take it….I start throwing blows and then we split up.” The altercation opened up the stitches on Meanie’s head and he was now gushing blood. The Blue Meanie informed the other wrestlers in the ring, “He shot on me.”
John Laurinaitis was waiting for The Blue Meanie when he arrived in the back, “Who told you that you could blade?” The Blue Meanie informed Laurinaitis of what had just happened and added, “He’s never liked me. I don’t know why he’s never liked me and he just shot on me in the ring.” Laurinaitis replied, “That’s unacceptable.”
As The Blue Meanie made his way to the back, he saw JBL, “You talked about me on the internet!” I was like, “Dude, come on.” JBL was pulled back and The Blue Meanie proceeded to get re-stitched, but things wouldn’t end there.
The Blue Meanie had a website and a personal blog. He vented his frustrations, “We get in the ring. We’re supposed to protect each other. There’s a code. I’m putting my face out there and you shoot on me like that.” The Blue Meanie’s post garnered some buzz and also drew the WWE’s interest.
That’s when The Blue Meanie received a phone call from Tommy Dreamer, who told him that WWE wanted him to return. Dreamer also assured him that it had absolutely nothing to do with JBL. As soon as The Blue Meanie arrived, John Laurinaitis informed him that he would be wrestling JBL that evening and also going over. The Blue Meanie had his suspicions that the whole thing was just a set up. He ran into Triple H backstage and told him that things didn’t feel right. Triple H brought Meanie into Vince McMahon’s office and McMahon offered his personal guarantee that nothing like what happened before would happen again.
Eventually, The Blue Meanie would have a long anticipated discussion with JBL, “We walk off and the further we walk, the less signage I start to see. If we walk into a room and there’s plastic on the floor, this is gonna be like a mob hit. I’m Joe Pesci.” Instead, JBL was gracious and offered his hand in reconciliation, “Hey man, we can either fight or we can make money.” The Blue Meanie replied, “Dude, I never wanted to fight. I don’t know what this is all about.” The Blue Meanie added, “The shame of it is I was a big fan of yours, John. I liked your work when you were Justin ‘Hawk’ Bradshaw because you reminded me of Stan Hansen, who was one of my favorite wrestlers.” The two shook hands and JBL added, “I’m happy you’re here. Let’s go make money off this.”
More than a decade removed from the incident, the two men are friends and now follow one another on Twitter. JBL even went to bat for The Blue Meanie, pitching him for a recent Royal Rumble return in Philadelphia. The Blue Meanie sums it up best, “Out of something that was so ugly became this cool friendship. I’m happy we made amends because anytime you hold a grudge or vendetta against somebody, it doesn’t hurt the person you’re mad at. It just eats away at you. He apologized and I took him at his word. Again, those were crazy times.”
The Blue Meanie has high praise for the 2019 version of JBL, “John’s a great guy. He was climbing the mountains for the kids in Bermuda and raising money for that. He does a lot of good charity work a lot of people don’t even know about.” The two have now been friends for over a decade.
(Transcription Credit: Michael McClead, WrestleZone)
Readers may listen to Sean Mooney’s interview with The Blue Meanie in its entirety below:
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