JBL believes WWE having AEW as competition is nothing but a positive for them.
On a recent episode of Something To Wrestle, WWE Hall of Famer JBL spoke in-depth about the company being in competition with AEW and why he believes it’s a good thing for them.
“I think it makes it better. I think it makes it a lot better,” JBL said. “The times that Vince did things that were crazy was when he was bored. He came up with ICOPRO when WCW had no ratings. Of course, then he had, unfortunately, the government trial against him at the same time, which took his time away and really hurt the business, but that’s when he came up with ICOPRO.
“He came up with the XFL when WCW was no longer around later. When you have no competition… creative guys need to fill a void somewhere, and there’s no reason to fill it with wrestling because you don’t have competition. That’s just my opinion. I would imagine, when you don’t have (competition), it’s hard to put your feet to the fire. I know with Vince, when things went bad, I would see him, and he was almost like, ‘Fantastic, I get to go to work.’
“He gets to pull the company out of a tailspin or gets to pull something out of a fire. He loved that. And I think all creative guys do. And when you don’t have somebody to beat, I think it hurts the business. So I think it’s really good for WWE. I think their show is absolutely on fire and all the stuff they’re doing is a response to… I don’t think AEW is big competition – you could argue how big they are as competition, I don’t think it’s much – but they do respond.
JBL believes WWE competing with AEW has a huge positive effect on the business
“And I think that has a huge positive effect on the business. And then you have other companies trying to be a part of this. I think it’s huge to have two companies. It was huge (working for WWE when WCW was competition). Absolutely huge. You wanted to beat them. You wanted to see what they had on their show and you wanted to go up against it. You wanted to be the guy to bat. And when there’s no competition, what happens if you shit the bed? It doesn’t really matter.
“I understand your pride as a performer, I get all that stuff, but if there’s no consequence for it, like, ‘Okay, it wasn’t good that week, we’ll try again next week.’ If you’re not good when you have competition, and you’re going up against something that competition has, and you lose, you’re either gotten rid of or you’re put way down on the roster somewhere.
“You won’t be in that spot again. So you love the competition. And I think the times that WWE has not been creative, and they tried to find their own competition within themselves, that’s when they did ECW, that’s when they did NWA, that’s when they did all kinds of stuff – it just hasn’t worked very well.” [H/T: WrestleTalk]
READ MORE: “Blow Me” – JBL Crudely Responds To Fans Upset That WWE Is Counter-Programming AEW
What do you make of JBL’s overall comments? Do you believe competition from companies like AEW is good for WWE? Let us know your overall thoughts by sounding off in the comments section below.
