ECW and WWF veteran Tracy Smothers recently did a fascinating interview with The Hannibal TV. In it, he discussed the infamous JBL fight at ECW One Night Stand 2005 that saw The Blue Meanie get shot on. He gave his perspective on the brawl, why there was heat and his history with Bradshaw.
Transcription by WrestleZone.com Senior Editor Tyler Treese.
On if he had any issues with JBL when he worked with him in 1996:
No, no. Well, he didn’t want to put me over, and I had nothing to do with that. He told me, “I’m gonna kick out if you don’t pin me.” He told me he was gonna kick strong, and he’s a big strong boy. If you go back and watch it, he kicked out. I did the meat hook to pin him, but he kicked out of the first thing, the roll through slam. I did the best I could, but he told me he was going to kick out. Guys would get in his ears. He had been in WWE longer than me, but after that I never had any trouble with him. We were cool.
Before the One Night Stand incident:
There was heat there. We had the Hardcore Homecoming thing with Shane [Douglas], Jeremy Borash, Bob Ryder, and Raven all put together. Shane booked me on that and Dreamer called me a few days later and booked me on the [WWE] one and said we could do it. The [WWE] guys didn’t want us there. The brass just didn’t and there was friction that you could feel it. I thought I was cool with John, and I heard his radio show a few days before and I put him over and told him it was good. He had been drinking and he was out by the ring, and we were about to do the [brawl]. We started getting bad vibes that they were gonna shoot on us.
We’re out by the ring and we did the rehearsal where Matt Morgan, great big guy, came up and almost punked us. Someone went, “Is this gonna be a shoot?” I said, “I dunno man, be prepared for anything.” …[Morgan] goes, “Hey, nut shot me [during the brawl] and that’ll be the way I get outta there.” He didn’t have no problem with us, and a lot of them didn’t.
But John is out there talking to agents and some of the big boys like Tomko. John, who was kind of drunk, goes “If they get cute, don’t hesitate to knock them the fuck out.” I jokingly responded, “That’s cool. Just know it’s a two way street for that.”
JBL’s attack on Blue Meanie during pay-per-view:
When we got out there, something happened where Meanie said something about John being a bully. I didn’t know all this, but in the ring it was intense. You didn’t know what was going to happen. John had a ton of heat and was ragging on the ECW thing. I just saw him waffle Meanie from the corner of my eye, and Meanie had staples in his head from a few nights before that, so blood was going everywhere. I went up to John, and said “What the fuck, John. What is going on?” He goes, “Fuck you,” and sort of rabbit punches me. I come up [with a punch] and got him in the eye. He goes, “Ah, fuck, boy.” He always called me boy. When we broke apart, he went “Come back,” and I said “I’ll be back, fuck you, man.” I looked over and Regal was doing something with Balls [Mahoney] and Axl [Rotten]. He does his spot with his cane, then I see Balls and Axl brawling with John. Then Sandman comes up behind him, grabs him from behind, and then I got some body shots on John.
The backstage aftermath:
I go backstage and John was legit pissed off. Meanie goes, “He shot at me. What the fuck? Thanks for helping me. I think he’s mad over something I said in a shoot interview or something like that.” So, we come back and John was pissed off. Johnny Ace was screaming, “We don’t do that here!” I kept my mouth shut because [Vince] said they were gonna open up ECW and that we’d have full-time jobs. I didn’t want to be unprofessional.
Check out the full video below:
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