As we reported last week, John Layfield (JBL) is leaving his announce position duties on WWE SmackDown Live. We’ve learned more about why this came about.
As our original article here at Pop Culture stated, JBL is leaving so that he can concentrate more on his work with helping at-risk you and communities in the country of Bermuda. Some had wondered if that was some type of cop-out, with JBL being fired.
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That is not the case. JBL did leave for this reason, and apparently his exit from the company has been planned for quite some time.
According to a report by Justin Barrasso at Sports Illustrated, JBL planned this exit with WWE around 11 months ago. This would have been last October and JBL’s contract was expiring. According to the report, Layfield gave WWE notice at that time.
In addition to wanting to concentrate more on his charitable work, JBL has started to get burned out of traveling every single week. According to the report from Barrasso, WWE liked to bring him in for SmackDown on the Sunday prior to the Tuesday broadcast. Not liking the extra two days on the road, JBL had started to book his travel to arrive in the city hosting SmackDown on the day of the show (Tuesday).
JBL was able to stick to this traveling the day of the show schedule for two months before WWE confronted him on his actions. It was just another sign that he was burned out of working for WWE, so Bradfield’s pending exit was not exactly a surprise to most at the company.
Fans will also remember that there was some controversy earlier this year with JBL allegedly being involved in bullying Mauro Ranallo, eventually leading to Ranallo’s exiting WWE for several months before returning with NXT. Reports state that it was Vince McMahon who personally refused to fire JBL during that whole ordeal, despite WWE getting all kinds of bad press as the story made the rounds. Some of WWE’s board of directors had reportedly been pressuring McMahon to cut ties with JBL at that point, but McMahon was steadfast in his refusal to do so.
