WWE Hall Of Famer JBL Recalls Racial Profiling Incident From The Road

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Back in the day, when wrestlers still had to travel from show to show by themselves, they'd often get into wild situations and over the years veterans have shared many of the stories on podcasts and elsewhere. Unfortunately, not every story was good, and according to John "Bradshaw" Layfield in an episode of "Something To Wrestle," he, Ron Simmons, and Teddy Long were all racially profiled by a police officer on the road.

"The cop just – I mean literally, he profiled us and pulled us over," the veteran claimed, further explaining that Long had a fear of policemen, and was instructed him to get a sobriety test. "And Teddy's failing the sobriety test, even though he's had nothing to drink!" Layfield then claimed that Simmons – from the backseat – told Long to question the cop, who then realized that he was drinking.

"So, he [the police officer] (...) goes 'I believe I smell alcohol?' and Ron goes 'Oh, now you're a f**king Bloodhound?' So now I'm thinking: we're going to jail," Layfield claimed. He then further explained that he tried to take the fall and tell the police officer that he was the one drinking, but Simmons wouldn't have it and blurted out that he was drunk too. The cop then pulled a gun on Simmons, and the veteran jokingly suggested that he and Layfield run into the woods to escape. 

"He writes [Long] like two or three tickets that were – they were fake and phony as can be, and Teddy ends up driving us the wrong direction, and we end up making it home at six o'clock in the morning," Layfield rhapsodized.

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Unfortunately, when it came to the wrestling territories that veterans like John "Bradshaw" Layfield and Ron Simmons competed in, racism was something that wrestlers often experienced, and stories about promoters like Bill Watts have been widely shared over the years. 

"You had territories that were incredibly racist and sexist, and you name it," Layfield recalled during the podcast when reminiscing on the bad side of wrestling territories. "I think there was an inditement of the times, I mean, there was a lot of – man – there was a lot of racism and a lot of segregation, people just didn't know..."

However, Layfield pointed out that he and Simmons weren't the only tag teams with wresters of different ethnicities. 

"You look at how wrestling was, you know, before me and Ron started tagging and now you had Thunderbolt and Brisco as tag team partners – which was groundbreaking at the time," the WWE Hall of Famer noted. "You had Owen and Koko as well as the Dudleys in ECW about the same time as us."

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "Something To Wrestle" and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.