With his new book dredging up a lot of unseemly details of the bullying past of JBL, and with those stories adding fuel to the fire of the Mauro Ranallo situation, Justin Roberts is a popular guy right now when it comes to interviews. He spoke with former WWE Creative member Kevin Eck of PressBox about his time as a ring announcer and the fervor with which people are devouring his bullying stories right now.
Roberts says that when he started in WWE, he had heard a few things about how bad the culture of bullying was, but he really wasn't prepared for what he found. At all.
"I was completely blindsided. I knew about the reputations of a couple guys -- I had heard that they were bullies, but I didn't realize what the culture was like. When it started happening, I figured the company would handle it once they were aware, but then I clearly found out that the company wasn't trying to stop it; the company more so encouraged it and stood behind it and laughed at it. They enjoyed hearing the stories of what went on. At that point, I knew that's just how it is; there's nothing I can do about it. So do I want to leave and be away from it, or since I worked so hard to get here, do I want to make the most of it and hope that eventually it'll stop? It took a lot longer than I expected for it to stop."
Roberts doesn't want to hypothesize as to what went on between JBL and Mauro, but if JBL's past proclivities are any indication, it's safe to say that something happened.
"There's speculation about what happened, and then at the same time, this book -- which covers a lot of positive things, as well -- has the story about JBL from 2003, which is a long time ago, but it had never been told. Everybody has heard JBL bullying stories, but now that this book has come out and people read about the type of stuff that went on, I think it gives them more of an idea that this could be a real thing."
Roberts says that “Anyone who’s worked there will know that everything I said was true," but perhaps out of fear or loyalty, very few are willing to go on record about what they saw or what was done to them. Many are hoping to return to the fold and be re-hired by WWE That doesn't appeal to Roberts. "People don’t really talk about those guys because they don’t want to upset them, because they’re the ones who will hire them. I had my run, and I don’t want to get hired again.”
You can read the entire interview at this link.
