John "Bradshaw" Layfield, AKA JBL, is a WWE legend both in and out of the ring and now he's opened up why he quit doing ring commentary for the company, despite years of experience.
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In a recent appearance on the "Something To Wrestle With" podcast, JBL revealed that he quit doing ring commentary not because of any disagreements with WWE or dissatisfaction with the job, but for a simple reason: traveling is hard.
"I didn't like the travel. It wasn't the commentary, it was the travel," JBL explained. "I was living in Bermuda, and I was traveling two flights almost every week, sometimes all the way to the West Coast. And I just didn't like the travel. I loved the commentary. If I could have done commentary in my house, I'd have done it forever."
JBL initially retired from professional wrestling in 2009, when he lost the Intercontinental Championship title to Rey Mysterio at WrestleMania 25. However, he had already begun doing color commentary on SmackDown in 2006 while recuperating from a back injury and immediately showed a knack for it.
For more than a decade, JBL would be one of WWE's most popular ringside commentators. Although he would periodically return to the ring (notably leaving the commentary table to fight as a surprise entrant in the 2014 Royal Rumble), he became arguably as well-known as a commentator as a wrestler.
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Apparently, that amount of travel takes its toll on even the toughest wrestler or the most enthusiastic commentator. JBL acknowledged that his time at the commentary table was pretty much over and that he had been de facto replaced, although he didn't seem to have any hard feelings about it.
"You know, they move on. And now they've got, you know, great commentaries out there," JBL continued. "And there's not a spot for me, and there shouldn't be because these guys are fantastic. But the main thing was, it was just the travel. I got tired of getting on a plane every week. I have 6.3 million miles on American Airlines alone. And I'm just sick of getting on — to this day, getting on planes wore me out."
JBL officially stepped away from SmackDown commentary in 2017 and primarily now focuses on humanitarian work. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame as part of the class of 2020.
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