JBL comments on Vince McMahon firing a wrestler for using the word “pricks” during WWE promo
During the Something to Wrestle podcast, JBL (John Layfield) and Conrad Thompson discussed Brad Maddox being fired by Vince McMahon for using the word “picks” in a 2015 WWE promo. Here was the exchange…
Conrad: “Is it true that that was all based on him using the word prick in a promo?”
JBL: “Yes, I think it was. Yeah. I talked to Vince. I, you know, talked with Vince a lot. I flew with Vince a lot. Vince told me one day, he goes, ‘That kid’s special.’ That’s the only time I ever heard him say that, you know. Now, he said nicer things about people, but I remember the way he said it — he thought, like, ‘that kid’s got it,’ you know. And man, you don’t hear that from Vince very much. Vince really liked Maddox. Then when he went out there — I’m sitting there waiting, it was like a pre-show, and I’m sitting there waiting to go out with Michael Cole — and that’s when Maddox called the fans a bunch of pricks or something. He comes back and Vince fired him. Vince hated that word. He thought that was a classless word.
I’ve told you before, it’s one of the few times I got in trouble. All the stuff I’ve said on commentary, all the stuff I’ve said in promos — one of the few times I ever got in trouble was when I called someone a selfish prick, I believe, or egotistical prick, or something like that. Vince pulled me aside. He said, ‘We have sponsors here, we have all these people here — you can’t use language like that.’ It’s something about that word that Vince hated. But yes, that was the word that got Maddox fired.”
Conrad: “Did you hear they used it on TV just last week?”
JBL: “I did. Yes, it was Becky Lynch, right?”
Conrad: “Yep. She called Paul Heyman a prick. Another reminder that, oh, Vince really is gone.”







