The big talk coming back from Iraq was an incident involving JBL and Joey Styles. It was typical JBL bullying of a guy he saw as a nerdy type and making fun of him. It was the JBL that younger guys feel they have to endure because retaliating will cost them their job, plus JBL has the rep for being a tough guy and a street fighter and that rep makes a lot of people back down. According to one eye witness, JBL was bullying him, pouring drinks on him and calling him all sorts of names. “When he turned his back, Joey jumped him and caught JBL with a punch that gave him a small cut under the eye that was bleeding like crazy. JBL was furious.” According to one story, JBL, who has been drinking, made some comments about Styles’ family and Styles blew up at him. The whole thing was described as a slow build over several days with lots of verbal taunts. JBL had also poured a bucket of ice on Lilian Garcia as she was sleeping on the airplane. Styles is about 5-7, and JBL is about 6-6. I don’t know if Styles still trains still or not, but he did lift weights when he was younger and grew up wanting to be a wrestler until he figured he was too small for it and looked at either writing or broadcasting wrestling. Of course at TV in Philadelphia, Styles was something of the conquering hero to some (one person said not as much as you’d think because he isn’t popular in some circles, but there were definitely those who got a major kick out of the idea JBL was humiliated and by of all people, the old ECW TV announcer). JBL was quiet, working intently on his Blackberry in the hours before the show, and more subdued than usual, since he knew a lot of people were talking about him behind his back and that it’s a story that will probably be repeated forever in wrestling lore about the big bully former football star street fighter about him getting drilled with a punch by a guy some people there had nicknamed Poindexter.
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