City's pro wrestler hits it big
By Art Lawler
He's 6-foot-6 and weighs 285, and you could call him Big John, if you were of a mind to do that.
But he's not dead, the victim of a caved-in coal mine. He's a live hero, at least with WWE fans as their longest reigning world champion, (He recently lost the title).
Wrestling fans know him now as JBL, or John Bradshaw Layfield. Or John (Bradshaw) Layfield, if you prefer the parentheses.
He's been a resident of Athens for that last 17 years, owns a home here and has no plans to leave. In fact, he was home to do some fishing and possibly to play a little golf with his friends and family over the weekend. Also to catch his dad's sermon on Sunday morning.
But JBL isn't home very often. Last week he was in Italy and Ireland because his work is popular overseas. They can't understand him in some countries, but the crowds boo if the WWE provides a translator.
So JBL communicates with his great big body instead. And, according to his publicist, he communicates with 500,000,000 fans -- that's half a billion -- who watch WWE around the world each week. No, I can't verify that number, and they might have trouble doing it themselves, but far be it for me to dispute the numbers.
JBL gets home to Athens every four to eight weeks, which, when you think about it, is a lot of jet lag.
To be honest, but for the 55 fewer pounds, nine inches in height, 40 percent more body fat and a yellow streak four inches wide down the back of my spine, I could probably take him.
He started his wrestling career as simply Bradshaw, no parentheses. Eventually he went to John Bradshaw, and finally he took back his real name, sort of, John Bradshaw Layfield.
At least the John and the Layfield are legitimate.
He's the son of a retired Athens banker (First National CEO) who is now the minister of the Malakoff Church of Christ. But like their son, Mr. and Mrs. Lavelle Layfield, also reside in Athens.
His publicist up in Connecticut, Kaye Cox calls JBL a superstar and says he's "one of our top talents in the World Wrestling Entertainment."
She also says you can catch him on SmackDown every Thursday night, which is one of the reasons she called.
The other concerns an upcoming Pay-Per-View wrestling extravaganza called "Judgment Day," which airs Sunday, May 22.
It'll cost you $34.95 to the cable or satellite companies to find out what it means in the wrestling arena.
You can also catch JBL on his syndicated weekly radio show from 12-2 p.m. every Saturday on WBAP. He talks about President Bush, steroids, the Mavericks, and he comes equipped with lots of facts and figures.
He admits being to the right, even owns up to being a Republican, but there is a limit to his conservatism. "I'm definitely to the right, but I'm not as far to the right as Hannity and Limbaugh," he said.
His radio show is piped into 150 cities, and he's enough of a celebrity that he got to speak at the Republican National Convention while trying to help George W. Bush get re-elected last year.
He also gives his time to a lot of worthy causes, like the last three Christmases he's spent in the current war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq. He's also visited in Kuwait, and he plans to return to the Mideast this Christmas.
As co-chairman for "SmackDown Your Vote," he says the group was able to register four million wrestling fans to vote in last year's presidential election.
Oh yeah, he's also written a book, "Have More Money Now." He says it reads more like a narrative because most books on financing aren't that reader-friendly.
Though he's got a lot of family scattered from Athens to Kerens, he was actually born in Abilene and attended school 40 miles west on I-20 in Sweetwater.
He also played for the Abilene Christian Wildcats as an offensive tackle in 1988-89, and says he came up one semester shy in getting his degree.
He later played in the World Football League for two years and one year with the L. A. Raiders, and even coached a year at TVCC.
I'm assuming you knew most of this stuff already, but if not, I'm bringing you up to date.
Small wonder he likes to get back to Athens for some quiet fishing and golfing once in a while.
http://www.athensreview.com/articles/2005/05/02/news/news18.txt
