John Bradshaw Layfield discusses the New Blackjacks working the AJPW Real World Tag League in 1997.
Even though Bradshaw would stay with WWE for the entirety of his career after arriving in 1996, he didn't always feel like his job was that secure. In 1997, Bradshaw was part of the New Blackjacks, alongside Barry Windham. By the end of that year, Bradshaw had developed an interest in working in Japan. He felt that his days with WWE were coming to an end, and he was looking for his next secure landing spot in the industry.
Bradshaw and Windham would work the 1997 AJPW Real World Tag League, and he now reveals that Jim Ross and Vince McMahon were hoping that would help WWE establish a relationship with Giant Baba's promotion. JBL spoke about the expectations for WWE's hopeful relationship with AJPW on the latest episode of the Something to Wrestle podcast.
"What happened was, two days after the Montreal Screwjob, Barry Windham had arranged for us to go to the tag team tournament for All Japan. He had a great relationship with Baba. I wanted to get a job in Japan because my contract was coming up," he explained. "This was around November, Survivor Series, so it had to be. My contract was up in either December or January. I didn't think they were going to re-sign me, and so I wanted to get a job in Japan. Barry had in mind to be the liaison between Baba and Vince. It wasn't just Barry who came up with that. [Jim Ross] came up with that, or at least JR is the one that told us about it. JR told us that they need a liaison. We want to deal with All Japan, and Barry was going to be that guy. Now, we didn't realize that John Laurinaitis had a very close tie in with the Japanese office, and that position was already filled, and there wasn't a chance for Barry to take that position because that position already existed. But what Vince wanted was to us, and this is all coming through what JR and Vince told us specifically, we want you guys to for forge a relationship with Japan so we can work with those guys [said], they wanted access to [Gary] Albright, they want access to Stan [Hansen], they wanted access to ['Dr. Death' Steve Williams], to [Kenta] Kobashi, to Mitsuharu Misawa, you know, they wanted access to that, very similar to what WCW had.
"So we were the ones that were sent over, kind of as olive Branch, to Baba to forge that relationship," he continued. "That was what we were supposed to come out of, and I think we would have, except for what I said, that John Laurinaitis was already in that position. They still kind of tried to do it. But that's when everything changed after Montreal Screwjob."
Obviously, Bradshaw would end up staying with WWE and eventually becoming its champion in 2004. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2021.
Barry Windham was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame twice: once as a member of the Four Horsemen in 2012 and again in 2024, alongside Mike Rotunda, as part of the US Express.
Today, WWE NXT has a talent exchange with Japan's Pro Wrestling NOAH, which benefits talents like Josh Briggs and Tavion Heights.
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