WWE News: Betting odds on whether or not JBL will be fired
What’s the story?
JBL has been in the news a lot lately, ever since the release of a book by former WWE ring announcer Justin Roberts. In the book, Roberts revealed that JBL would bully him and say “why don’t you just kill yourself” during his time with the company along with a host of other things. To add fuel to the fire, this bullying has allegedly led to Mauro Ranallo leaving the company.
Due to these recent developments, according to BetWrestling.com, you can now bet on whether or not JBL will be fired by the WWE or not.
In case you didn’t know...
On April 7th JBL responded to the claims made in Roberts’ book with the following tweet:
I won't answer Net rumors-but I didn't take Justin Roberts passport. Could have been anyone/he was hated by the whole crew. He's an idiot.
— John Layfield (@JCLayfield) April 7, 2017
Not necessarily the type of response someone being accused of bullying should post.
The heart of the matter...
BetWrestling.com provided the following details of betting on JBL’s job status:
Irish sports book Paddy Power has posted betting odds on if JBL will indeed be released from the WWE. Layfield is actually slightly favored to lose his job by July. With initial odds of 4/6 there is just under a 60% probability of JBL losing his job by July 1, 2017. Over the course of less than a day, these odds have been backed by gamblers in the direction of JBL indeed being fired and rests currently at 8/15, do the probability is now at 65%.
What makes it more interesting was during this week’s edition of Smackdown Live, you could clearly hear chants of “fire JBL” and “we want Mauro”. It appears that the story isn’t going to go away any time soon.
What's next?
At this time, it is unknown if there will be any action taken against JBL. Current WWE employee Jerry Lawler has gone on the record and thinks that JBL will not lose his job for these claims.
Mike Johnson from PWInsider didn’t expect the WWE to take action against JBL, unless it started getting mainstream attention. The New York Post reported on this story yesterday, so things could start to change.
Author's take...
Just by the sheer number of people in the business who are speaking out about JBL’s actions, it’s clear that there is more than a grain of truth to the story. I’ve said it here before, but JBL deserves the pink slip from the WWE. We lost a great play by play announcer in Mauro Ranallo because of him. Mauro was a breath of fresh air and adored almost universally by fans.
When you think about it, Justin Roberts has no true reason to make this up. I fully believed that this was true when Dave Meltzer from the Wrestling Observer said that he’s spoken to about 15 different people past and present within the WWE that can confirm JBL’s actions.