Before he’d become the cowboy hat-wearing JBL that was hated by everyone, John Layfield was known simply as “Bradshaw” as one half of the APA tag team with pro wrestling veteran, Ron Simmons, known to WWE fans as “Farooq.”
Unfortunately, despite being over as a team, the APA had to break up, as Simmons retired. In an appearance on the “Six Feet Under with The Undertaker” podcast, Layfield looked back at APA’s separation and what Simmons taught him.
“Oh, I hated it, absolutely hated it,” he exclaimed, admitting that it eventually worked out better for him.
“I retired at, pretty much, the same age as Ron did, you know, five or six years later. Ron was beat up,” Layfield said, pointing out how Simmons had a lengthy career as an athlete that took it’s toll, but ultimately wanted to pass the torch to him. “[He] set me up to have a good chance at success.”
One of Layfield’s greatest rivals in WWE was undoubtedly Eddie Guerrero, and according to the veteran, the combination of Guerrero and Simmons helped him propel him into greater success.
“Ron’s the one who set that all up. He gave me all that heat,” he recalled, noting how he turned on Simmons to become a heel originally. “I’d have been fine if I had been APA my whole career; you know, I think that much of Ron.”
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit “Six Feet Under with The Undertaker” and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
