Upon accessing this blog you're probably asking yourself a few questions. Probably "what is this going to be about?" Well, put simply it's going to be a review of every single WWF/E pay per view match of John "Bradshaw" Layfield, in chronological order. That probably raises more questions like "why?" and "who the bloody hell would do that sort of thing?". These are very good questions and most people would probably baulk at the idea of watching even one Bradshaw match voluntarily but the thing is I bloody love Bradshaw and I always have. I love his aesthetic, I love his big galoot Texan face, I love his big galoot Texan drawl, I love his big galoot Texan move set. The reason why I decided to do this is because, quite frankly, I would have been watching these matches anyway and I just sort of like rating and reviewing things so I thought, yeah, why not review all of Bradshaw's matches and see if he's really any good or if I'm just the most bizarre "stan" there is.
Most wrestling fans would agree that, even if they never really cared for Bradshaw's ring work, the JBL character was one of the most entertaining and memorable of his era. Feuding with the likes of Undertaker, Rey Mysterio, John Cena and Eddie Guerrero, given a push afforded to him by a friendship with Triple H and loyalty to the WWE, Bradshaw used the few decent tools he had and had a memorable main event run where he was made to look good. A just reward for a long tenure in the company. That's, I would guess, the conventional wisdom around Bradshaw but I think that's unfair and that's hopefully gonna be the mission with this. To convince people that rather than a decent performer who was rewarded with a big push due to loyalty and politics, Bradshaw was always a great prospect with main event potential. He just needed to find the right opportunity and the right character to make it happen. If this were a scientific experiment - and in some ways it is - the hypothesis would be "Bradshaw is more gifted than most people give him credit for and ultimately he was underrated". Just like any hypothesis, this could easily prove to be false. Maybe I'm just too biased and I'm rating a solid 6/10 wrassler as a WRESTLING GOD.
According to Cagematch.de Bradshaw had 87 PPV matches in his illustrious career, 86 coming in the WWF/E. His first outing was on the most obscure wrestling PPV of all time CWA Bodyguards vs Bandits. I doubt I will ever be able to find this curious beast but if I can I will definitely be sure to review it. As for his run in "New York" I won't be including Free For All or Pre-Show bouts, nor the 30 second dark match with Jake Roberts that took place on the aborted Beware Of Dog PPV. I aren't entirely sure what to do with battle royales as for the purposes of this I haven't really worked out a fair way to judge them. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. What I will be doing is watching and reviewing every singles, tag and multi man bout that Bradshaw took part in on PPV proper, noting the evolution of Bradshaw as a performer and hopefully compiling a definitive ranked list of every PPV bout the great man appeared in (ideally in a spreadhseet. Who doesn't love a spreadsheet?). In the course of this I hope to shine a light on what a great performer Bradshaw always was, change some perceptions that he was just a "hoss" with friends in high places, convince myself that I aren't wasting my life watching midcard Bradshaw matches from the late 90s and answer the all important question: was any match that Bradshaw appeared in remotely as good as Judgment Day 2004.
So please grab youself whatever drink you feel appropriate for such an endeavour, prepare to have your perceptions challenged and join me as I go boldly where no man has gone before. Hopefully we'll have a few laughs along the way too.
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