WWE mostly promoted Bradshaw as a tag team wrestler during his early career and he mostly became successful in different tag teams. He first earned recognition as a part of The New Blackjacks and later he formed the APA along with Farooq. Together, Bradshaw and Farooq had been three times WWE Tag Team Champions.
In 2004, he started playing a singles character and adopted a new name John “Bradshaw” Layfield. He mostly became famous as JBL ever since. Soon after adopting this gimmick, he won the WWE Championship at the Great American Bash event of the mentioned year by defeating Eddie Guerrero.
JBL Remembers His Cabinet Faction And Reveals Who Selected The Members
He had an amazing run of the World title and he even had some big feud wins over the likes of The Undertaker and The Big Show. During this time, Bradshaw had a faction around him named The Cabinet. It helped Bradshaw a lot in this main event success. Recently, JBL spoke with the Something to Wrestle podcast where he revealed who selected the members for his faction;
JBL is a former WWE World Champion
“I did have some say in it, and Vince ran them by me. I had no issue with any of them—of course, I thought they were all really, really talented guys. That was Vince’s idea to have something built around me.”
“The Bashams were one of the first, and then Orlando, who was incredibly talented. Amy Weber was just kind of given to me—that was from Vince. As the talent came in, Vince said, ‘Hey, we’ve got this really talented young lady, very pretty, and we’re going to put her with you.’ That’s all I really knew.”
JBL defended the WWE title against John Cena at WrestleMania 21
“I mean, if I wanted to say, ‘No, I’m not going to work with her, I have someone else in mind,’ I guess I could have. But that was the only one that wasn’t really run by me. She was fantastic, though—really talented. I wish she would have stayed because she was really good at what she did.”
Apart from Bradshaw, the other members of the faction were Orlando Jordan, The Basham Brothers, Amy Webber, and Jillian Hall. Orlando Jordan received a strong mid card push and he even won the WWE United States title once. The Basham Brothers were also two times WWE Tag Team Champions. The Cabinet had played a great role in their success.
H/T - WrestleZone
