JBL Named A Surprising WWE Superstar As His 'Greatest Of All Time'

The match was a well received, smash mouth sprint of violence, opening the show at the Citrus Bowl in Orlando, Florida and clocking in at just under nine minutes. During a recent episode of 'Something To Wrestle' with Conrad Thompson, Layfield explained how much of a dream that bout was.

"I learned so much from him that when I got a chance to be at WrestleMania with him, that was a dream come true. I was so excited, and to this day I'm thrilled about the fact that I got to go out there with a guy I have so much admiration and respect for, and the match was, to me, was perfect. We both just love hitting each other, and other people really hard."JBL

The reason the Belfast Brawl meant so much to JBL? He had come up in the wrestling business watching Finlay work his magic every night in Europe, before the duo became household names in the United States.

"It's like working with Terry Funk, or working with Kerry Von Erich, or tagging with Dick Murdoch, wrestling Shawn Michaels or [The] Undertaker, I mean it really is something, because I got to see Dave every night in Europe, and I got to see him at his peak. I'm telling you, for those that didn't see him, you missed–when I say he's the greatest of all time, that's not bulls**t, that's what I believe." 

JBL would win the match at WrestleMania 24 before going onto feud with John Cena and CM Punk for the rest of the year. He would retire from in-ring competition at WrestleMania 25 after losing the Intercontinental Title (which he had won from Punk a month earlier) to Rey Mysterio in just 21 seconds. In reality, the WWE Hall of Famer was retiring due to injury issues that had caused his initial retirement three years earlier.

(H/T Wrestling Inc for the transcription)