While it lacked any major bombshell quotes - John Bradshaw Layfield, Corey Graves and Peter Rosenberg touched on Brock Lesnar vs. Jon Jones, but their juiciest discussions dealt with “backstage heat” on Enzo Amore and between Sasha Banks and Alexa Bliss - WWE Network’s Bring It To The Table probably delivered its strongest episode last night (July 31).
Mostly, that’s because the three hosts have developed an entertaining comraderie with one another. They butt heads and disagree, as an opinion show like this requires, but they also appear to be having fun and enjoying themselves. It’s a big step up from earlier episodes where JBL and first Paul Heyman, then his replacement Graves, mocked and ridiculed Rosenberg as a fan surrogate.
The best example of this came during a topic entitled “By The Book” where Rosenberg asked the Raw and SmackDown commentators if there was any truth to the persistent rumors of a list of “banned” phrases talent aren’t supposed to use on WWE programming. Both Graves and Layfield denied there were anything more than “strongly worded suggestions” they use “preferred terms”, so Rosenberg tried another tact, asking if there was ever an agenda to use a certain word.
Like calling the Punjabi Prison a “structure”.
JBL denied it, but then Rosenberg called for production to roll this tape, proving the Battleground announce team used the word 64 times during the July 23 main event:
Clearly busted, Layfield’s response to Rosenberg’s laughter was “You’re a **** - is that banned?”
That’s good stuff. As is the sixth episode of Bring It To The Table. Watch it here.