— According to a report by Justin Barrasso at Sports Illustrated, JBL actually gave his notice to WWE that he was leaving almost 11 months ago, when his contract expired in October 2016. This would mean that he had decided to leave the company well before the controversy with Mauro Ranallo surfaced.
Click Here: Golf special
— When the Ranallo incident came to light, there was significant pressure from WWE’s Board of Directors to fire JBL or at least re-assign him to a lesser position in the company, but Vince McMahon resisted those calls and refused to cave into public pressure as he felt the situation would blow over.
— While all that has happened and Ranallo has ended up back with the company, the announcement that JBL was moving on came late last week and appears to be primarily travel related. WWE had booked Layfield to arrive each week for Smackdown by Sunday, but he began changing those plans on his own and arriving on Tuesday, just in time for his on-air role on the program. JBL, who lives in Bermuda, was doing this for two months before being “confronted” by WWE officials, who felt that he was likely just burnt out from travel so when his resignation came in, it surprised the company.
— As they announced earlier today, Corey Graves will be stepping in for JBL on Smackdown beginning this week.