Something To Wrestle With… Bruce Prichard (Episode 50: Austin Walks Out)
Air date: 6/9/17
In Steve Austin’s own words, he was “the most demanding superstar Vince had ever worked with.” Do you agree with that assertion?
“Absolutely. You have to put him over when you’re talking about this because the son of a bitch drew more money, made more money for the company. So he was demanding in that you had him going out on every appearance, you had him doing every Make-A-Wish, you had him making every event, every television, every radio. So with that, he came back to you and he wanted the best of the best from everybody at all times. Steve went harder than anybody else at that time. And he was run hard and put up wet. And with all of that, he wanted the best out of everybody. He wanted the best creative. He wanted to be catered to. He didn’t want to have to worry about anything else. He wanted his s**t done. He was demanding but he wasn’t that hard to deal with. For me, he was straight forward, no bulls**t. You knew where you stood with him and that was it. Sometimes you didn’t like it. But you didn’t wonder where the hell you stood with him. So that’s demanding, but at the same time, I’d rather have that than trying to read the tea leaves with somebody wondering what they want.”
What did you think of Vince McMahon’s statement that Austin had been producing gold records instead of platinum ones? Fair?
“Not really, because I don’t know that Steve was given platinum material to work with. You’re only going to produce a platinum album that has great creative behind it and he wasn’t presented with the greatest creative in the world. And that comes back to me and to the writing team and goes back to Vince.”
The old cliche used when someone is cut is “creative doesn’t have anything for you.” Sometimes it isn’t bad to go away.
“As Jim Ross would say ‘sometimes you just gotta go away, learn a new hold.’ And when you come back you’re fresh and you’re new all over again. Yes, it is good to get away and give talent a rest. The old system of booking, especially in the WWF, was guys had a start date and they had an end date. So when they got their end date, they had another start date in New York, if they were any good and the old man liked them.”
(Recap and transcription by Jeff Rush)
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