Talk is Jericho – Something To Jericho…with Bruce Prichard
Release Date: 07/13/2018
Recap by: Caitlin Lavelle
DIRECT LINK TO LISTEN/DOWNLOAD
4:50 – Bruce Prichard on the origins of the Something to Wrestle Podcast
Jericho asks Bruce about life before his podcast, Something to Wrestle. He prompts Bruce by remembering a conversation the two had back in 2015, where Bruce said he was working as a car salesman. Bruce remembers, “I had sold cars for about three weeks at that time. Wow! That’s scary you remember that. I was out of the business. I was done. Moving on. No more wrestling business for me. Then they sucked me back in, by god! It was like, come back!
“I went from just being out of everything until I met Conrad Thompson, he’s my cohost. He has a mortgage company, and I started selling mortgages, doing mortgages with Conrad. One day we’re sitting at his house in Huntsville, Alabama, and he would always ask me questions like, ‘Hey, what happened when…’, and he would give me an example. And I would just go off and start telling stories.
“He asked me about Eddie Guerrero and (Chris) Benoit and Dean Malenko, the Radicalz, and when they came over from WCW. And I told him this long, convoluted story about how all that took place. He looked at me and said, ‘Man, that’s a podcast.’ I said ‘Yeah, that’s something that’s never going to happen’. I wasn’t comfortable sharing those stories in a public forum. He kept on me. We recorded three or four pilot shows, and here I am.”
11:10 – Bruce Prichard on giving behind-the-scenes insight
Bruce says, “For me, I was very uncomfortable. There are three people that can tell the same stories I can tell from that perspective, and that’s myself, Pat Patterson and Vince McMahon. And for now, they aren’t talking. They probably never will.
“I do it in a way out of respect for them, respect for the business. I try to do it in an entertaining way, from my perspective.”
12:38 – Bruce Prichard and Jericho on Vince “promising” wrestlers title runs
Bruce says, “My other favorite is when guys say, ‘I was promised the belt. Vince promised me a championship run.’
“You’ve heard it a million times. I can hear it too, where Vince says, ‘Goddamnit, I can see you as the WWE Champion!’ In their head, it’s, ‘Vince told me I’m going to be the WWE Champion.’”
Jericho shares, “Two years ago, Vince had a meeting with me and said, ‘Here’s what we’re going to do – you’re going to beat Kevin Owens for the World Title at WrestleMania, and then you’re going to lose it to Brock the next month (the month before I left).’ And then the whole thing went down with Brock and Goldberg. They did the whole thing where Goldberg beat Brock in two minutes, and Vince was like ‘Yep, well now Brock is going to beat Goldberg for the title, we’re going in a different direction.’
“I didn’t flip out and get angry because I get it, things change. So, even saying you were promised the belt, promise is such a bad word. You were told you were going to get the title, like I was. When it changed a week later, I wasn’t angry about it or pissed off. It’s how the business works. For a guy to say that, what a mark. What a marky thing to say.”
15:50 – Bruce Prichard and Jericho on (unintentionally) getting Bastion Booger and Snitsky Fired
Bruce says, “Bastion (Booger, real name Mike Shaw) was concerned about his bookings one day. He came over to Pat and I and was saying ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m not getting enough work. I’m not getting any bookings. What do I do? Can you guys help me out?’
“I said, ‘Right there is Vince’s office. Walk in there and just tell him. Tell him you need more bookings. Tell him what you want to do. Tell him your feelings. We’re not going to control it. He is.’
“Mike goes and knocks on the door. He walks in. He comes out. Pat and I are still sitting in the exact same spot. We go, ‘Mike, you feel better now?’
“(Bastion) says, ‘Um, I don’t know.’
“We ask, ‘What did he say?’
(Bastion) says, ‘He gave me my notice. I told him I was unhappy and Vince took his book out and said, ‘Well if you’re unhappy you shouldn’t be here! You finish up in…how’s Youngstown sound?’”
Jericho says, “I did that actually one time with Snitsky. He was unhappy. I said, ‘Well, you’ve got to go talk to Vince.’ Same way. He went in there. A week later Vince gave him his notice.”
23:20 – Bruce on meeting Paul Boesch and joining Houston Wrestling
Bruce explains that he started working for promoter Paul Boesch at Houston Wrestling when he was 10-years old, selling posters in the crowd at Sam Houston Coliseum alongside other kids. Because Bruce sold the most posters, he was asked to sell posters weekly, inside the ring before the show and at intermission.
Bruce says that Paul Boesch had a local wrestling ticket office, which was open every weekday. Bruce says, “Paul would get his mail at 9:30 every morning. He would come out of his back office, come to the front office and get his mail. If (Bruce and brother Tom Prichard) had a day off school or any kind of holiday, my mom would take us to the office, so we were there at 9:15, 9:20, because Paul Boesch came out at 9:30 to get the mail. We’d say, ‘Hey Paul, how are you?’
“Paul would see us and say, ‘Hey, how are you guys doing?’ and he would bring us back to his office, which meant we got to go back down the forbidden hallway, which had all the pictures lined on it, and you’d get to go back to Paul’s office, and he had all these plaques and statues, and a bunch of stuff which I now have in my office. He knew how much we loved wrestling, and we were those kids who were always there. He took a liking to us.”
Bruce says he started working as the Assistant Director for Houston Wrestling’s weekly television show when he was 12-years-old, keeping time on the show and giving Paul Boesch the commercial cues.
Bruce says he first started ring announcing for Houston Wrestling at 14 and began refereeing at 16.
36:38 – Bruce Prichard on Gary Hart
Bruce says, “Gary was one of those guys, one of the first that I saw that hint of genius. He was also one of the first guys that took a liking to me that would ask me my opinion on things. I didn’t know what the hell he was asking at the time, because you would think you’re smart, but no one ever really smartened you up.”
37:00 – Bruce Prichard on learning to speak carny from Gary Busey
Bruce says, “I get a phone call from my brother. He was in California, working for Mike Labelle at the time. He said, ‘I want you to go get a movie and tell me what you learn.’ The name of the movie was Carny. It stared Gary Busey and Jody Foster.
“I went and got the movie. I watched the movie, and I called him back and said, ‘Yeah, a carnival is an awful lot like the wrestling business, blah, blah blah…’, telling him what I think he wants to hear. He’s like, ‘Wrong! Didn’t get it!’ and hangs up.
“I go back and watch it again, and then the next time I talk to him he’s ‘spizeaking cizarny’. I said, ‘What the hell? I don’t understand what you’re saying.’ He said, ‘Wizatch the mizovie again.’
“I watch it. In the movie, Gary Busey, who’s a clown, teaches his girlfriend to speak ‘cizarny’. That’s how I learned carny.”
45:00 – Bruce Prichard on Gino Hernandez
Bruce says, “Gino Hernandez would have been the best Million Dollar Man ever, because Gino was the Million Dollar Man.”
“Farrah Fawcett came into town, she would be on his arm. Bianca Jagger would come into town, she would be on his arm.”
52:30 – Bruce Prichard on how he got his foot in the door at WWF
In the mid-1980’s, Bruce says he began working part-time in Bill Watt’s Universal Wrestling Federation (UWF), in addition to his position with Paul Boesch’s Houston Wrestling. Bruce began becoming disenfranchised with Houston Wrestling around this time. In 1986, he was approached by friend and UWF co-worker Eddie Gilbert, who told Bruce he was about to go meet with Vince McMahon. Gilbert asked Bruce if would be interested in working for the WWF.
Bruce says, “I said, ‘Hell yeah.’ I never even imagined that was a possibility. At that time, I’m 23. The only thing I’d ever done was be in Houston. Paul Boesch was my mentor. All I heard was these horrible, evil stories about the nasty Titan Sports and WWF. The last thing I wanted to do was go to New York. But I said, ‘Yeah.’
“When Eddie went up there, he presented me as, ‘Hey Vince, you know the guy that kicks your ass every time he’s in Houston? He’s interested in a job.’
“I called Vince every single day until he took my call. He said, ‘You’re persistent! God Damn!’”
55:00 – Bruce Prichard on his last show with Houston Wrestling
Bruce, who was working for WWF at the time, says, “(Houston Wrestling) threw a swerve at us (WWF) the day of the show. Vince stood up and dropped his pants. He said, ‘God Damnit, you didn’t even use Vaseline!’, pulled his pants up, buttoned them, looks at me and said, ‘Do we have anything else to discuss here?’
“WWE got screwed by Houston on the last show. They kept the house.”
Bruce explains that the WWF covered all of the costs on the show. Bruce says, “I’m 24-years-old. This is August on 1987; I had officially started work there April 1st. So I don’t really know Vince that well, but I’m scared for my life. We got in the limo, and everything is kind of calm, intense, nothing said. Then the wooden deal that holds the crystal glasses in the middle of the limo went flying. Glass breaking everywhere, all this stuff. (Vince) kicked it.
“I said, ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t know.’ He snapped, from snapping to looking at me and going, ‘Damn, pal, how would you know? Just don’t tell Terry.’ Meaning, don’t tell Hulk. (Vince) didn’t want anyone to know, didn’t want the boys to know.
“At the end of the night, everything is done, there’s a big party for Paul Boesch to celebrate Paul’s retirement (at the Hyatt Regency).
“I get back to the room. Vince calls me. He asks, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. I’m probably going to go down, meet some friends, get a beer. I’m going to get drunk.’
“Vince says, ‘You’re going down to the party.’ I said, ‘Hell no, I’m not going to the party!’
“(Vince says), ‘Oh, yes you are. Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to go down to that party. You’re going to go right up to Paul, you’re going to go right up to his nephew. You’re going to shake their hand, look them in the eye and thank them for everything they’ve ever done for you. And then, you’re going to be at that party until the last person leaves because that’s the right thing to do.’
“I’m pissed. I’m pouting. I’m like, ‘Alright, I’m going to take a shower, I’ll see you down there.’ (Vince says) ‘I’m not going down to that god damn party!’”
1:15:30 – Bruce Prichard on RAW 25
Bruce says, “It was kind of like out of a movie. I was walking toward the Gorilla Position about ten minutes before the show. There was no one in the hallway, it was an empty hallway at Barclays. He came out of his office in front of me. He didn’t see me.
“I just yelled, ‘Vince McMahon!’ He stopped in his tracks. Without turning around, he says, ‘Brucey Poo!’
“He turned around. We shook hands and I said, ‘Have fun.’
“I knew he was in the first segment. That wasn’t the time to talk. We talked at the end, and just had a very short, ‘Good to see you, thank you for having me, hope to see you again soon.’ That was it.”
Jericho says, “That 25th was hard for me because I’m not working there right now either. There were so many people to see. It’s hard because you feel like you’re jobbing everyone out, because you just say ‘Hi’ for two seconds.
“That’s why I just hung out in the room when you were there, and Brian was there, because I can’t see everyone but at least I can see a few people and hang out.
“That’s where I always hang out now, either in talent relations or the writers room.”
Bruce says, “Here’s the asshole in me – when they initially called me (about Raw 25), I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll think about it’.”
Jericho says, “I said no. and we both ended up there! I said, ‘I don’t want to go,’ and then you get the call – ‘VKM’. He said, ‘What’s going on?’ I said, ‘I don’t…’, (and Vince said), ‘Just do it!’ The Jedi mind trick happens again.”
Bruce says, “That’s funny, I didn’t get the VKM call. I did get another call from someone else, who had a message from VKM.”
1:17:30 – Bruce Prichard on throwing away his Brother Love costume
Bruce says, “I threw my old (costume) out the window into Galveston Bay.
I did an appearance, and I had the suit, the jacket, tie, shirt and everything, and I had taken it all off after the appearance. It was sitting in the front seat of my car. I was driving over Galveston Bay. Gorilla Monsoon had told me this story about throwing his stuff off the George Washington Bridge, and I just had a hair. I threw it out the window. That was in 2013, something like that.”
Timestamps
0:22 -Intro
3:24 – Interview begins
4:50 – Bruce Prichard on the origins of the Something to Wrestle Podcast
11:10 – Bruce Prichard on giving behind-the-scenes insight
12:38 – Bruce Prichard and Jericho on Vince ‘promising’ wrestlers title runs
15:50 – Bruce Prichard and Jericho on (unintentionally) getting Bastion Booger and Snitsky Fired
20:10 – Advertisement
22:58 – Interview resumes
23:20 – Bruce on meeting Paul Boesch and joining Houston Wrestling
36:38 – Bruce Prichard on Gary Hart
37:00 – Bruce Prichard on learning to speak carny from Gary Busey
45:00 – Bruce Prichard on Gino Hernandez
52:30 – Bruce Prichard on how he got his foot in the door at WWF
55:00 – Bruce Prichard on his last show with Houston Wrestling
1:15:30 – Bruce Prichard on RAW 25
1:17:30 – Bruce Prichard on throwing away his Brother Love costume
1:22:20 – Outro
Review: This episode is really fun to listen to. If you like Bruce Prichard but don’t always get a chance to dive into Something to Wrestle, this is a great opportunity to hear him tell stories in an abridged format, unencumbered by Conrad Thompson. Rating: 8/10
Writer Bio
Caitlin is a wrestling fan who hopes to one day discover that she is the illegitimate daughter of Vincent Kennedy McMahon and the rightful Anonymous RAW General Manager. Until then, she’ll keep on living in Orlando, Florida with her husband and son.
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