Episode 493: Ask Bruce Anything

Hello, I'm here with Jose Mourinho and Snickers for Football's Rapid Fire On or Off Your Game. Right, Jose, you've got one or two opinions on football, so I want you to tell me whether the following is On or Off It's Game. First up, VAR. Half the game. Half and half scarves? Half the game. What about backflip celebrations? Half. Cutting holes in the back of your socks? Half, half, half the game. What I hate, even the ones without calves, they do the holes. Snickers, you are off your game when you are hungry. When life gets hectic, energy ups and downs are all you need. If you're seeking energy reassurance, Eonnext can help. From regularly updating our tariffs to get you our best value, to SmartTek that helps you take control of your energy future, we're here for whatever's next. Just one of the reasons why we're rated excellent on TrustPilot by our customers. Find out more about how we can help at eonnext.com. Eligibility and T's and C's apply. TrustPilot February 2026. And we'll see you next year. Make it happen today at savewithconrad.com. And on December 2129, Equal Housing Lender. Hey, hey, it's Conrad, the mortgage guy, and you're listening to Something to Wrestle With. Oh, shit, I wonder if we should even start taping yet. Chris, what's going on, man? How are you? I just, I, I, I, we should have talked about this before we got on the air. Okay. So you can take this out if you want to, or you can leave it in. All right. Okay. But I went down the rabbit hole with you yesterday on, on the Mark, because you're a Conrad, mortgage guy, and on the 50 year mortgages was, Hey folks, I know nothing about. I don't really know. But here's a good rule of thumb, thumb. Okay. Just use common sense and educate yourself. Nobody's telling you what to do or what not to do. And again, I, I, I just had to because I thought that the, I should, should have died. Whoever made the comment that it was stupid that you suggested a 50 year mortgage when you did not suggest a 50 year mortgage when you were just talking about mortgages, because that's what you do is mortgages. And you know it probably better than anybody I've ever known. And I just, when you said that, it just tickled me because I thought, I spent, Hey guys, you know what? The very simplest way to do any of this stuff is educate yourself, educate yourself. And yes, I will tell you owning is better than renting. Okay. Yes. Having a mortgage, you know, paying something so that you have equity in something is better than renting. That's my opinion for whatever the hell it's worth. They're like assholes. Everybody's got one, but I just found it hilarious because I was on a plane ride and just in airport yesterday and I had just time on my hands. I just, I was laughing to myself and my wife asked me, what are you laughing at? So Conrad's gone down and just opened his big mouth, just said something. And then somebody said something else. And somebody said something else. And somebody said something else, but it's all like, Hey man, cool. You want to rent for the rest of your life, rent for the rest of your life. You want to have mortgage, you want to have 15 year mortgage in a 30 year mortgage or a 50 year mortgage or a 7 and a half year mortgage. Or if you want to go to your best friend and borrow some money from, do whatever works for you. Okay. It's just somebody was giving you an opinion, trying to help, trying to say, Hey, God, anyway, sorry, I had to get that. I meant to bring it up before we started taking coin. Good Lord, man. Folks, Edge, just, I mean, read up on it, find someone, you know, if, Hey, you know what, if you like Conrad Swartgaard not saying this, and we did not discuss this before we got it on the air. I'm just saying this because he's the smartest guy ever that educated me. Somebody said, Oh, I'm 40 years old and I don't know, we don't think about life or anything like that. I was 50. You know, Hey, I had a mortgage. I had a 30 year mortgage, but I didn't really know. I didn't really get into it until I met Conrad in 2016. And then I learned about mortgages and went, you know, well, Hey, really, how you can make them work for you basically, you do what's right for you. Yes, I own my house. Yes. I don't have any, I don't have a mortgage. I don't have rent. I don't have anything. But you can too. And that's the thing. And it's not, and by the way, I'm not selling shit here. No. Okay. I'm just saying in general, because when you look at it, I just, I giggle whenever anybody nowadays in media, any side who will pick one little thing off of anything that they think they can get a nugget of something that they can get people controversially talking about, they will dig in. And it's just in everything, not just mortgages, man, just educate yourself, educate yourself, form your own opinion, not somebody else's. Well said, Bruce. Look at that. Even got to look at that. Look at me. Man, my American mug here with my fruit punch. God bless America. And God bless Bruce, Richard for understanding that they even renters are paying a mortgage, just not their own. They're paying their landlord's mortgage. Yeah. And then on top of that, their landlord, you know, he's in the business of making money. So he has to have profit on top of his mortgage in order to live his lifestyle. And if you're the renter, you're paying for that. So those types of things are free lunch here in America in 2025. If they buy a new refrigerator or a new stove or a new bit washer, it's theirs. You're just using it. You're paying to rent it. If you move out the refrigerator, the stove, everything stays there. Yes. That's theirs. They didn't buy it for you because you're a nice person. Anyway, I'm sorry. I just said. Well, listen to me. I'll get back on it. Now keep it closed. We promise we're here to talk about Rastlin and we're going to do that. But if you do have questions about credit or buying a house or credit card debt or you just need a plan, I do want to be your mortgage advisor for life. And you can email me directly at Conrad at savewithconrad.com or my DMs are open on Twitter, which is where I guess Bruce had a lot of fun yesterday in the airport reading me debate whether or not it was okay if your landlord bought a refrigerator. I don't know. What are we doing? Hey, good for you. I tell you what you do. Ask him to buy your groceries for six months. Well, I don't know if you saw, but I did pitch a few people where they were like, I know that he's got to pay his mortgage and make profit. I just don't want to fool with it. I'm great with it. And I offered multiple times. I would love to be your new landlord. I would. Keep your guarantee in me profit. I'm not going to say no. I'll take it. Come on. Would you like a brand new place? Then you just pay me that rent. I'll get you a brand new place. Yeah, sure. It's crazy. Listen, we want to help you with that. Anytime you're ready at savewithconrad.com. The reason we're here today, Bruce, and thank you for the little plug and love up front is to throw the keys to our audience. And given what we just talked about, that could be dangerous, but we're doing ask Bruce anything. Let's talk about some way back. Dismalabismal wants to know, none of the modern day in-ring interview segments seem to have the same feel or impact as the old school Piper's Pit, the Barbershop, the Free North Parlor, or even the Heartbreak Hotel. Would Bruce like to see the separate out-of-ring arena interview set, Smith and Comeback? Well, they were all done in the arena, but I understand what you're saying. And the fact of the matter is, every example that you gave were talent-driven. They were over-the-top talent-driven. So Piper's Pit was all about Robin Piper. And it was about Piper's ability to sell something and to be controversial and to tell a story in a controversial way from another viewpoint that was very entertaining. Every single one of them, the Heartbreak Hotel, the Brother Love Show. We did it in a way. We were a vehicle to tell the other stories. And in a lot of instances, we were the vehicle to tell the story that maybe the talent on the other side wasn't as capable at cutting that promo and telling that story. So we did it for them in an entertaining way around a fun and different feel, giving you the impression of a different environment because we would have a set kind of off to the side in the arena. You still got your live crowd interaction, but you still felt like, hey, I'm not in the ring, per se. So would they work today? It would all depend on the talent. And if the talent could pull it off, I don't think that they would be a weekly segment, the way that they used to be in the 80s and what have you. But yeah, I think that with the right talent, someone could pull that off. Sure. Hypothetically, who would be a good talent? I know we're not going to talk about current stuff, but let's say if you were going to try that for maybe a generation prior, they didn't have a segment like that, but maybe it could have worked. Does anybody come to mind? Well, I mean, I will talk about today, you know, just look, Paul Heyman, if you could shut him up and he didn't have to introduce himself for 30 minutes every week. Oh, man. My gosh. Well, Paul, I'm I say that would be fantastic. I love it. It's two and three to four times a week. But Paul Heyman would be incredible at that because Paul knows how to get people over. So going back before that from a heel perspective. Wow. One guy is a heel that would have been amazing at it. Would have been Steve Austin. Oh, yeah. Steve could have pulled that off and been absolutely just you'd still be talking about those today. But since we didn't really have the manager. Roll so much in after the attitude error, what have you in throughout the 2000s that there isn't anybody really that pops off the page that would go, yeah, they'd be great. But I look at and look at some some guys that Sean, I think needed it because Sean wasn't the biggest guy in the room, but he had the most charisma and he had the most personality and he could pull it off. Then when the bell rang, you believed that he was seven feet tall. You know, he thought he was eight feet tall. So it's it really just depends on the right personality. And if there was someone that was in need of man, I'm being there, just not the biggest guy. But by God, they've got the biggest attitude. They've got the most attitude. And they've got the biggest presence. Then you enhance that with their with their mouth. You mentioned that you didn't think you could do it weekly anymore like you could back then. Do you think it could work weekly if it was perceived to be more and I know you hate these words, but more biting comments, more sharper comments like I guess I'm trying to say, we don't know what he's going to say. You don't want to miss it. So it'll maybe would have to come off sort of work shoot style like, oh, he's blurring the lines there. Is that the only way to be edgy to keep people in tune every week or would it still not work? No, I think that it's great performances is what keeps people tuned in each and every week. And if you're edgy and mighty and inside, that wasn't supposed to happen every single week. It wears off every single week and it becomes passe. Got it. So it's not it's not edgy. It's not biting. It's not different anymore. It's just, oh, here's that segment where they're trying to do that. I remember late 97. They used to give Jim Cornette like a couple of minutes on Raw and he would just rant like in some level when we're talking about these interviews set things, my mind goes to that. It's like, hey, Cornette could probably pull a segment like that off. So anything he could have, you know, I think that Jimmy could have them. Yes. Right. That's what I meant. What he was in WWE. Right. But I also think that sometimes that Jimmy may have taken, um, taken a little bit more of that spotlight and then be able to get the talent over if it was not his talent. Does that make sense? Makes total sense. Who's coming in as attached to him? That's a great question. I enjoyed this one. Let's do another one here from Lindsay. She says, sitting at Guerrilla all those years, have you noticed any talent that have certain superstitions or ritualistic things they do before they go through the curtain? Yeah, tons. It's also made me deaf, but yeah, it's a lot of guys that, you know, will have to come over either do the fist bump or have a certain handshake or, you know, kiss them on top of the head or whatever it is, you know, a lot of the guys will do their prayers and everything beforehand and, and, uh, you know, kneel and just do, do little things. But for the most part, I think almost everybody was warming up in some way, one way or another, whether it's push-ups, whether it's, you know, Hulk with the flex bar or if it's, uh, the bands jump rope. Good God, Booker T and his jump rope would, uh, Booker, if there was, if there was a second Booker was jumping rope. And just, you know, those kind of things. It was like more warming up, but a lot of, you know, would do the prayer thing. A lot of them would do the certain handshake with, with either me or with Briscoe and now with, you know, whoever is there, their producers or whatever. And, uh, it's, it's that last fashion of, of saying this, I guess you could say, in an insane world, right before you go out and when you walk, when you walk through those curtains, man, it's, it's everything is quiet and everything is deafening all at the same time. I don't want to ask from a physical performance, but from, uh, I'm going to go out there and I'm going to be on the microphone and I'm going to get these people emotionally invested and I'm going to be performative and I kind of have an idea in my mind of what I want to say. You had to do that all the time as brother love. Did you have like a way you would prepare right before you went out? Like, are you pacing back and forth? Do you close your eyes and visualize it? Are you sort of talking to yourself to make sure you got your wrap down or how did you prepare for those performances? Always talk to myself. Okay. I'm going over it. I'm going in the difference in many ways, good, bad and different. Was I enjoyed working with talent where I didn't know I had an eye? We had an idea where we wanted to go. We all knew where we needed to go. How we got there normally was different. So I would have to anticipate. I would have to think if I had something, for whoever I was in the ring with, for them to say, that I thought, hey, this would be a good line. I'm going to hit you with this and hit me with that. I would do that. But a lot of times I like to shock them because I wanted to be shocked coming back. So I would anticipate. I would think I'm going to lead him here. Let's see if he's going to bite. I'm going to bite. Instead of leading Hulk Hogan and asking him, Hulk, what are you going to do? I'm begging him to come back. Well, let me tell you something, brother. Instead of him coming back, well, brother love, what I'm going to do is, it's leading them somewhere. I hope they bite. Most of the times they would. Sometimes it would be better than will, brother. It would be something else that was better. Very seldom would you give them softball and they would just swing in the mess. Okay. What I really meant to ask you is, hey, brother, what you're going to do? So it's just, I would go over and try to think of every answer I might get and or not. And a lot of times if it was somebody that needed the help, I would go over with them and I would give them the answers and the responses and the retorts. But when you had guys like Jake Roberts, you didn't have to do that. You just, Jake, hey, here's where we want to go. Great. Got it, brother. All right. And he would knock it out of the parking lot. He would, you know, knock it out of the park every time. They'll get easy, hope, easy, savage, easy, Bobby, he and God, my God, all day long. Never had to discuss a thing. We just did it. It was like, want to dance, get all right. Fans of fans have been led to believe, myself included, that things once upon a time were more bullet points and then maybe somewhere along the way. I don't know what it is now, but somewhere along the way, it got a little more scripted. Was that a necessity because we went from mostly tape shows to mostly live shows? Do you think? I think more than anything was to control the narrative more so, more so, to be able to just, man, let's make sure that we don't get off track on this story. Because sometimes when you didn't have the experience or the opportunities to tell stories and draw money, okay? You know, it's, there's a big difference between going out and just doing a promo and cutting a money promo. Money promo is a promo is going to get people to say, honey, load up the kids, we're going to rass them tonight for next week. And you have now enticed someone sitting in their home to get off their ass, load up the car, go down to the arena, buy four tickets, go in, get a program, get some shirts, get your hot dog, get your popcorn, get your beer, get your soda, and watch and see what's going to happen. Versus just a furthering story. So when you're just trying to further a story and over a two hour and sometimes three hour shows, you've got to have that. And it's a different skill set. It's a completely different skill set. Back in the day, again, we, we had not even really bullet points other than subject matter. We need to get to, um, Al-Ghantre, we need to get to, um, Ron Bass and Brutus Beefcake. We need to get to this match. Here's what we need to do in this segment. Here's the story. I would start it off. They would, you know, get it and I'd bring it home. And even laying it out from the, like the Oakland interviews, live interviews in front of the audience. It was the same thing. Gene was the star, uh, the star. He was the straw that, you know, kept that drink mixed literally and figuratively. But it was, it was Gene's job to keep it on track. That's a great, uh, topic. I'm glad we got to talk about that one. Here's a fun one from your boy, Luke from Eastern Iowa. He sent you that painting you got in your office years ago. Good job, Luke. I did have that in my office. And Vince's performance of Stand Back besides Hogan on bass, could any of the other wrestlers actually play the instruments? What kind of question is that? You saw him, didn't you? Hahaha. Please. They were all played. But no, it's funny because we talk about different things and, and rehearsals and going through, uh, different machinations of the business and how it had grown through the years to pull off that slammies. We were there for the whole week. We met with dancers, choreographers. There were rehearsals upon rehearsals upon rehearsals. There were sound checks. There were vocal coaches. There were people showing them how to play the instruments. It was the damnedest thing I'd ever been involved in. What we did in that week, the elaborate entrances and all the crazy cars and crazy entrances that we had to what they wore, to the Duggan and Harley Race and Heenan backstage fight that went all throughout the backstage of the Atlantic City Civic Center and we went all throughout that damned thing. That would that, that those scenes were shot over four days and I had never been a part of anything like that and all of a sudden I was just thrown into it and never let anybody know I've never done anything like this. I have no idea what to do. I just did it and thought wow, so this how they do it. You know, that's crazy. Could have just you know done all this whole thing in one shot, one camera, we'd be done with it but it was a different world and so the choreographers, there were people there, there were people that played the horn showing guys how to hold the horns and what to do. I thought they did a great job. All that was live. Yeah, it was, it was hilarious. It was hilarious. Yeah, they didn't have a clue. Nobody had a clue. Charlie, throw her. Yes, did, because Hulk can play bass but all the singing was live live. Alright, so I know it was a tongue and cheek question but I do want to have a follow up to that. Did you ever hear Hogan play legitimately? Just messing around but not like I don't think I ever saw him play in a band. So for example, during that week, yeah, he would sit there on the base and just play. Yeah, he could play. But I mean, he was playing stuff that you recognize. He wasn't just screwing around. Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. No, he could, you know, Hulk could actually play the bass. Okay. That he could do. But I, you know, no, he didn't play on that. Most of that stuff was all Rick Derringer, like God, Rick and Jim Johnston played most of the, most all the instruments and but the majority of that stuff, that was like Rick, that was Rick Derringer production, man. That was holy shit. Rick was a musical genius. Rick was that that was in a young age. All that was an all moment. Just watching Rick Derringer perform and produce. Crazy. All right. Want to take a minute here to just brag about cash. I've got everybody using cash up, including my parents. I think everybody I know has had some sort of financial scam attempt this year where they nearly got my parents. I introduced them to cash app and I feel better that it won't happen again. But I'm really excited too, because cash app just released a new status program for the way people actually spend called cash app green. It unlocks new ways for you to pay, get rewarded and easily grow or manage your money on your terms. Now, when you spend at least $500 a month with the cash app card or cash app pay, you earn green status, which unlocks benefits up to $200 a free overdraft coverage, higher borrow limits and custom personalized cash back offers every Friday at places you love to shop. Turn everyday spending into status with cash app green. Download cash app today or visit cash.app slash new to learn more about this and other great features launching now. For a limited time, new cash app customers can earn $10 if they use the code cash app 10 in their profile that sign up and send five bucks to a friend within 14 days. Terms apply. Cash app is a financial services platform, not a bank banking services provided by cash apps bank partners prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton bank member FDIC cash app green overdraft coverage, borrow cash back offers and promotions provided by cash app a block ink brand visit cash dot app slash legal slash podcast for full disclosures. Hey, I want to ask you, you mentioned Jim Johnston there and I don't know that you've seen it, but there's been a push in recent years from a lot of fans online that they think Jim Johnston deserves to be in the WWE Hall of Fame. Have you seen that conversation and what do you think about? Um, you know, I look, I think that Jim had a huge contribution to the business in general, you know, Jim Jim wrote the soundtrack for a lot of people's youth. The the issue, you know, and I'm not discounting Jim or that argument. I don't know. Maybe he does. And I do believe that Jim without a doubt had a huge contribution. The issue becomes with only having one person to do that. After a while, it all starts to sound the same. Ah, and and that's it is it's not a knock on on that person. When you look at the body of work that Jim Johnson did. Now, it's unbelievable. Anybody. Yes, absolutely. It's incredible. However, Jim had a sound. And if you go back after a while, you start to listen to Jim's work. You hear all everything sounds like Bam Bam Bigelow's entrance. That's why we also use Jimmy Hart. That's why Rick Derranger was used. That's why other people were used. But then his things got smaller and Jim wanted more control and Jim wanted more and more and not to have as much outside influence. Kind of was instead of, I don't know, I would think I would have gone. Yes, God, please help me because I couldn't imagine doing it for the life of me. I couldn't imagine doing it. I worked with Jimmy Hart and Jimmy McGuire on songs and things like that, putting arrangements together and things. Not have my mind works and someone's mind to be able to do that. I think is incredible. So that's one of the most difficult jobs that I think exists. And I'm I'm just left unfounded when I watch people put music together and sing and shit, put lyrics together. But then when they put music to it, I go, how do you do that? You know, it's just great. And but yeah, man, Jim, Jim, without a doubt. I said, he's soundtracked so many people's lives and did so much and thought his work was great. But when you have so much of it, it sounds the same instead of, you know, getting more help, you want you want to keep more control. So let go, man, take the help, take the help. Make it even bigger. And and that's kind of what happened with Jim, I guess. You know, let's talk about the music for a minute, because didn't I think Vince has tried to do a record label a few times before. Didn't he have like Shane records once and then he did like a WWE music? OK. It's always had a yeah, that's always been the label. So I guess my question was, do you think that once upon a time? Or do you know that once upon a time, the idea was, hey, we'll just, you know, hire a bunch of bands and Vince could, you know, maybe manage their careers or WWE, rather, whatever it was. But then instead of going out and licensing songs with these other acts, they could promote their own. And there was an agreement that it was grown through WWE. Was that ever on a plan at any point? We know we tried the movie studio thing, but was there a serious push to sign that is what we did in many cases? That is what we did. So if there were, if there was a band out there that we wanted to work with, yeah, we would, we would work with them on some songs and we would own it. We'd produce it. We would get it out there and it would be that would be a part of our label stuff and we got all the royalties and what have you with the band. But, you know, I don't know that there was any one band necessarily. We want to go manage this band and we want to go manage the band. This band and and do that. We were more into specific songs, specific music, the entrances or to do something for. What's the word I'm looking for? A soundtrack just it's it was all individual. But there was really any band that we've got that band. It feels like now, you know, and obviously, I know we're not talking about current stuff, but within the TKO org chart, it feels like from a management perspective, there may be more opportunities for that sort of thing now than there used to be because the area of expertise is obviously wider. So it'd be interesting to see how or what changes in the future with regard to theme songs and wrestling. Yeah, I just but look, it is it is now where they kind of wanted it to be. And that could have been an opportunity for Jim to manage all of that as well. But I think Jim is a talent, you know, as a talent. You don't want to with top guys, man. When it's time to to not be on the road every night anymore. And you know what, you might work really good backstage and helps out as a producer. It's hard to let go. They don't want to do that. So they, you know, hold on. And I think, you know, it was more of the case more than anything, not for lack of talent. It was just lack of of growing and saying, OK, yeah, man, let's do some different stuff with different folks. Charlie Thrower has got an interesting question. He says, Mr. Pritchard, was there any pushback from Hasbro over Sergeant Slaughter's Iraqi turn? And secondly, were there ever any other talents besides Sarge to become an action figure slash character for G.I. Joe? I think Sarge was the only wrestler for G.I. Rod Roddy Piper, right? Rodney did. I thought he did. Oh, G.I. Joe. Also for him. I didn't know that. Yeah, I did not know that, but I do know that G.I. Joe folks are not crazy about the Iraqi sympathizer. No, but they knew about it. Look, they knew about it and they knew that Sarge was going to do this. It's what Sarge wanted to do. And with the knowledge that, hey, when that turn comes, he's going to be even hotter than he was as a baby face before. So that was, you know, they knew not happy. No. That's like taking G.I. Joe and your sergeant slaughterer by God put a turban on him and call him an Iraqi sympathizer was I don't think that was in their playbook. The same style of G.I. Joe that I grew up with, not the bigger, almost Barbie sized ones that you grew up with, but the smaller ones for my era. I forget who, but I saw someone has just released wrestlers in that same format of the figures. So there's like a Ric Flair that's the G.I. Joe size and format. And there's a Randy Savage. That's the same way. I thought that was interesting because I as a kid was a G.I. Joe fan and obviously a pro wrestling fan. And I found myself using the G.I. Joe's sort of create my own little wrestling league as a kid. And I know I'm not the only one. A lot of the kids I went to school with did that. So I always felt like at the time I wished that my Hasbro figures that I absolutely love my WF figures, we could have also had them in the G.I. Joe format. Was that ever discussed way back when that you were called beside Sarge and later Piper? No, I look the, the, the G.I. Joe thing was a completely separate thing, you know, the LJN started the whole thing with those action figures, the really hard rubber ones. And then from there, you know, you got Mattel and Hasbro and, and, and different folks on down the line and it just evolved. But in the beginning, you know, there was a fear of if you put too many out there, they're not going to sell. You need to put Holt, you need to put Andre, you need to put J.Y.D. Then you need Iron Chic and Volkoff because they've got to have somebody to face, but you don't want to, you don't want to put too many out there because of inventory. And if you do too many SD Jones and you put them out there and they don't sell, then they're stuck with all that inventory. And that's kind of what happened at one point. Then the shift got to the collectors and you had people that all of a sudden wanted to collect them. But I also think that kids, man, if, if we had rings and stuff like that, when I was a kid, good Lord. I mean, I would have had every guy that you could pod roster. Yeah. You'd be booking that. Gonna Jamie Noble it up, man. I'm going to have my own damn, you know, wrestling Federation. We're going to have it just, you know, go back and forth. But all right, I got to ask, what does Jamie Noble it up? I mean, Jamie Noble loves to do his action figures and he has his own wrestling Federation thing that he likes to book, re-book things in the 80. Because, you know, back when y'all screwed up back there in the 80s. Well, how do you know this? Is he bringing the action figures to work? Come on. Just got a YouTube or something. Oh, well, I got to go. What's that? Shout out to Jamie Noble. Yeah. Shout out to Jamie Noble. Hey, too. Went to save with Conrad.com. Hey, I wanted to ask you, you were talking about Sergeant Slaughter and the Hasbro deal or the GI Joe deal. I thought once upon a time Vince made him choose GI Joe or WWE and he went the Hasbro way. So I just assumed, maybe foolishly, that when he came back to WWE to do what became the Iraqi turn that the Hasbro deal would have ended. You're saying it continued through to Vince have a change of heart just based on the creative refreshment. Well, I don't know if it ended or not. Really, I'm not familiar right now with what happened with that deal. But when he came back, it was, you want to go do, you know, GI Joe, we can carve that out, but we still want to be able to do action figures with you as well. But I'm not sure exactly how, how all that worked out when he came back. But the deal was, it wasn't, hey, you can't do GI Joe or anything like that. It was like, I'm going to do this. What we're going to do is you should let him know that. Just throw it in my Google machine and it says the Sergeant Slaughter. GI Joe was discontinued in 1990. So him coming back in 91 makes sense. I guess Brad Duggan 1987 says, whose idea was it for Kane to take his mask off in June of 2003? Well, that was Vince's idea. It was the, the reasoning for it was to allow the character to grow. And you create these characters sometimes, man, you fall in love with them and you, you want them to be frozen in time in so many ways. However, as I say often about, you know, the same guys talk about, God, let me tell you what's wrong with the business today. There's nothing wrong with the business. It's just different is the business will continue to evolve and grow. Some people will like it. Some people will not. People will pick it apart. So, you know, there's something for everybody with Kane. Vince wanted to grow that character is like, you know, he's got facials and the mask hides all that space is so expressive. You know, we're, we're taking half of his emotion away from him, you know, in the mask. So think about it. We had gone from most of his body was mangled in a fire and his face was so disfigured that he had to wear this mask in this body suit. He couldn't talk. He had to have the gimmick on his neck. To speaking in a regular voice to all of a sudden wearing a singlet that showed no burns, no scars. All I'm saying is that cosmetic surgery. Did an incredible job, you know, just hiding all those scars and things of that nature. So when it came time to take the mask off, it was, I'm going to take the mask off. I think that Glenn was a little apprehensive about taking the mask off because. He had an enmity as Glenn Jacobs in the cane mask. He could be came put that mask on, take that mask off. A lot of people didn't know who the hell he was. I think his big son of a bitch looks like somebody. So. Came's a little apprehensive, but willing to do anything. Now. Somebody might have asked a question. Okay, we take the mask off of. What does he look like? What do you mean? What does he look like? What does he look like under there? Because he's been wearing a mask to hide something. So. We told this story before in Cane deal. I wanted to. To mangle him up some way. So that the mask was still hiding something that when you took that mask off, you went, oh, that's hideous. Now I understand why he wore the mask all this time. And so that's where you chopped the hair up a little bit and shaved it and chopped it all up and shaved his eyebrows and did all that wonderful stuff. So it was again, it was an evolution. It was an evolution of the character came to give him another dimension. So you could see his face. You could see that new scrunch his face up and he would get, you know, you'd see him thinking and it was, it was scary. And, um, you know, the hair lasted for a couple of weeks and then. Kind of got overruled on that one. All right, fellas, you already know what time it is. It's time to level up in blue. You just dropped something crazy. I'm talking next level championship belt gold plated energy. Blue. Choo gold is the newest innovation from the number one chewable E.D. brand. Now this ain't your grandpa's little blue pill. This is the four in one beast that's setting the gold standard for performance. We're taking two ingredients for blood flow to keep that rocket pumping. Mixed with apomorphine and oxytocin to turn up the arousal and the connection in your brain and body. Blue chew gold dissolves under your tongue and works in as little as 15 minutes. That means you can get it on quicker and stay in the game longer. We're talking elevation without hesitation. This is peak passion and peak performance in a single tablet. Next time she sends you a you up text answer with a picture of blue chew. Make life easier by getting harder and discover your options at blue chew.com. And we've got a special deal for our listeners. Get 10% off your first month of blue chew gold with the promo code. Wrestle. That's promo code. Wrestle. Visit blue chew.com for more details and important safety information. And we thank blue chew for sponsoring today's podcast. Brian Morse has a good question. He says when new wrestlers enter the locker room in a new territory, that they introduce themselves as their working name or their real name. Okay. That's kind of interesting. So when you're meeting someone for the first time back in the day in the territory era, was it protocol to address them as their quote unquote gimmick name first? Hey, it really kind of depends on the person. I think that most people introduce themselves as their real name or if they're dick the bruiser, they probably walk around and go, Hey, how you doing? I'm bruiser. I doubt he went around and introduced himself as Richard Aftles. Maybe he did. I don't know. But it really depends on the guys. Look, you know, people make a big deal out of going in and introducing yourself and saying hello and things of that nature. To me, man, that's just how I was brought up, but not, not in this business. It just in general in life. If you walk into a room, you're going into a meeting that you're getting ready to sit down with 15, 20 people in a meeting that you don't know. It's, in my opinion, common courtesy to walk up to each of those people and go, Hi, how you doing, Bruce Pritchard? And you are, you know, okay, what do you do? Oh, okay, great. Hey, nice to meet you. Look forward to this and introduce myself to everyone in the room. Because I want to know who the hell I'm talking to. Who are these people here? Maybe I've talked to them on the phone a million times. First time I'm seeing them in person. Some of them I've seen on TV, never met them. So you introduce, it's just common courtesy. I think it's rude as hell just to walk in and think that, Oh, well, everybody knows who the hell I am and I'm not going to go walk around, lower myself to go introduce myself. It's not just common courtesy. It's just common courtesy. And I think that's something that is missing not just in our business, sometimes, but in society today and being able to break the walls down, man. Just go say hello to someone. Just be nice. Say, Hey, how you doing? I'm Conrad, the mortgage guy. I do mortgages. I can help you. Oh, I can't. Okay. Well, hey, what do you do? Dave McClay has a fun question here. Now I know we're not advocating for this and you're going to say, don't want it, not necessary, don't need it, whatever. But Dave says, who would Bruce like to see induct brother love into the WWE Hall of Fame? So if that character was inducted, not necessarily you for all of your behind the scenes contributions, but the performer brother love, who would have been the right guy to induct him into the Hall of Fame? Dead or Alive? Okay. Yeah. We're just now. Either way, Dead or Alive would be Bobby Heen. It would have been my, Wow. I would have gone to Bobby and without it with no thought. But Undertaker. Okay. That makes sense. Yeah. Why did I think of that? Kyle says, was Vince in the boiler room? That's the guy goes, that goes in the never column folks. Just say it. So all right, just so since we're talking about it, if some of the executives at WWE came to you and they were, as the kids say, standing on business that they wanted to put brother love into the Hall of Fame, you throw the flag? I wouldn't throw the flag. I don't anticipate that happening. Right. I got you. Oh, it would be a huge honor and it would be, no, I'm not going to do, no, I'd never say that. Be a great honor. I just don't anticipate that ever happening. Do you think, you know, we mentioned Jim Johnson earlier, and I know there's been a push for guys, you know, through the years online that worked. And what I guess what we would call a behind the scenes capacity. Do you think that those folks would or could or should ever be recognized? Like we know what, what Michael Hayes is doing behind the scenes for WWE, but he does have a ring as a free bird. But I'm sure there are other examples besides yourself that will come to mind. Do you think that that would ever be embraced or is just the very nature of the Hall of Fame? Now, hey, it's a TV show and we want to drop the stars out. It's all the above. And I do think that it would be important to recognize some of the unsung heroes that work just as hard. That day in and day out to bring the product to life, that their contributions are endless and that should be recognized. So yeah, there are people behind the scenes. And I do think that there should be a place for them in the Hall of Fame and for them to be recognized and for and to hear from them and be able to know that, oh, wow, you mean person does all those incredible graphics that we see all the time. Well, that's that's the person, you know, or that's the person that leads that team. So it's, I think it's needed and I do think that it would be welcomed. Boy, I'm trying not to get us in trouble here, but I got to ask recently, and we can edit this out if you want to. But recently, I think when the cameras weren't necessarily rolling, some of the cast and crew of WWE celebrated longtime WWE cameraman, Stu, can you tell us about that? It was the 65th birthday. Wasn't that cool though? I mean, once upon a time, I didn't feel like that was commonplace, but I think that was really cool for Stu. No, we do that all the time. I mean, that's, you know, Stu's just the oldest. Yeah, you know, really suck. When I first started here in 87, and you would have these manifests and would have everybody's name and ages or birthdays on them. And I would be the youngest guy on there. I mean, God, it's so self, you know, just self conscious about, oh my God. And it's got older, you know, kind of fit in the middle of the pack. Now I'm like the oldest. Then the other day, I'm looking and I see one and it was Stu. I was so happy. Like, oh God, thank you for being older than me, Stu. But no, we do, man. We look, it's a family and we bust each other's chops. We recognize, we celebrate births and birthdays and just any accomplishments and achievements. We celebrate their kids doing well. Man, it's a family and we do that. We do that all the time. So that's, that's just life. Kyle, what's the question about SummerSlam96? He wants to know, was Vince in the board of the room when the match was shot for SummerSlam96? Or did he just trust that taker and Mick would do so well and just let him go? Wow. I just watched that for the first time since it, since we did it. No, Vince was not in the boiler room. There was, there wasn't room. It was talent, me, a cameraman, lighting and audio. I was it. Vince was nothing. As you watched it back, he said you recently watched it for the first time. He had a reaction. What were your thoughts? What the hell were we thinking? Long. It was long. It was long. God, it was long. We could have done that in half the time. We could have done that in a quarter of the time. Do you think you, they felt the need to belabor the point because of the, the Paul Barrett turn that it warranted more time because of the significance of him leaving the undertaker? I think in doing it that we, we, look, man, you shoot that and you have no crowd reaction. You're anticipating crowd reaction, certain things. So you're trying to, to, to do it where the crowd, the crowd's going to react big here. They're going to move big here. They're going to cheer big here. They're going to, we're going to have suspense here. But now you go to that, let's go to that crowd for a minute. The crowd's watching it on two televisions in the first few rows because the only video screens we have are above the ranks. So people in the ringside area and down low, they can't see anything. Well, no, there was no Tron. There wasn't, there was nothing. So that took away from the audience participation. That's our fault. We should, we should have, we were thinking everybody's going to be able to see these screens. Then we get there and they're like, man, no way. So it was just long. I think it would have redone the finish or there are a lot of things that would have redone. But no, we, that was, it was just room. We walked through it. We knew what we wanted to do, where we wanted to do it. When you go, you know, you, you also want to have the feeling that you're going to be able to see the audience. The feeling of live and you, you don't want to do cuts. So one camera shoot till we got outside, but we, we did have to do things where we lost transmission for two reasons. One, we lost transmission at one point. Because we did need to cut, we needed to move certain things, make sure everybody was okay on certain things. So we added that into it, but it just wasn't, um, yeah, wasn't that great? You can play. I'll take, I'll take full, full responsibility for that one. Colby Reed says, I've asked this a few times, hoping it gets picked. Can Bruce share any examples of a referee screwing up a match? Not just a minor goof, but taking a finish or perhaps even impacting an angle? Hmm. That's one of those. Any other time you ask me, I probably think of a dozen off the top of my head. Now when you ask, I can't think, look, there have been, here's one that gets me. I won't say the referee, but like we're talent has been in a battle royal and been eliminated at the wrong time and come back and, oh, it couldn't help threw me over the top rope. You control it. You control it. Don't let them throw you over the top rope. Yeah, you're not, you knew when you were supposed to go out. Well, well, somebody threw me over the top rope. Um, I think too many times that, you know, the referee is a tool that is abused and, and is a part of the match that people forget. And my biggest pet peeves with referees is when they are over the top and they make silly gestures or silly faces. Do you see an NFL referee when a guy makes a catch? Oh, yeah. No, they do their job. They keep their head down. They're watching as a pair. It's in amateur wrestling. Referee is there. The referee counts. Referee calls points. Referee doesn't react like, oh, hell of a soup black. And I get, we're entertaining it, but Jesus Christ, man. I do not know anybody that has ever, like I said before, sat at home, watched the show and said, by God, I want to go pack up the kids, get in the car, go buy some tickets, get my popcorn, get my hot dog, get my beer, get your soda, get me a program, and get me a Mike Keota teacher. I want to see the referee. Nobody goes to see the referee. The best referee is the referee that is invisible, that is there when it's time to be there. The best referee in the best match is when the talent actually uses the referee properly and respects the referee. Because if you don't, then they're just dead nuts. So referee can make a match great and a referee can make a match suck. If they're doing antics and they're all over the place, and I'm watching the goofiness of the referee, it takes away from the match. I'm not a big fan of the, come on, man. Yeah, I get it. They used to do that in baseball. Don't do it anymore. It's just not something. So a referee to me is one of the most important pieces of a match and should be used properly. And all too often they are forgotten about and or just used as a prop. When they should be used all throughout the match properly and forcing the rules be put in places where they can make the match better, but not take away from it and not take away from the performances of the talent in the match. So I get a lot of hate on that one, but yeah, I cannot, I cannot, it makes me want to turn it off when I see referees reacting over the top and just doing silly jumping up and down. Oh my God. It's come on, man. You see that in the NBA? They're too busy counting points and okay, wait a minute. I've got to keep this guy down. Okay, foul. Okay, got, but yeah, sorry. Yes, they don't do that. It's not, that's what can hurt something more than, it doesn't enhance it at all. But there are plenty, look, there are plenty of times I'm sure where referees have screwed up, finishes the matches and done things the wrong way. I go back to WrestleMania 3, Joey Morella in the very first Hulk. And Andre going down, man. I swear, I watched it and I watched live and I thought they just switched title. The other thing I hate is there are too many, you know, one, two, whoa. If everyone is that, then what do you build to? Why can't people kick out on one? I sure as hell would want to kick out on one. I don't get there two and, you know, seven, eights every count. It just makes it meaningless when it gets to the point that it should mean something. And a lot of that is, that's not all the referee. That's the talent and guys in the ring calling it that way. But yes, there are referees that have, man, we've told them, look, guys' shoulders are down. That's not on you. That's on them. If you don't count it, then you're the fool. And you know, how do you explain guys clearly out? One, two, I know they're supposed to kick out. They're not kicking out. And then just put your hand underneath there. You can't slide a dime underneath there, but that's up. Come on. That point you got to count three and that becomes a talent's responsibility. But, you know, those are unfortunately, you know, they're there. They're definitely there, man. It happens. It happens all the time, everywhere. And that's part of our business that we have. We deal with it and it just kind of is what it is. To unforgettable rivalries, don't miss a single moment. Tune in every Thursday night at 7 p.m. on YouTube. JCWLudasy. No, you don't want to shout out anybody who was doing the pet peeves that you didn't like, but who, in your opinion, was a fantastic referee and maybe was one of your all-time favorites? I'll go back like in the territory days. Nick Kozak was a very good referee because Nick stayed out of the way. It's funny. Rick Flair, and I couldn't think of where Rick had ever worked with Nick in that capacity, but Rick thought that Nick was too handsy and that Nick was too much involved in the match with getting guys back and stuff like that. Maybe I was trained by Nick and a lot of my, a lot of the principles that I have were given to me by Nick. So, I'm thinking, I don't think Nick would do that and I don't remember him doing that. So, like from the old timers, I thought Nick was a very good referee. I thought that, I don't know, man, it's so many of them were trying to get themselves over, you're not part of the match. Joey Morella, Joey Morella was a very good referee, damn good referee. And he was there for shit, wasn't over the top, but he was authoritative and he was, he was there, he was athletic and he was good. He got in there. All the heaveners were good referees. I think Chad Patton was a good referee, but, you know, Ken Dome was another one that was, there was a good referee in and out and stuff. But there, you know, it's just, I think it gets to the point, man, you see that red light, I want to be a star, so I'm going to do my stuff to have people remember me. And it's, and sometimes you want them to remember you, but that, that should be that, that one time in those spots when you need to be remembered, not all the time, not everything about you. Um, the, uh, uh, Jess is a good referee, just car. This is a great referee. Um, but you know, look, everybody has their flaws, me included. No, I do not. Thank you, baby. My dog said, no, I don't. But what? Jason does says if Bruce had been at one of the four big or big four shows he missed in the early 90s, which would, which one would he have preferred to have been at the most? And what was something he would have put pitch differently? So he's talking about your hiatus. So we'll call it, uh, SummerSlam 91, Royal Rumble 92, WrestleMania eight and SummerSlam 92. You missed those. Which one of those, if you were going to go back and say, I would have liked to have been at that one, but here's what I would have done differently on that show. Well, the only one I really would have loved to have been at was the Royal Rumble 92. Yeah. And what I would have done differently is, is I would have had, uh, uh, Sid, Sid Dump Hogan and, and Flare right behind Dump Sid. Never would have had the, the exchange with Hulkin Sid the way they did it. That's it. I would have had, I would have had, uh, just, you know, boom, let's Sid get that big, big pop dump, dump and Hulk and right and right when you know Sid's the man, Flare right there behind him, dump Sid, give it all to Flare. Do your Sid Hogan stuff later. It took away from the, from the moment of crowning the new champion. The audience kind of reacted a little differently to Hulk that night too. We weren't too terribly far removed, maybe five or six months, I guess, from his appearance on the Arsenio Hall show. What was the relationship like with, with Hogan and Vince there? I've read or heard that maybe post Arsenio Hall, it wasn't as smooth as it once was, where the cracks starting to appear. Do you think, I know you weren't there, but if you had been here, guess. I would imagine they probably were. Yeah. Because, because I could also see, look, I've heard the advice so many times, just they'll forgive you, go out and just say, yes, you did it. Yeah, you know, yeah, man, I took steroids. I did it. It was legal. Did nothing illegal and move on. But the story that was told the way it was told and, and what have you, just left a bad taste in the audience's mouth. And you think that back and forth at the rumble with Sid and Hogan, that may have hurt the Hogan character? Um, no, I think that the intent was to help the Hogan character. Because it felt like, oh my God, you know, it was like, it's all Hogan, how could Sid do that type thing? How could he, but again, it goes back to Hogan must pose. Yeah. You can't let Hogan get beat clean. You can't get let allow him to get eliminated clean. But that's what makes people. Yes. My opinion. If he had been eliminated clean, and then you think, oh my God, I've got my new guy in Sid. Yes. Then the dastardly heel takes it away from me. Then you give that moment to him and then later on you get Hulk and you, but it's not Hulk who's bitching. It's Sid who's bitching. So you can keep Sid who wanted to be the heel. The heel, but instead it was Hogan bitching who had no bitch. But instead it was Hogan bitching who had no bitch. Sid could have had a bitch and Sid, Sid's mind, Sid bitching would make him the heel. Hey, brother's every man for himself, you know, whatever, but Hogan, man hands off. Then you go to your match at WrestleMania and Sid gets to be the heel because Sid wanted to be the heel. I got to tell you, I'm kind of surprised that you picked Rumble 92. I mean, I know it's probably everyone listening's favorite Rumble, but knowing the storyline of SummerSlam91, I mean, yes, you've got the wedding shenanigans, but really when they're opening gifts afterwards and they have the snake in a box with Jake and the Undertaker, like that feels like that's just got brother loves fingerprints all over it. He would have wanted to be involved with that. And then you've got the whole warrior allegedly holding events up that day. Then you didn't even pick necessarily WrestleMania, which as most people would think is the biggest show. But then, I mean, to this day, as you know, nothing will hold a candle to anything that ever happens over in Europe compared to SummerSlam92. What would if my sides, you know, the Rumble, what would have been your second pick and why of those? Well, my second pick would have been SummerSlam in UK. Yeah, I'll say that. Just because of the magnitude of it. Yes. And, you know, I thought it was a hell of a show. I think that the ending, the Brett and Davey, all that was wonderful. I don't know if I would have done all the stuff with Flair and Warrior. I don't know. I wasn't crazy about the whole Warrior Savage thing and all that. It just felt like a hodgepodge. Is it true, Bruce? I don't know if this is true, but I heard somebody recently say Warrior was pitched on turning heel in that match against Savage and turned it down. And I wondered, hey, is that why they had Flair do what he did? Because Flair, who's booked with the company, not even really on the card, he makes that appearance. But I don't know. That's interesting to think about. A heel, ultimate Warrior. Do you remember ever hearing, and again, I know you weren't there then, but you did start right after. Do you remember ever hearing rumors of that being discussed then? Or at any other point, a heel? To the contrary. To the contrary. They needed Warrior to be the babyface. They had no Hulk. So going in, because remember we had the Mega Maniacs and all of that. You didn't have Hulk at that point. So Hulk was on a sabbatical, I want to rest, brother. I want to take it easy and what have you. Because we didn't see him until on the way to WrestleMania 9. So the thought process at the time was you had to have that, they needed Warrior in that babyface role. They needed Warrior and they needed Davey. Both of who? Together, got let go at the same time for the same thing. I want to ask you another question here from J.M. Wagner that I think is a home run. He says, if Bret Hart would have shown up at WrestleMania 22, what do you think the possibility of him doing a run in during the Shawn Michaels-Vince McMahon match like Piper did during the Hogan Vince match three years prior at WrestleMania 19? That's interesting. Was that ever discussed? Do you think? What year was that? Was that a six? Yeah, that's a six. Well, I don't think Bret was healthy enough to at the time. I know everybody had already spoken and all of that and met and Vince has mended and so on and so forth. But I don't think that Bret was healthy enough to following the stroke and everything after he had the accident on his bicycle. So I don't know that Bret was confident. I don't think I'm pretty sure. Bret wasn't really confident to do anything physicality-wise. And Bret, Bret's a proud guy. Bret wanted people to remember Bret as his best. Bret did his best. They didn't want to see the nostalgia act, Bret Hart come back in. I'm the first one to pitch it a lot of times. I'll forgive you. All they want to see you do a couple of things, man, do your signature stuff. Bret was of the mindset that if he couldn't give them Bret Hart and like Shawn Michaels, it was the same mindset. They couldn't give him the very best. Then they didn't want to do it. And I think Bret was confident enough in himself knowing I can't give them Bret Hart and that will disappoint the fan. So he didn't want to give him anything. And it just would have been great. Sure, it would have been great. But it just took a little longer to get there and a lot of different things. But not for any other reason other than we had so many other things going on at that time that if you give them a taste of Bret, people are going to want more of it. I say, okay, no, that makes sense. He can't give them any more of it. And I gotta tell you on this one, I'm kind of with Bret on this one. If he were to have imposed that question, he said no, I would have been, I get it. Completely understand. As a reminder, I think the reason the question comes up is 2006 is the year Bret goes in the WWE Hall of Fame. So it does make sense that logically a fan may say, oh, he could have made an appearance the next day, not necessarily making a match. But even if he was just in the front row and then he punched Vince or whatever, but I'm with you, they would have wanted more than that. We know eventually Bret did come back for a bit of a nostalgia run. And I think 2010, you weren't with the company at the time. Were you surprised to see Bret come back and wrestle in hockey jerseys in Jorts? A little bit, yes. But also, they protected him very well. He was very well insulated and protected very well. So you could see the, but you didn't see him after that. And I could see Bret going, we ain't doing this again. Because again, it's to somebody like Bret Hart, who had the career that he had, the things he had accomplished. And Bret is an artist. Bret, every time he goes out, goes through the curtain, has a match, he's painting a piece of art. He is making art. And if he doesn't feel that he is painting and or sculpting or creating the best piece of art that he can, then he doesn't want to do it. He's a very proud, very proud guy, man. So I think he did it. Okay, I did it. And he probably did it. More for the family than he did for himself. Christopher Wheeler says, if you could have one wrestler from the territory days added to the current roster, who would it be and why? Of course, we're talking about that person in their prom. But if there's somebody from yesteryear, you could just pluck out of their era and drop them into 2025 WWE, who would you get most excited about working with? Bruiser Brody. Oh, man. Frank would have been a fun, a fun, fun toy to have, you know. I always got along with him. And he could be a bit to handle sometimes. Son of a bitch, drew money. He could work. He could talk. He could do it all. He passed all the checkpoints, all the everything, man. And Brody is different than anybody that's out there right now. But with that, it's kind of like CM Punk in that people, if you're a CM Punk fan, you'll have every excuse in the world why CM Punk works. If you're not a CM Punk fan, you'll have every reason in the world why it doesn't work. Why does it, how or whatever your viewpoint is. With Brody, it's the same thing. Those that love Brody, love Brody. Those that hate a Brody, hate a Brody. But Brody used and treated the right way. Yeah, never had an issue with him. And I saw times where people had problems with him and things of that nature. But he was also in a position of being able to say, all right, I'll just leave. And the way the business was then, there was always some place to go. And there was always some place that would take Brody. The landscape of the business has changed. And I think that Frank was smart enough, very intelligent guy that he would understand the landscape. And I think he would make it work. So I, I've got and have a bruiser Brody right now. That'd be crazy. Do you know if Vince ever had any relationship at all with Brody? Because when I think about Brody in the, you know, the height of the rock and wrestling or whatever, it feels like him and Hogan in 84, 85, 86. I mean, even if you swapped Bundy for Brody in 86, man, that would have been so awesome. Do you know if they ever had any conversation at all about trying to work together? I don't think they did. To my knowledge, they may have. To my knowledge, I don't know that they did. I do know, you know, when Brody went to New York is where he got the bruiser Brody, the King Kong Brody moniker and did all the King Kong posters and took all that. That was all the publicity that was sent out to all of the promoters. So, you know, Brody went from Frank Goodish to Bruiser Brody in New York and man made his name. Russell all over the world, headlined all over the world, made top money all over the world. You see Bruiser Brody opening up cards anywhere. He was on top, if he was on the card. So, I don't know that they that they ever did. I do know that, you know, that they they knew each other, definitely knew each other, but I don't know what extent of it there were ever any overtures of bringing him in at any time. I know, I shouldn't say I know. I mean, this sounds silly. I hate to even phrase it this way, but clearly Brody was a regular in Puerto Rico and Guerrilla Monsoon had some relationships down there too. What was Guerrilla's relationship like with Brody? Do you recall? I think it was, I don't think that Guerrilla liked Brody. Okay. Based on conversations I've had with him, but they definitely knew each other. But I think that it was more based on everything that happened in the end with Brody's murder, what have you. Because I didn't have conversations with him about Brody until after that. So, it was skewed. Wait, are you saying that Guerrilla didn't like Brody because of whatever led up to that Brody situation? What I was saying is, is that Guerrilla had a relationship with the office in Puerto Rico is an owner. Yes. Yes. And was on that side of, you know, no, you know, Brody caused all of this and whatever happened is because of Brody. I got you. So, it was a financial dispute between him and the office. Well, I don't know what it was. I don't know that anybody will ever know what it really was. Yeah. Yeah. You know, Jose. So, but from Guerrilla's point of view, it was like, oh Brody, he was always difficult to deal with anyway. So, it had to be that. And you know, sure, he was, but he drew money. Hey man, did you grow up in the 80s or 90s? Do you and your friends still talk in movie quotes like it's your own sort of secret language, your own secret club? Then grab a drink and get ready to rewind. I'm talking about the hilarious podcast, Be Kind, Let's Rewind, your weekly nostalgia fix for all things television, movies, music and video games. From really, let's be honest, the greatest decades ever. Every Friday, the boys crack open a few cold ones and dive deep into the pop culture moments that made us who we are with big laughs, bold opinions and the occasional. Did that really happen? Each week, you'll get hit with segments like Booze of the Week, boring ass facts, shit stuck in my head and the ever popular Norm MacDonald clip of the week. Because no one told a joke quite like Norm did. From Back to the Future to the 40-Year-Old Virgin, from Tommy Boyd South Park in the Simpsons, Be Kind, Let's Rewind is your time machine back to those simpler days. Be sure to subscribe to their YouTube page at Be Kind, Let's Rewind. You can even engage with their show on Instagram, X and Discord. But if you love the 80s and 90s nostalgia, buddy, this show is for you. Check it out. Be Kind, Let's Rewind. By the way, today's ad was paid for by JBL. A much more fun question here from Chris who wants to know, it's been said it's not who goes over but who gets over. Which of the three of these best exemplifies this? Snooka in the cage at Madison Square Garden versus Morocco, Austin and Brett at WrestleMania 13, or Foley and Undertaker in Hell on a Cell? Well, all of those are exemplified. Which one is the best example, do you think? I'd probably say Steven Brett. But again, every single one of those, those are moments in time that people like to pick out and go to and say, okay, that was it. You have to also consider everything that led up to those moments in time. And those moments in time, or what define everything that they did that led up to that moment. So when you look at the Brett Austin thing, it was it was so just beautifully done. It was a lot of happy accidents with Brett being out, with Steve being out, and the the mouthiness of Stone Cold Steve Austin, the birth of Stone Cold. And getting to that moment and the frustration and the buildup in Brett, you know, the other thing that people look at in that one, both of those guys got over. In the Snooka one, Jimmy got the better of that deal. I can argue in the in the Taker-Mick one, I think both of them were were kind of equal to in that one. Not going to Mick because Mick took the horrific bumps. In the Steven Brett one, both guys, double switch, both guys got over because both guys were new characters the very next day that were over stronger than they were the day before, and took them on new trajectories that for both were incredible. Fun question here from Instagram, a wrestling historian. How would Bruce Pritchard have ended the NWO storyline differently in 2002? Of course, we know the whole injury bug got everybody that year, Bruce, and the NWO kind of went out with a whimper. If everyone was healthy, what would have been a suitable end to the NWO and WWE? Would have ended in 98. Yeah, that's fair. I mean, look, again, it was a turning point in the business. It was one of the greatest stories and great angles and magnificent. But that was a place in time. They never moved on beyond it. They had nowhere to go beyond it. So we'll make a NWO red, we'll make an NWO blue, make an NWO yellow, make an NWO green. Let's do it turquoise. It was great, but it got too big. Got where I don't care. The only people I ever cared about in the NWO were Hulk, Nash, and Hall. That's me, my opinion. So everybody that came into that after that, gone, it's less than. It was just less than. So I don't think that the NWO coming in was, I don't know, I think it was dead on arrival. Christopher Wheeler wants to know, what was Vince's reaction when Eric challenged him to a match at Slamberie 98? Of course, you may recall this is the era where you guys tried to drive a tank to Nitro. And of course, that brings Eric Bischoff out and he's trying to challenge Vince to a fight, show up at the pay-per-view. And they had a little fun with it. We know in reality, there was no chance Vince was showing up. But do you remember his reaction to seeing someone challenge him to a fight? It feels like that would have tickled Vince. Yeah, it did tickle him. I mean, his first reaction was who? Vince never, ever, ever looked at the battle with the NWO and WCW as a battle with Eric. He always looked at it as a battle with Ted Turner. So short of Ted calling him out and really meant nothing to Vince. Chuffled at it, said, you want to go? And everybody, including the legal folks at WCW, I'm sure they're all like, no, this isn't happening. Even to the point where they had to make a legal disclaimer and all this stuff, we never said a word. So it just made them look, I think, more desperate. But yeah, it was a good source of, you kill you for several weeks. But other than that, no, it was, yeah. It got the exact reaction you would expect it would get. No. What? Yeah. If they're close, they can come to my house and fight, go fight. Rusty Simpson wants to know, if Shawn Michaels didn't get hurt in 98 and did not take time off, does it change the creative direction for DX? Do he and Austin wind up working along program? Woo. You know, I think Shawn, I think Shawn could have been man that it would have been a whole different, just a completely different world. You never would have had Mr. McMahon. I truly believe that. If you did, it would have been a completely different version with Shawn's presence. Because again, you need a Mr. McMahon based off of the Montreal Screwjob. And the interview, Brett screwed Brett and then kind of kept Vince away. And the thing was, all right, once Austin gets there, we'll segue over here to mankind. And all that was done with the knowledge of Shawn's out. Shawn's going to have what could be life changing surgery. And it was. So, you know, it's hard to think of those what ifs, but it definitely would have been a nice run with Shawn and Steve. And I don't know if it would have had the same bite as the strength of the Mr. McMahon character coming up during that time. And you definitely still could have could have had the Mr. McMahon character part of that with Shawn. But yeah, I don't know. I just don't think the Mr. McMahon character would have been as strong with the personality of Shawn Michaels. Fun question here from Captain Chris. Love the show, gents. It's well known you guys had to pay Marvel Comics for the use of the Hulk name. But did you have to pay Lucas Films for the Vader name? If not, why not? That's interesting. He came with Vader from Japan. What was the story on that? Was there ever a Star Wars Association that you had to sort of pay the Piper on? No. And I never... I didn't call him Darth Vader. He was a big fan Vader. No, that was good. Chris says, if the rope break didn't happen in the 1990 tag title match between the Rockers and the Hart Foundation and the Rockers remained as tag champions, would Brett and Jim gotten booked as singles? Would we have seen Brett win the intercontinental title at WrestleMania 7? So as the story goes, I guess this is the legend that's out there. Jim was leaving and he was not going to resign and that's the reason they switched the titles. But the rope break happened and Jim did ultimately resign. So they decided to not acknowledge the title switch. That's the narrative that's out there. Is that true? And then B, if it wouldn't, if the rope wouldn't have broken, would we have seen Brett have his big moment instead of it being at SummerSlam with Perfect? What would have happened to WrestleMania? I know they were going their separate ways, but I don't... I think the plan always was SummerSlam for Brett and Sean. Tommy, not Brett and Sean, Brett and Perfect. Yeah. And into this day, still, man, because it would have... Just leave them on the Rockers. You still get to your nasty boy stuff and everything else, but it just was a deal of, well, it just never happened. Like, God, I didn't see it. Did you see it? I didn't see it. So it never happened. And it moved on. So there was really not a whole lot of discussion kind of beyond that. I know, before it, it was always also to go to the Rockers and the nasty boys because, man, just thinking of the chemistry with those four guys, they had it. I think that would have been great. The other side of that was to get... I think you needed more time to get Brett ready for that. And I don't think that Brett would have been ready for at WrestleMania, not at WrestleMania 7. But the idea was to get there, and the idea was to get there with Perfect with Brett. Damian Aldrich wants to know, was Test ever considered for a main event push? He was up against the McMahon Helmsley era in late 99, beginning in 2000. He was the Iron Man of Royal Rumble 2000, but he was never a quote unquote main event guy. You know, Test is an interesting, interesting study because Test came in and one of our funk and dojos was a big kid from Canada who little misrepresented as far as his experience and had a good camp and had good size, looked good, green, very green, needed a lot of work, but it was kind of represented to us that, oh yeah, no, this kid's been working a couple years and everything. He just needs polishing and what have you. And again, good showing in camp. So, you know, I'll take a big, big good looking guy like that and we can do something with him. So yeah, there was a plan. There was a plan. There was hope that you could get there with Test and immediately right off the bat and looking at wanting something new. Sometimes you've got to roll the dice and just go for it. And that's what we did with Test. We rolled the dice, put him in to a top spot. He'll be perceived as the top guy coming in and then he'll get trained as we go along. Didn't help him telling guys once he got in, you know, and like, how many matches have you had? Oh, I've had like four matches, whatever it was. That didn't help his credibility. Didn't help ours either because now I'm going back, going, wait a minute. Since you've been working a couple years, well, I started training off and on and then I'm going back to Carl DeMarco and other people and you guys told us he's been working. Yes, he had a great camp. He did. Got potential. But potential versus I've only had four matches and been working two years is different. It's a little different strategy on that. But at the same time, man, you need new sometimes and you put them on top. They'll be perceived as top guys. I want to ask you Joel Kitter's question. Do you think Ken Shamrock would have been a world champion had he stuck around for the brand extension slash ruthless aggression era? So if Ken didn't go back to the UFC, would he have moved up the cards? Yeah, I think Ken would have been a hell of a champion. I think Ken had a can had all the tools and personality had the intensity. He could work. He was credible. Everything about him. People you nobody was going to dispute it. So to have a Ken Shamrock in that whole Kurt Angle mix and just everything else. I think Ken Shamrock would have made a great champion and done very well. You know, we all have that one person in our extended family who we really love and we really care about. Boy, they hard to shop for. And sometimes we don't see them as often as we like. We might not even see them in time for Christmas, but we know we're going to eventually and do that post Christmas gift exchange. You know what I'm talking about. Can I give you a pro tip to make them feel truly special and not like an afterthought? I want to brag about aura frames. If you haven't already, I want you to consider how personal this sort of gift can be. We've all got family members who are hard to buy for. And maybe some of that is because we're just separated, like my mother-in-law, for instance. I don't get to spend as much time with her as I'd like. She's like seven and a half hours away. But a couple of years ago, we hooked her up with an aura frame. Man, it's the gift that keeps on giving. What I like is you can upload unlimited photos and even video and we can feel connected. So yes, she's in Charlotte and we're in Gunnersville and her grandbaby is all the way down in Tuscaloosa. But we just download the aura app and we're connected to Wi-Fi and bam, we're all together. She can see what's going on and keep up with the grandkids and college and all the happenings in life. And it feels like we're connected. It's one thing to talk over the phone, but it's another to see it. I really, really encourage you to also look into preloading photos before it ships. So it's going to come out of the box and feel truly personal, but you can keep adding anywhere, anytime. You can even personalize your gift. You can add a message before it arrives. You can share photos and videos effortlessly right from your phone all year long. So this isn't a gift they'll get one time. This is the gift that keeps on giving. And if you're a last minute shopper like me and you know that feeling, especially if you've got somebody who's hard to buy for it, what do you do and make it feel personal? Well, man, you can't wrap togetherness, but you can frame it for a limited time. Save on the perfect gift by visiting auraframes.com. You'll get $35 off aura's best selling Carver matte frames. It was named number one by Wirecutter all by using the promo code wrestle at checkout. That's a u r a frames.com and the promo code is wrestle. This deal is exclusive to listeners and frames sell out fast. So order yours now to get it in time for the holidays. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout terms and conditions apply one more time or a frames.com and the promo code is wrestle. That's a u r a frames.com and the promo code is wrestle. Francis Reyes wants to know what's the coolest thing you've ever seen in the WWE warehouse? Hmm. The thing you got most excited about, you're like, Oh my God, you've got this. I didn't know we had this or whatever that was. Well, mainly it's it's going back through the Capitol Wrestling. And and I just saw this. Vince's father's books and and how he did his booking books and being able to go back and look at, okay, who was writing here? Who was writing that and things of that nature and looking at the notes and the phone numbers and just things like that. That's the side of the business that just really interests me that I love to go back and and try to put yourself in that time and place. Yeah, what were they thinking here? You know, why did he do this? Okay, well, and then you've you follow it is you're reading a book at that point, literally in the booking, you're you're looking at, okay, well, they did this angle here to get the oh, here was the payoff and just trying to put yourself in the 60s in the 50s and and kind of go through that and and what would you have done? Oh my God, this, you know, you worked here for this. It's it's that stuff fascinates me. I love I love to go through just the business documents and see what was and the you know, it's it's all there. It's not, you know, on a computer, man, it's the book gets you holding in your hands. It's history in your hands at that point. You know, you see it all written in pencil and and it's I just love that type of history. So probably the most recent thing in the the best was seeing the Capitol wrestling, the old books from there. Book in the third or kid Luigi wants to know who should play Bruce in a movie made about his life and who would play his wife? That's interesting. I mean, I've told you before, if he was still with us, Philip, Philip Seymour Hoffman could have crushed Bruce Richard. He could have had you nailed. That would have been fun. Who else is out there, though, that's still with us? I could have played as look as some of a bitch. You can think I mean, Robert Redford's past so that wouldn't God is I think about it an old Bruce Robert Redford might have, you know, I don't know. I have no idea. Could could a weird science Kelly LeBrock be my wife? Hey, what's the guy from Modern Family? Lindsay Schwitzer or something like that? Okay. No, I'm sorry. Eric Stone Street and his wife, Lindsay Schwitzer. I had to throw up my Google machine. Eric Stone Street, I think that the guy who plays in Modern Family, he always wears the crazy shirts like Robert Graham's style shirts you do. Yeah, he could have pulled you off, I think. Yeah, that could be fun. Okay. You say so. Who would be one wife? Well, I was looking up his name and his wife and then I realized his wife doesn't really favor Stephanie. So I got to work on that one. Okay. I don't know. Maybe we could have had some fun with your wife and use some creative license, get an old school actress from back in the day, Heather Hauner or something like that. Yeah. Todd Velasquez wants to know if you could go back and change one WrestleMania main event from the years you were with the company, which one would it be? Do you wish you had a do-over on any main event at WrestleMania? Yeah, I wouldn't have done that four-way. I'd have done Steve. Yeah. Steve wasn't in the pool. I know he wasn't there. When you're saying, I get it, I wanted someone to have Steve. You didn't have to tell me if they were injured. Damn it, don't get hurt and then we'll do it. Yeah, I got it. Yes, exactly. I didn't like the four-way. I don't think anybody did. It's like the most forgettable WrestleMania main event maybe ever. But it was kind of done out of desperation. It's just kind of out of, this is what we got, loaded up as best you can. Sometimes you just have to make the best with what you have, with what you got in the book. The year before is the year they did Austin Rock the first time. As the story goes, it was originally going to be a three-way with mankind. The Mick Foley character had gotten over huge. Would you have, with the benefit of hindsight, do you still like it mono-y mono or would you have entertained a three-way at that one in 99? One-on-one. That's your preference for many main events? Well, no, it depends. Really, it does depend. If there's history and a story that you can make sense into that, then by all means. I just think that in that period of time, man, where Steve and Rock were just so hot that I just felt that that was the attraction at that point. Of course, the first WrestleMania was big on celebrity and we had the sort of celebrity tag match with Mr. T's involvement. Did you ever think, hey, we should have done Hogan Piper in a single and just had Mr. T be the special guest referee or he could have been Hogan's second? Did you like the tag match? I know you weren't there for that, but just with the benefit of hindsight, would you have done anything differently? Oh, that's got to be hindsight. I think that they couldn't have done it any other way. The attraction was T in the ring. Right. Not in it, man. We'd seen guest referees and shit before. T was the hottest thing on television. He was it and he was arguably one of the biggest stars in the world. He had a reputation manufactured it or not being a tough guy and there was enough, he was a sweetheart of Hollywood. Everybody wanted to see him and people wanted to speculate. What's going to happen? What's going to happen? Mr. T gets in the ring with these guys that are a lot bigger than him. They know what they're doing. What if Mr. T decides he ain't going to play by their rules? There was so much on every side of the aisle, man. Everybody had a story. Everybody had an angle. Everybody had a prediction. So you had to have T in that ring working. And I think in looking at it any other way, you're looking at it as, well, there's a book or what I would do that I would have to do this because, no, man, the beauty of it was, was taking outside of the business and bringing it in. And you grow from the outside in and to bring in all these stars and it's like, what the fuck are you doing? You can't do that. That's not how you use celebrity or is it? So it was changing the game, was changing the rules and hindsight. I don't know other than getting Liberace in the match somehow, what would have made it bigger? Would you have still done the tournament before? Well, if Andre had been healthier, frankly, I would have done the rematch. Hogan Andre too. Yes. But again, wishing one hand shit in the other, telling which one fills up first. But it was also, look, you had to get, had to get rid of Hogan for a little bit. And I just thought either put it on Andre, somehow get it savage or put it on Ted. But again, a perfect world would love to have done the rematch. Andre is the champion going in and then put it back to halt, let Teddy take it, go with Teddy and Savage on the other side. Would you look at WrestleMania two, we know it was Bundy and Hogan. Was Bundy the right guy in 86 or would you have picked someone else? Stealing money every time it cashes a check, you're stealing money Bundy. Yes, come into the bank with a check. And they go, here is the steal more money from these people. They're stealing money Bundy. You know, Bundy was the big monster at the time. And I don't know, coming off of it, look, I discuss this so many different times with everybody from Vince to Pat to George Scott even about what the fuck were you thinking? But that was a huge disaster and huge loss and just just terrible planning and execution and on every level, because the three venues didn't work. It tripled your costs. It was horrible. Plus, you didn't have three really strong attractions to draw on three different locations. You're going off of Piper and Tee from the year before. Hmm. We'd seen so many machinations of it by that point. It was kind of like, yeah, I don't really care. The Bundy thing was there's a wrestling angle. And the Battle Royale was a Battle Royale with some football players in it. The appeal of the Battle Royale also at the time was you were coming off the Chicago Bears, great season and what have you. And they were hoping to have more NFL players and the NFL did not want their players in that Battle Royale. So went into it with good intentions, ended up with, okay, they didn't get what they wanted. But even that, I don't know that that was going to draw a lot of people because you got, you weren't going to get Jim McMahon in it. You got the refrigerator, but you didn't get big football names in there. So I just don't know there was really anything in the book at that point. Morocco was as hot as anybody going in and they switched it from Morocco to Bundy to get to Bundy in the cage. So yeah, go up and down that cart other than those three matches, but we had a tag with the Funks against JYD and Steamboat. I don't know, can you name any other matches really? No, it was a pretty forgettable affair. Besides Piper and T, there's not much there. Yeah, you had Jake's debut against George Wells and Nassau. Frigerator Perry was in one of the Battle Royals. He was in the Battle Royale. Yeah, there's not a much just off the top of our head. No, Ozzy with the Bulldogs. But here's something that I know that is going to be top of the head for you because this is a great question and we'll close it with this. Michael Bassett wants to know, Mr. Pritchard, my question is hopefully a simple one. What topic haven't you covered yet that you really want to on something to wrestle? Wow. I don't know. Uh, Can I pitch one? Sure. Your return to WWE in 2019. Why don't we cover it then? We can do that. You want to do it? Let's do it. Well, shit. Yeah, we're doing it. All right. Close mouth. Don't get fed. Next week, right here on Something to Wrestle, We're going to talk about Bruce's return to WWE in 2019. He'd been out of the business for a while. He starts doing the podcast. He has a little fun with MLW. Has a little fun with TNA. And then one day, the phone rang. We'll pick it up from there next week here on the show. Bruce, I never know what to expect. I like when we do these ask Bruce any things. We get to cover a lot of topics. This was a fun episode today, man. Thanks for the time. Always. Ain't done both things. Well, in the meantime, I'm going to go help some people try to save some money and save with conrad.com and remind me again. I got some mortgages again, man. Just rent, folks. What much easier? You don't have to own a refrigerator or a stove or anything. You get a nice man, comes in. He fixes all your stuff forever for you. And, and it, you know, every year you pay him a little bit more and it just rent. God, what's easier? Get new stuff all the time. You've met me in 2016 and since that time, true or false, you've paid off not one, but two mortgages. True. Come on now. Save with conrad.com. If brother love can do it, by God, you can too. And we'll see you next week when we talk about Bruce's return to the WWE on something to wrestle with Bruce Prichard. Sometime, jimmy jam aim long. That's when we said, hey, y'all rock on. Did you put Christmas on a credit card? Don't stress out about that extra holiday spending. Save with conrad.com can help you consolidate all of your high interest rate credit cards into one much lower monthly payment. Save with conrad.com has helped families just like yours. Save up to $800 a month. You don't need perfect credit or money out of your pocket. And did I mention no payments until March? So don't make saving money or resolution next year. Make it happen today at savewithconrad.com. Hit on lesson number 2129, Equal Housing Lender. Unpredictable as it is exciting, AXA XL is facing into risk. As a leading global insurer, we constantly push the boundaries to protect your business and power your innovations. AXA XL, facing into risk for a future to be imagined. This advertisement doesn't constitute an offer or solicitation, nor a description of any products or services of AXA XL.