Something to Wrestle with Bruce Prichard

[El-P]

Yeah, take him out of the WWE mindset, and I think Bruce is actually quite a decent guy.

BTW, the last 30 minutes of the episode, which deals with the second Sable stint in 2003/04 is a good reminder of how fucking godawful the product was back then, with not even the excuse of being hot.

[SomethingSavage]

Yeah. The Sable episode really was interesting on a lot of levels. I actually thought Bruce's description of her wayyy back on the Sunny episode was right on point. Sable was this mom and wrestling wife who just happened to find herself in a business she didn't understand or necessarily love one day - and then one of its biggest (accidental) mega stars almost overnight. It's fascinating to think about if you take a step back and really look at it.

I don't understand the mentality of anyone wanting to bash Sable for her success though. You can find fault with plenty of WWE's decisions over the years, but this one certainly wasn't a case of them choosing someone to push. The people were thirsty for Sable - plain & simple. The fans wanted to see her featured more, and the company obliged. As much as some folks may have a problem with the two Vinces supposedly lusting over her, there's no denying that she was over HAYOOOJ with the paying consumers. Sable was a proven, valuable commodity. So of course they'd push her at that point. What was she going to do? Refuse the money? Reject the offer to go on weekly television and become a star? Come on. It's supply & demand.

I *do* understand the logic behind finding some fault with her lack of improvement and investment over the course of her career though. She was fairly talentless when all things are considered, but she never had any real desire to be in that spot as a worker. So it's more of a case of the company getting ahead of themselves by putting her in that position again & again and just simply assuming that she'd suddenly show some passion or desire for the business. It was just never in her makeup, and I almost feel like they've overcompensated for that in recent years - with every single woman on the roster, faces and heels alike, being given the "lifelong fan" back story. Eva Marie might be the only exception - and is quite a fitting comparison to how a Sable might function in a contemporary setting.

The Meltzer stuff really was creepy and downright cringe-worthy. I realize people are hyper-sensitive regarding Dave this year, but he really did come across poorly when his words were compiled together & recited like that. Obviously context is key in matters like this, but he sounded like he had some serious, deep-rooted Norman Bates level issues with women going on or something. Just a bad look all around. Negative 2 stars, Dave.

[Cox]

23 hours ago, El-P said:

Understood. I also enjoy Mero more than most, he also gets a bad rep as a worker to me.

I wonder if Mero is one of those situations where a guy can be entertaining to watch as fans, but has a poor reputation as a worker among the boys, either because he doesn't know how to call a match or because he's out of position, or any one of a number of reasons that may not be perceptible to fans watching a match, but would be known by wrestlers. Could just be a situation where he has matches that look fine to us, but other wrestlers just don't want to work with him.

[flyonthewall2983]

I thought the "Wildman" gimmick was stupid and it went downhill for him from there. Makes a lot of sense that Vince wanted the Johnny B. Badd character, but couldn't make anything stick with him that could be as indelible. Without Sable, he probably would have not lasted to see the end of 1996, at least in any decent placement on the card. 

One of the funniest moments on the show was during the "Beware of Dog" episode, where Bruce takes issue (to put it lightly) with Meltzer's review of the Wildman/HHH match, which Dave actually liked, and Bruce hated. 

[flyonthewall2983]

9 hours ago, El-P said:

Yeah, take him out of the WWE mindset, and I think Bruce is actually quite a decent guy.

The discussion touched on the allegations made against Pat Patterson, and how it was believed by a lot of guys in the business because of the train of thought that most gay men were pedophiles (that unfortunately still persists to a degree). It's mentioned that Pat is a friend of the show, and that the charges against him never materialized in any meaningful way ultimately.

Bit of a side-track here, but I watched Jim Ross' Hall of Fame speech last week and his comments on Patterson were a little enlightening for me. He didn't just come out and say it, but I get the impression that Pat was the first gay man Jim had any dealings with that made him reconsider his perhaps less-than-enlightened view of homosexuality. It has made me wonder if people like Bruce had that same thing happen over the course of his friendship and time with the company.

[El-P]

9 hours ago, Cox said:

I wonder if Mero is one of those situations where a guy can be entertaining to watch as fans, but has a poor reputation as a worker among the boys, either because he doesn't know how to call a match or because he's out of position, or any one of a number of reasons that may not be perceptible to fans watching a match, but would be known by wrestlers. Could just be a situation where he has matches that look fine to us, but other wrestlers just don't want to work with him.

Totally the case to me. Much like guys like Kane are very much liked by the workers and a total drag to watch for me. Again, there's a hiatus between the production and the consumption, these are two totally different things.

[El-P]

8 hours ago, flyonthewall2983 said:

One of the funniest moments on the show was during the "Beware of Dog" episode, where Bruce takes issue (to put it lightly) with Meltzer's review of the Wildman/HHH match, which Dave actually liked, and Bruce hated. 

Yeah, it's pretty funny when that happens, because it kinda breaks the usual dynamic. It has to be noted Meltz actually put over Sable's first match (the intergender tag at Mania) pretty strong (considering what it was), which shocked the hell out of Bruce. The same way, when Meltz totally annihilates the Mania match against Tori, Bruce is laughing his ass off and actually concludes "It wasn't that good !" and buries the match even further. Which kinda gives away that the whole fuck-Meltz thing is a gimmick.

[Victator]

16 hours ago, Cox said:

I wonder if Mero is one of those situations where a guy can be entertaining to watch as fans, but has a poor reputation as a worker among the boys, either because he doesn't know how to call a match or because he's out of position, or any one of a number of reasons that may not be perceptible to fans watching a match, but would be known by wrestlers. Could just be a situation where he has matches that look fine to us, but other wrestlers just don't want to work with him.

That is my thought. That there might be some mechanical stuff we can't understand. Because a lot of the guys seem to like him as a person, but universally find him to be a bad talent. 

One last thing on Debra, I think she did really well as a character in WCW and the WWF. I just found her an odd choice for the WWF to pursue when they got hot. Maybe Jeff Jarrett put a word in for her. Even if she was one of the people he buried in his return promo. 

[El-P]

1 hour ago, Victator said:

Maybe Jeff Jarrett put a word in for her. Even if she was one of the people he buried in his return promo. 

The journey of Jarrett in WWF during the Attitude Era never ceases to amaze me.

Aztec Jarrett does shooty shooty promo : doesn't work.

Aztec Jarrett nWa champ : doesn't work.

Ok, let's bring ack Double J with Col Parker : doesn't work

Pissed off serious Jarrett with Godwinns in suits : doesn't work

Jarret + Debra... hummm. Hey, Debbie, can you strip down to your bra & panties ? "Yes !" : hey, Jarrett IS getting a reaction now !!!

[SomethingSavage]

I kind of dug the "Don't piss me off!" phase of his career there actually. Perfectly fine mid-card character after the haircut. But he honestly never appeared to be that over until the VERY end - doing the wifebeater shtick and slapping Figure Fours on every fallen woman he would come across. I don't necessarily think that had a super long shelf life or anything, but it was likely the best he ever looked in that run.

Regarding Mero, has anyone actually said anything negative about his in-ring work? I don't think I've heard anything specific, which is why I ask. The hate for him always struck me as a one-two punch.

First, it was all the envy & resentment over that first big guaranteed contract. And so there were some of the fan favorites of the beloved Attitude Era (Foley, Austin, etc.) going around, bashing Mero for that at a time when wrestling was wildly popular. So plenty of people are aware of it.

Secondly, there was the shit-storm surrounding the media during the Benoit fallout. Mero speaking out rubbed a lot of guys the wrong way. There seemed to be this feeling that he had no right to talk about Benoit one way or the other.

I guess a third branch of the Mero hate could stem from the Sable stuff, but that feels more like a byproduct of the contract & everything from his first run.

[flyonthewall2983]

For me, Mero wasn't very convincing as a character when not hiding behind the Johnny B. Badd gimmick. 

[Cox]

I thought it was funny that on Cornette's podcast this week that he mentioned that it was Bruce's idea to bring in Mero and Sable. That was conveniently left out of Bruce's podcast.

[flyonthewall2983]

Jim had a funny line about the heat between Bruce and Jerry Jarrett, suggesting that when he came to WWF Jerry treated Bruce like someone far below his paygrade.

[Dewar]

Jerry was on the most recent Kentucky Fried Rasslin podcast, and pretty much called Pritchard a coffee fetcher.

[Cornette's racket]

The podcast this week had one very interesting part, and it concerned if mick foley had messed up his spot off the cell and permanently injured himself(you could argue he did anyway) wound Owen have been allowed do his thing with the harness which ended so tragically the next year. Also it was asked if Owens death had happened before this then the cell spot wouldn't have happened either. 

[El-P]

Then again, tons more (most, actually) of this stupid kind of shit happened after Owen's death, so I'm not sure this argument holds any water.

[El-P]

Well, the KOTR 98 episode was still really good for the Hell in the Cell match only and the fact the real important stuff actually happened backstage (sort of). Not spoiling it if you haven't listened to it or don't know what it is about (I never heard that story before). I also enjoy Bruce ripping Russo's bullshit to shreds (the Al Snow match).

[C.S.]

The last two Prichard podcasts on the WWE Network - Big Evil and The Rock - have been very middle-of-the-road and missable even if you haven't listened to the audio equivalents (assuming they exist).

The Rock episode had some really weird editing - twice, Conrad brought up a topic they had discussed only a few minutes before, and Prichard would answer the question again. I can only assume these were "redo" scenes that somehow didn't get caught. Also, Conrad was weirdly critical of the legendary IC Title bridge angle. I can understand being a "rasslin' traditionalist" and hating that Rock was just given the title, but it was a legendary feud and angle, so that supersedes any minor criticisms IMO.

For most of the episode, Conrad literally looked asleep or exasperated. It wasn't until closer to the end that I realized he was obviously hiding a bad cold and hoarse voice.

Sadly, next week is the season finale - but it sounds like they're finally going to air the controversial CM Punk episode (assuming they're not redoing it entirely).

[SomethingSavage]

The Punk podcast they did earlier on was horrible - considerably worse than even the Edge episode. It was mostly comprised of Conrad reading results, followed by Bruce knocking ROH and/or Meltzer. Awfully boring with almost zero insight on anything. I'm curious if they take a different approach on the Network.

The biker Taker is new material, so I may check that out. This Rock period is a retread though. Skipping that, for sure.

[C.S.]

11 hours ago, SomethingSavage said:

The Punk podcast they did earlier on was horrible - considerably worse than even the Edge episode. It was mostly comprised of Conrad reading results, followed by Bruce knocking ROH and/or Meltzer. Awfully boring with almost zero insight on anything. I'm curious if they take a different approach on the Network

They made it sound like the CM Punk episode would only cover the short period both Punk and Bruce were in the company together.

[flyonthewall2983]

Halfway through the BTFBB episode, pretty good stuff. Didn't realize he wrote a book, Conrad uses it for a few stories here and he highly recommends it. I'm at where they're talking about the accident, brutal stuff.

[SomethingSavage]

Yeah, I've never heard the accident covered in such (gruesome) detail.

I listened throughout my gym session this morning. Fairly good episode, in my opinion. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but I think using the book as a guide certainly helped. Even if it is Brutus' viewpoint, it's at least a starting reference point to get things going. I dug the Bob Holly episode for similar reasons.

I also found the discussion about the origins of the gimmick to be fun. Bruce is good for these sorts of stories - coming from the production end of vignettes for these various characters, whether it's Double J or the Barber or whoever.

The haircut shtick really did elevate the profile of Beefer in that period. It's kind of amusing that he was so resistant to most of that stuff. Things like the haircut, Jake'a snake, etc. really should still have a place in wrestling. Today, in a time where they can't promote a proper baby face to save their life, they really could do worse than to go back to the post-match Mortal Kombat "Friendship" style finishes like this.

It *was* interesting to hear how they covered the season/possible series finale of the Network show, too. The Patreon deal seems to indicate that they're perfectly happy to move on & make money elsewhere. Say what you will about Conrad, but the guy keeps busy & knows the importance of monetizing the shit out of everything he can to maintain momentum in the marketplace.

[SomethingSavage]

Oh. And I popped when they read the story with Brutus calling Jimmy Hart a Hulk Hogan stooge.

It's dorky as shit, but that one got a laugh from me.

[The Thread Killer]

On 6/16/2018 at 3:24 PM, El-P said:

This show so jumped the shark with me.

I'm at that point now too, which is too bad.  I used to make a point to download the latest show each week pretty much as soon as it was made available, but since this past spring I have found my interest in this show waning quite rapidly - which ironically started right around the time of their 100th episode.  I couldn't sit through that one and they have been hit and miss since then, mostly miss.  I've skipped a couple of episodes or only listened to part of them. It's just over-saturation of the same old tired jokes and imitations over and over again, and seriously...enough with the fucking Meltzer bashing already.  It doesn't help that (in my opinion, which I know a lot of people won't share) 83 Weeks has become a more compelling show, using the exact same format.  Bischoff does his share of Meltzer bitching too, but he's a lot more even-handed about it, and I find his re-telling of the Monday Night Wars from a more business based perspective to be a lot more interesting.  Also, maybe it's just me but Bischoff doesn't seem to have as big a problem as Prichard does admitting when something sucked, or when he made a mistake.

Either way, for whatever reason I find that STW has really lost it's lustre for me.

[BrianB]

20 hours ago, The Thread Killer said:

I'm at that point now too, which is too bad.  I used to make a point to download the latest show each week pretty much as soon as it was made available, but since this past spring I have found my interest in this show waning quite rapidly - which ironically started right around the time of their 100th episode.  I couldn't sit through that one and they have been hit and miss since then, mostly miss.  I've skipped a couple of episodes or only listened to part of them. It's just over-saturation of the same old tired jokes and imitations over and over again, and seriously...enough with the fucking Meltzer bashing already.  It doesn't help that (in my opinion, which I know a lot of people won't share) 83 Weeks has become a more compelling show, using the exact same format.  Bischoff does his share of Meltzer bitching too, but he's a lot more even-handed about it, and I find his re-telling of the Monday Night Wars from a more business based perspective to be a lot more interesting.  Also, maybe it's just me but Bischoff doesn't seem to have as big a problem as Prichard does admitting when something sucked, or when he made a mistake.

Either way, for whatever reason I find that STW has really lost it's lustre for me.

I agree with this....but I'd caveat it by saying that the Bret Hart and Brian Pillman 83 weeks episodes were terrible. The Pillman episode in particular was worse than probably any STW episode.