In the latest episode of his Something To Wrestle With Bruce Prichard podcast, Prichard talked about the Nation of Domination, the company’s high hopes for the Rock early on, and the tension between Ron Simmons and Ahmed Johnson. The highlights are below:
On who pitched the Nation Of Domination idea: “Originally, I believe [The Nation Of Domination] was Ernie Ladd’s idea. Yeah, Ernie consulted with us. Ernie, from time to time, would come up with some good ideas, good perspective.”
On the company’s high hopes for the Rock early on: “Well, everybody had high hopes for him in the early days by taking his dad’s name and his grandfather’s name, Rocky Johnson and Peter Maivia, making him Rocky Maivia, and I’ll never forget [Jim] Cornette, ‘give him a goddamn f–king name! Rocky Maivia!’ And it was when he came back from injury and went into the Nation of Domination and that’s where he emerged as a heel. And it started with The Rock stuff, which, by the way, the whole Rock speak, ‘The Rock says’, talking about himself in third person, that was something that Jim Ross came up with.”
On Ahmed Johnson and Ron Simmons’ backstage heat: “I don’t think that Ahmed was Ron’s favorite opponent. Ron really wanted to help Ahmed; however, Ahmed could be difficult at times. He felt he knew better and was fairly stiff at times. And he wasn’t stiff to Ron Simmons, I can tell you that. He had a reputation for being stiff. I don’t know how many people he hurt, but he stiffed people and people didn’t like working with him because he was stiff.”
