Bruce Prichard recently took to his podcast, “Something To Wrestle,” to talk about several professional wrestling topics.
Here are the highlights:
Him and Pat Patterson feeling that Shawn was the babyface while Vince McMahon being set on Diesel:
There was a sentiment, at least amongst Pat Patterson and myself, that we felt that Shawn was the huge babyface in that deal and not necessarily Diesel, and Vince didn’t feel that. Vince was set and he really wanted to get Diesel over and put the championship on Diesel, get behind Diesel, and move forward. Trying to get someone else in that position, ala Shawn Michaels, was going to be a losing battle and it would have been an uphill battle. I’m not sure I necessarily agree with that, but that’s what we did.
Being given an edict to never bring up Shawn Michaels as a babyface again:
And we pushed so hard that around the Royal Rumble, we were given the edict, don’t bring it up again, don’t bring up Shawn being a babyface again, he’s a cocky little arrogant heel, that’s how the audience sees him, and that’s what we’re going to do.
How they often would do the opposite of what the online dirt sheet fans wanted:
And you also have to understand, there wasn’t, even though it’s a minority, the online presence, there wasn’t that presence at this point and time, there wasn’t a loud, boisterous group who would bitch and moan about every single thing that you did. We would use as a barometer a lot of the times whether or not that vocal minority in the dirt sheet group, if they liked something, that usually meant we did something wrong. If they hated it, it usually meant it was extremely successful. So they were hating this. And we thought, OK, well this should be pretty good.
How the fans respected Shawn too much for him to be a heel:
But I think that for us, and you listen to the audience night in and night out, that while they did not like the character Shawn Michaels, and they did not like him in the role that he played, they loved his work and they respected it and they applauded it, so I always felt we were fighting an uphill battle to make him this nasty heel, the counter to that was we’ll put a nasty heel with him, Sid Vicious, and that’s gonna help. Eh. Don’t know if it did. Well, I know it didn’t.
Also Read: Jake Roberts Says ‘Chumps’ Like Shawn Michaels & Bret Hart Needed WWE Title
H/T 411Mania for the transcriptions
