William J. Bruce III had a blast working for years as Ted DiBiase Sr’s agent which allowed him to get up close and personal with the WWE Hall of Famer.
From 2007 to 2010, Bruce served as the publicist and booking agent of the Million Dollar Man, who was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2010.
Speaking exclusively to eWrestlingNews.com, Bruce, a self-professed fan of Hulk Hogan, recalled finding himself in the role of managing one of the Hulkster’s rivals. He said,
“I was blessed a few years earlier to work on a film called home Beyond the Sun. A couple of years after I was looking to get back into film and walked into the office of Pure flix which unknown to me at the time was also where Byron M. Jones was both a managing partner and the producer of the film that I had been involved in a few years previous.
“In that same office, Byron also had a company that represented Ted. The guy previously who handled Ted messed up and I was given the chance to take on his bookings.”
Bruce said he hung out with Virgil for one weekend at a convention and described the former Million Dollar Champion as “killer funny.”
In the interview, Bruce recalled being in a restaurant with DiBiase Sr. and a biker friend when trouble began brewing. He said,
“We were at a restaurant and an argument broke out at the next table, which turned to fists. I was on the end closest to the other table and actually had to duck out of the way to avoid an elbow. I remember thinking like ‘We are all in the wrong order, I was closest to the fight, then Ted was beside me, and on the far end was the biker.'”
Despite this ordeal, the vast majority of Bruce’s adventures with DiBiase was positive, and he retains a positive view on the WWE legend all these years later. He said,
“He was always goofy too, like in a good way, like when we would chat during the day there were times he put on the webcam to make funny faces. He’s really a great guy to work for.
Bruce’s time working with Ted DiBiase Sr. allowed him to meet others in the DiBiase family, including Ted Jr. who showed a wisdom not unlike his father. He said,
“I got to talk with Ted Jr. once or twice. He surprised me, he was a lot like his father, but I felt like he was years ahead for his age in regards to maturity.”
In February 2020, it was reported that DiBiase Sr’s ministry received more than $2.1 million in welfare funds from the state of Mississippi as part of a massive fraud scheme.
DiBiase’s son Brett, who was hired by the Department of Human Resources, would oversee the contracts and would give massive amounts to parties connected to the scandal.
Brett DiBiase would plead guilty to creating fraudulent statements in what has been labeled as Mississippi’s largest public embezzlement case in state history.
In the interview, I asked Bruce about the claims against DiBiase Sr. and how his family benefitted from the embezzlement. He said,
“To be completely honest, I just can’t see either Ted Sr or Ted Jr. doing anything like that. As I said, I only got to speak to Ted Jr. like once or twice, but I just don’t see it. If you ever watched Sesame Street when you were a kid they use to have this song like “one of there things just doesn’t belong here, not it’s time to play our game, try to play our game.”
“And that’s how I feel, it just doesn’t match the man that I’ve known. Ted, is careful in the sense that he wouldn’t do that, he has a real love for God and his wife. He just wouldn’t do that in my honest opinion.”
Ted Sr. has claimed that his family has been scapegoats in the investigation and that his celebrity status made his family a target for federal investigators.
It may have been over a decade since Bruce served as Ted DiBiase Sr’s agent, but to this day, he continues to have a high opinion of the Million Dollar Man. He said,
“The guy is just solid. And his love for his wife is so strong man, so strong. I’ve seen him tear up talking about her.”
