OJ Simpson is one of the most notorious athletes of all time. The OJ Simpson trial is still a hot topic to this very day, and OJ is once again making headlines thanks to the fact that he was recently granted parole.
OJ Simpson was found not guilty for the murders of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman, however, there are many people who disagree with the verdict, and the trial tarnished OJ’s reputation forever.
Most people in show business tried to steer clear of OJ once the trial was all wrapped up, but it seems that some of the minds of the professional wrestling industry couldn’t resist the temptation of trying to use the controversy to bring in ratings.
WWE reached out to Simpson at one point and pitched an idea for him to face Roddy Piper at WrestleMania XII, but according to Bruce Prichard the idea was quickly shot down when word got out. Prichard says they received a lot of backlash because of the idea, and there was concern that WWE would have trouble getting sponsors if the company worked with OJ Simpson, so the idea was dropped.
WWE did do a parody of the OJ Bronco chase in the Backlot Brawl which featured Goldust and Roddy Piper facing off against one another, but Simpson was not involved.
A few years later Vince Russo pitched an idea for WCW to bring in OJ Simpson during a time when the company wasn’t doing so well.
Former WWE writer Kevin Eck recently posted blog on Sporting News, and he went into detail about Russo’s pitch.
“What I do know for a fact is that when I was the editor of WCW Magazine in 2000 and Russo was the head of creative at WCW, he pushed for the company to pay Simpson millions of dollars to take a lie detector test live on a WCW pay-per-view. Russo’s suggestion was based on the fact that Simpson said he would take a polygraph test on pay-per-view for $3 million, which would go toward a reward to catch the “real” killer. Simpson later said he would keep the money for himself.”
Eck went on to say that when the ratings for Nitro were on the decline, Russo insisted that it wasn’t his fault, and he pushed to bring in Simpson because he felt the company needed a publicity stunt.
“During a company meeting, Russo acknowledged that the ratings for “Monday Nitro” weren’t good, but he said it certainly wasn’t his fault. He put over how great the creative content was but claimed the ratings weren’t reflecting it because viewers had tuned out and therefore they didn’t know how great the show was. He stressed that WCW needed a publicity stunt. That’s when he pitched the Simpson idea.”
On this week’s episode we’re talking to Simon Grimm, aka Simon Gotch about what’s next for his career and more. In the episode Simon goes into some interesting ideas that he pitched to WWE creative, where he wants to wrestle next, and he also shares the story of how he found out The Vaudevillains were getting called up to the WWE main roster. We’re also sharing our predictions for the WWE Battleground pay-per-view and more. You can subscribe to Still Real Radio on iTunes, and you can also check out the latest episode below.
