“Something to Wrestle with Bruce Prichard” puts up a weekly poll on their Twitter account giving fans the opportunity to vote on next week’s show topic. This past week was a tie.
Related: 10 Things We Learned From Bruce Prichard’s Million Dollar Man Podcast
Each choice was a different Royal Rumble from the past, and last week the 1994 and 1998 Royal Rumble events won with 27% of the poll. Instead of trying to count hanging chads, Bruce decided to go with the 1994 Royal Rumble simply because it came first. It was also fitting because much like this week’s poll, the 1994 Royal Rumble also ended in a tie. Here are 7 things we learned from Bruce Prichard’s 1994 Royal Rumble podcast.
#7 – How Vince Got Almost Got into Martial Arts
In 1994, the WWF sent out a casting call for all martial artists because they wanted to start their own weekly martial arts themed television show. Summit Media Group initially approached Vince McMahon because they wanted to create a weekly television show featuring contact martial arts that was much akin to the WWF.
Titan Sports agreed to the idea so they went in 50% with Summit on the venture. Thus, the World Martial Arts Federation was born. It was scheduled to have an initial twenty-six episode run and cost around three to five million to produce. The show would have been on Saturday morning so kids could watch their cartoons and pre-determined contact martial arts competitions in the same sitting.
Bruce says that he did the casting for the show and met with several big names in the martial arts community to appear. However, the WMAF didn’t happen because they couldn’t find any viable martial artists that would agree to lose in staged matches during the weekly thirty-minute battle arts show.
Bruce says that the martial artists couldn’t put their egos aside and agree to a fixed bout even with the possibility of merchandising and other sources of pay that they had never had access to before. Vince never put any real money in the product as it was more of an exploratory venture. Therefore, the show was scrapped and never came to fruition, Bruce says that it “died on the vine.”
#6 – Bruce Wanted Owen
When Bret claimed that he was retiring from singles competition to become exclusively a tag-team wrestler, it ruffled a lot of feathers with fans and Owen Hart alike. Bruce Prichard says that the entire idea for this angle was Bruce Hart’s brain child. Prichard says that Hart pitched the idea to Vince and he liked the idea.
Bruce Prichard says that he argued to have it be Owen Hart going against Bret, but Vince vetoed the idea. Prichard said that the idea of the younger brother Owen facing his other brother Bret was a much more compelling story-line. Vince said that he didn’t think that brothers would fight like that to which Prichard adamantly disagrees.
#5 – They Didn’t Have Anyone to Wrestle Alundra Blayze
Medusa aka Alundra Blayze was an incredible female professional wrestler and way ahead of her time. She was so good that she didn’t mesh with any of the female wrestlers that WWF had at their disposal at the time. Blayze did way more than the normal hair pulling and over the top theatrical wrestling that the American audiences were used to in regard to female wrestling, and Vince was searching high and low for competitors to face Blayze.
Bruce says that Vince used Alundra Blayze to search for Japanese female wrestlers to face her. Alundra spent a good amount of time in Japan so she still had contacts there. They would eventually bring in Bull Nakano to face Blayze and the two worked with each other for a good bit.
Nakano eventually won the Women’s Championship at the Big Egg Wrestling Universe event in Japan and held the belt for five months. Blayze would win the belt back at the April 3rd 1995, episode of Monday Night Raw. The WWF would later do away with the women’s division when they released Blayze in September 1995. Blayze eventually ended up on Nitro as Medusa where she infamously threw her WWF title belt in a trash can.
#4 – Ted DiBiase’s Commentary Problems
Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase was an amazing performer, he was skilled in the ring and on the microphone. However, those microphone abilities turned out to be exclusive for promos and vignettes. Bruce says that the idea to use Ted on commentary for the 1994 Royal Rumble wasn’t a rash decision. Prichard says there were tryouts and rehearsals backstage, but when it came to showtime there was no chance to stop and try a retake. Therefore, DiBiase wasn’t the best at commentary to put it lightly.
Co-host Conrad Thompson asks if they put him next to Vince McMahon so it would make Vince look better, and Bruce didn’t confirm this theory. He did, however, admit that putting Ted with Vince on commentary definitely made Vince look better. Conrad asks if they tried to get John Madden to do the job and Bruce said they did, but Ted cost less.
#3 – Details About The Rumble’s Tie Finish
Bruce says that officials were playing it very close to the vest as to which superstar they were going to go with for the winner. They didn’t want it to get out that they were favoring Bret Hart over Lex Luger or vice versa. Bruce also says that the tie finish was very difficult to pull off. But when it came to the finish which would require them to hit the floor at the same time, Bruce says that they knew that they were in good hands with Bret Hart.
Bruce said that Hart and Luger rehearsed the spot in the ring a couple of times earlier the day of the show, and the production truck was prepped as well.
Prichard says that longtime director Kerwin Silfies intentionally got awkward angles of the finish to give more drama to the moment. Prichard also says that Silfies arranged additional cameras around the arena to get a shot of the two men’s feet hitting the ground simultaneously along with angles that barely missed seeing the crucial moment just in case they needed an extra camera viewpoint.
Prichard said that they had someone in the crowd with a smaller camera that got the perfect shot of the two landing simultaneously. He said that they still didn’t quite know who to go with so they gauged a lot of the audience reaction during the conclusion of the match as a determining factor. The overwhelming response was that Bret was over and Lex was receiving a mixed reaction at best.
#2 – Truth Behind The Undertaker Dying And His Resurrection
The Undertaker had been going nonstop in the WWF for quite some time when he approached Vince and asked for a break. Taker’s wife was allegedly pregnant at the time and the Dead Man wanted some time off. Bruce says that the idea to kill off the Undertaker character was a compounded group effort from everyone on the creative team.
Bruce Prichard says that the end of the match when the urn broke and green smoke came from it was supposed to signify The Undertaker’s spirit escaping. He says that Vince, Pat Patterson, and himself loved the levitation gimmick ending of the match.
Prichard says that The Undertaker was brought into the studio to film the footage that was on the big screen either a couple of days, or the day before the event. Prichard went on to say that they rehearsed the levitation bit several times that day and he wasn’t nervous at all that it might not look legit on camera. Bruce says that he produced the segment and thinks that it turned out good.
#1- Other 1994 Royal Rumble Tidbits
The 1994 Royal Rumble helped make the Diesel character. He lasted just over seventeen minutes in the Royal Rumble match and eliminated seven people. Diesel threw some really stiff forearm shots at Virgil during his time in the match as well.
Bruce says that this was not a test to see if Diesel could get over as a face at all, but instead, a test to see if he could go as a singles competitor. In the end, it took five superstars to eliminate him: Shawn Michaels, Crush, Mabel, Sparky Plug, and Bam Bam Bigelow.
Sparky Thurman Plugg made his WWF debut in the 1994 Royal Rumble match and lasted over twenty-one minutes in a very impressive first showing. He had previously made appearances in the WWF as a jobber wrestling under a name that fans might know him better by: Bob Holly.
Bruce says that Jim Cornette was very high on Holly and pushed to bring him in as more than just a jobber. Prichard says that it was essential that Holly’s new character have the initials STP because, well… you know. Bruce says that giving Sparky the middle name “Thurman” was Vince’s idea because Vince argued, how many Thurmans do you know?
Bastion Booger was apparently sick so he missed the event even though he was slated to go out as the 25th entrant. Bruce also reiterated that he gave Booger his iconic name and still can’t believe that Vince went with it. Moe from Men on a Mission was in the Royal Rumble for over 21 minutes, but he didn’t eliminate anyone during his time in the match. Doink the Clown was portrayed by Ray Apollo during this particular event, when Conrad asks if fans would know Apollo from anything else Bruce replied, “no.”
Bruce and Conrad cover plenty more topics in their nearly two-hour account of all things Royal Rumble 1994. They discuss why Tatanka took the red stripe out of his hair, what Vince thought about the Great Kabuki, whether or not the “old-school” in Bruce cringed when he had to produce such a theatrical match like Undertaker vs Yokozuna, and more. They even talk about the WWF hotline and discuss not only its purpose but who was in charge of the extra stream of revenue.
You can check out the full episode below:
