WrestleMania X-7 was a night full of action capped off by “Stone Cold” Steve Austin defeating The Rock to win the WWF Championship in a no-DQ match.
But another match on the card which is sometimes overlooked is the amazing Gimmick Battle Royal which took place between a TLC match and The Undertaker vs Triple H. A lot of faces from pro wrestling’s history were involved while Bobby Heenan and Mean Gene Okerlund sat on commentary for the match.
It was a real treat, but it turns out it wasn’t so much fun for Jim Cornette and Bruce Prichard.
Cornette recently told a great story about his experience in the Gimmick Battle Royal on Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru about a hilarious rib Corney and Prichard ended up playing on themselves during the match.
“The funny thing was, the rib was I had said to Bruce [Prichard],” Cornette started to explain. “I called Bruce to talk about some Talent Relations business from OVW because Danny Davis and I were going down to WrestleMania for the weekend because we were having meetings about the developmental program and so was Les Thatcher and etc. And I talked to Bruce and he told me about the Gimmick Battle Royal he said Brother Love was gonna be in it. I said, ‘well ya oughta put me in it and we’ll go over in the corner and keep ourselves busy so nobody will potato us.”
“He says, ‘you wanna be in it?’ — I said, ‘well does it pay? — Yes? Okay, I’m gonna be there anyway.’ That’s how hard it was for me to get booked to wrestle at WrestleMania.”
“The rib was we went over in the corner and promptly — I think what happened first [was] I hit him with a gutshot with the racquet and he bent over and headbutted me in the lip and gave me a fat lip. But he did something to me and I sold it and stomped on his foot and I already had kind of a black eye anyway from a spot I think we were practicing at OVW TV — I think it was Stacey [Cornette’s wife who portrayed Synn in OVW] where I had said ‘now slap me’ and I was walking through something they were gonna do and I said ‘slap me’ and before I could say ‘and when I block it’ she thought I meant like right instantly then — pow — wasn’t ready for it.”
“So as a rib [Bruce and I] basically beat each other up in the corner and hurt each other and we’re all marked up and everything and nobody else hurt us. So it was a rib on ourselves.”
If you use any portion of the quotes in this article please credit Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru with a H/T to Still Real To Us for the transcription
