Bruce Prichard Reveals How Steve Austin Shoving Mike Tyson Changed WWE’s Plans

On the latest episode of Something To Wrestle With, Bruce Prichard talked about Mike Tyson’s involvement with WWE in early 1998, the moment where Mike Tyson got into a shoving match with Steve Austin on Raw and how that changed his involvement to being the special enforcer at WrestleMania that year. You can check out some highlights below:

On Tyson’s Dandom:

“Mike Tyson was a lifelong fan, and Mike Tyson loved the business. I don’t think that Mike Tyson ever viewed the business as silly in any way, shape or form. Frankly, Mike — I go back to the Buster Douglas fight, where we were going to have Mike Tyson referee the match with Randy Savage. And it just — we have footage of Mike Tyson talking about being afraid of Hulk Hogan. That’s a shoot, you know? ‘What am I going to do if Hulk Hogan decides to attack me and body slam me. What am I going to do?’

“So Mike had a great deal of respect for the business. No way, did he think it was silly or anything like that. He had a great deal of respect for it and was a bit awed by the business. But most importantly, he had respect for the business, and he had respect for those that did it, I would say about Mike Tyson as far as — you know, you hear things about people from the outside in, And the media, and different people will have their viewpoints of people, and they get those narratives out there so that your opinion of them is tarnished based on someone else’s opinions. Then when you meet them, all of a sudden you find out, ‘Oh my gosh, this is a completely different human being than what has been portrayed in the press.’ And that was definitely the case with Mike Tyson.”

On the Segment Featuring Steve Austin & Mike Tyson

“The Mike Tyson deal changed the night that we were in — where the hell were we after the Royal Rumble? Whatever that California town was where Mike, we had the shoving thing with Steve. We changed the deal that night. Vince came back and said, he goes, ‘We’ve got to sit with him. Do you think he’ll do more? Because if we can get him to do more, oh my god, the things we can do.’ And we laid out a plan in Vince’s office. I went over with JR and went into Mike’s dressing room, where he was laying into his people. And I mean, he was chewing their ass about something. And that was where Mike’s — if you want go back and watch that, Mike had like $10,000 in his coat pocket. And when Steve shoved him, they all started going for the money. The money was flying everywhere. You see all of his people like, ‘Oh my god!’ On the floor, grabbing up all the hundreds, and so they were like counting all of his money.

“We went back in and and Mike went from chewing them out to almost like a little kid. We came in and apologized profusely. ‘I’m sorry you guys had to see that. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to disrespect you that way.’ It’s like, ‘Dude, it’s all good, no problem. You know, sometimes we all get like that,’ and all that s**t. But we talked to Mike, we talked to his management that night, and when Mike heard he could be more involved and do more things, and just, ‘We do this, and we do another thing, and then we go to WrestleMania. Mike, could you do TVs? Could you do this? This and this and this and this and this and be a part of this promotion all the way through?’ And his manager didn’t make that decision; Mike made that decision. Mike was like, ‘Yes. Whatever we can do, I want to do it all.’ So that was the kind of guy Mike Tyson was. And I think Mike is a — man, he’s an enigma. He’s one of a kind and a great fighter. But I found him to be a great guy to work with, professional and easy, too.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Something To Wrestle With an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.