Bruce Prichard Recounts What Really Happened With The Infamous Acolytes vs. Public Enemy ‘Shoot’ Match, Vince McMahon’s Backstage Reaction

In the latest episode of Something to Wrestle, Bruce Prichard gave his take on what happened between the teams of the Acolytes (Bradshaw and Faarooq) and the Public Enemy on an episode of Heat on March 7, 1999. The match is infamous because it appears as though the future APA go into business for themselves and proceed to really beat up the former ECW team. The Public Enemy left the company not long after that match. WWE has video of the match online, which you can see below. Here are highlights:

On what happened with the Acolytes match: “Well they had a finish for the match where the Acolytes were going to put Public Enemy through a table. Right before they went out to the ring, the Public Enemy were going out to the ring first and they told Ron and John, ‘Hey, we’re gonna take out that table spot at the end.’ Which was the finish! So they told them that and they went out. So John turned around to Ron and Ron was like, ‘What’d he say?’ And he says, ‘Take out the table spot at the end.’ ‘So they don’t want to do the table spot.’ ‘I guess not.’ ‘Well fuck, we’ll just bring the tables to them!’ And they made sure they got the table spot in.”

On the reaction backstage: “Well first of all, gonna see who was there, when everybody came back obviously John and Ron were ready for whatever might happen and Public Enemy came back, walked right up to them, shook their hands and said ‘Thank you very much.’ They didn’t want any more of that. So I think that just kind of told everybody where they were. And Public Enemy, man, they weren’t getting over. They’re supposed to be tough guys… they’re fine and dandy doing everything in the world to somebody else, but taking it is a different situation. So they’re happy giving it out but they didn’t want to take it.”

On when it’s okay for a wrestler to beat up another wrestler legit: “Well when the other guy’s not doing what was agreed to do and the other guy’s fighting you to get to the point, yeah. It is okay, because at that point, they weren’t doing what they were supposed to be doing. They were trying to go into business for themselves, them being Public Enemy, and APA was trying to get to the story that was supposed to be in that match.”

On Vince McMahon’s reaction: “I’d hate to say it because… Johnny, I didn’t really know Johnny at all, other than meeting him a few times. I can’t tell you much about Johnny. But Ted Petty to me was a stand up guy. I always liked Ted a lot and I always thought he was a good stand-up guy. They got in their head that they couldn’t do certain things and didn’t want to do it and that was their detriment. Vince was kind of done with them at that point and the boys will take care of the boys. And at that time in the business, that’s how things happened. You let the dressing room police itself without management having to get involved and things pretty much usually tend to work out.”

If you use any of the quotes, please credit Something to Wrestle with an h/t to 411mania.com