Bruce Prichard Discusses Randy Savage Getting Drunk Before Calling Vince McMahon To Tell Him He Was Leaving WWE in 1994, Says Savage Never Told Them He Wanted To Wrestle More

On the latest edition of Something to Wrestle, Bruce Prichard talked about Randy Savage telling Vince McMahon in October of 1994 that he was leaving WWE for WCW and how Vince reacted, if Savage left because WWE didn’t see him as a wrestler anymore, and why Vince made the unusual move to announce Savage’s departure on the November 7th edition of RAW. Highlights are below.

On how Randy Savage told Vince McMahon that he was leaving WWE: “I think that Randy was a special talent, had a special bond with Vince at the time that was unique and Randy, like Hulk, Vince had become close with Randy. So when the phone call came in, I think that it was, the first one was that Randy had to get drunk to call Vince and tell him, and Vince didn’t want to talk to him while he had been drinking and asked him to call him the next day, and when he did, that was the day of RAW, that Monday morning, and that’s when Randy told him, he was going to WCW, and Vince was not happy, he was hurt, because all of this, Randy had always said, ‘I won’t do you like Hogan did, I’ll be the guy, I’ll be your Babe Ruth, I’ll always be here.’ Then out of the blue, with no indication on our end, Vince wanting to make Randy an employee and bring him in to the office, and all these other things, and out of the blue, ‘Yeah, I’m going to WCW.’ And had to have several beers to even call Vince to tell him that. And that kind of upset Vince as well. So yeah, it was hurtful, it really hurt him.”

On if Vince was upset that Savage got drunk before calling him to tell him he’s leaving: “Well partially, yeah. If you’re going to do it, then do it, be a man, don’t sit there and have to get yourself all messed up to get up the nerve to do it. The next day, Randy called and Vince had called him and said, ‘Let’s talk,’ and Randy said, ‘Yeah, I’m gone, not coming in, not going to be there tonight.'”

On if anything would have changed Savage’s mind about leaving: “Randy had made up his mind, but Randy also wasn’t given any options to do anything. Wasn’t like, ‘Hey, if you’ll do this for me, I’ll stay,’ or ‘If we do this, I’ll stay.’ It was, ‘I’m gone.'”

On the rumors that Savage left because he wanted to wrestle and Vince didn’t see him as a wrestler anymore: “The rumor and innuendo, I don’t know where that comes from, unless it was after the fact that WCW came in and said, ‘Hey, we want you to wrestle, we don’t want you to do anything else.’ Well, then he’s going to go wrestle and then his excuse can be that they wouldn’t let me wrestle at WWE. I was there. Randy never expressed to me, as a matter of fact, Randy expressed the opposite. The rumor and innuendo, the narrative that is out there, that Randy wanted to wrestle, that’s, never said that to us. Never said that to the people that would make it so that Randy would be wrestling all the time. He never made that clear. I don’t know how many times or ways I have to say that. It’s like, well, no. Maybe he did, but he never expressed that to us, the people who could have made that happen.”

On why Vince broke protocol and acknowledged Savage’s departure on RAW: “Because Randy was special, and because Randy was synonymous with the brand at the time, so that’s what Vince wanted to do. He wanted to let Randy know that, ‘Hey Randy, no matter what you did, we still support you and good luck.’ And that was the only way Vince knew how to get that message out there. I don’t think he felt that he was going to have any more conversations with Randy.”

If using any of the above quotes, please credit Something to Wrestle with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.