Bruce Prichard On ‘Dr. Death’ Steve Williams Losing To Bart Gunn In WWE Brawl For All, Williams’ Legacy In Wrestling

In a recent edition of Something to Wrestle, Bruce Prichard discussed “Dr. Death” Steve Williams losing to Bart Gunn in the WWE Brawl for All, Williams’ legacy in wrestling, and much more. You can read his comments below.

Bruce Prichard on the backstage reaction to “Dr. Death” Steve Williams losing to Bart Gunn in the Brawl for All: “I’ll take you back to the week before. It was Bart Gunn calling me and asking if he was gonna get fired if he knocked Dr. Death out. I said, ‘Why would you get fired?’ He said, ‘I know you guys want him to win this.’ And I said look, man, they want this to be a shoot. Knock him out. At this point, we’re doing it, so to me, that would be great TV. And everybody was like great, knock him out. Who the fuck cares? Just do it and it’ll be great TV. And Bart knocked him out. I think JR was kind of like Don King watching Mike Tyson get knocked out.”

On Williams’ reaction to losing the fight: “Here’s the thing, if Doc had been an asshole and been going around talking about how tough he was and could beat everybody up, that would be one thing. You never heard that out of Doc. He didn’t have to tell people how tough he was. Doc was tough. Doc was a bad motherfucker. People knew it, but he didn’t have to tell people that. Again, I don’t know anybody that didn’t like Steve Williams. You felt bad for him. I felt horrible for him because he was hurt – not that he lost a match or a fucking fight – but the fact that he got hurt to the extent that he got hurt. He ripped his hamstring off. He was fucking dejected, man. I don’t know if it was the first fight he’d ever lost, but I think Doc felt the pressure.

“If you go back and listen and watch that, you can hear the disappointment in JR’s voice calling that. He had been built up and all of a sudden, he was a shell of what he was. Walking in there, Steve Williams was a tough son of a bitch. Should he have been in the ring with a much younger Bart Gunn who is a tough son of a bitch? Neither one of them should’ve been in the ring doing that shit. Bad concept, bad idea, bad execution, and unfortunately, a lot of people got injured because of it. One of the big casualties of the Brawl for All experience was what could’ve been a great run with Dr. Death Steve Williams ended right there.”

On Williams’ passing in 2009 due to throat cancer: “It was horrible. I had seen him at like a convention or some kind of deal. I’ll never forget it because he was in the hallway, and he was bald and had the voicebox. I didn’t recognize him at that point. As I got closer, I recognized the smile, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, Steve.’ He knew. But that doesn’t make it easy just because you know. I loved the man, and he was a friend and a hell of a talent and is sorely missed. He was a great guy and gone way too soon.”

On Williams’ legacy in wrestling: “I think you go back to Japan and Mid-South. Doc was one of those names that emerged from that and came from a relatively rough beginning in the business to being one of the true superstars.”

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