Bruce Prichard Says Stone Cold Pushed For Heel Turn At Wrestlemania X-7

In the latest episode of Something To Wrestle, Bruce Prichard spoke about turning Stone Cold Steve Austin heel at Wrestlemania X-7, which he said that Austin himself pushed for even though he later regretted it. Here are highlights:

On what he would have done differently: “Not had the babyface match. What I mean by that is I would have had Rock go in as a stone cold heel, pardon the pun, or turn Steve ahead of it and done something different with Steve before you got there. Just so that the audience had a definitive good guy and a bad guy. Here they were split, and you watch the match, they were cheering Rock just as much as they were cheering for Steve…Steve more, but there were pops for Rock, man. And they were behind him on the spots. The false finishes were all there. But if you were dead set on going with Steve, if we had turned him at the Royal Rumble and done some dastardly things getting to that point. But even then, if he was the challenger, I don’t know how that is gonna feel. However if Rock as the champion were a heel going into it, you’d have blown the roof off the place. And they blew the roof off the place anyway when Steve won!”

On if he thinks they left money on the table by turning Austin heel: “Yes, I do. Because I think that Steve winning the title, Rock going away…it’s almost ‘don’t fix what’s not broken.’ But we wanted to do something new. And Steve was adamant going into it about wanting to be a heel. And we all bought into it. But again, when you look back with rose-colored glasses, 20/20 vision, don’t know if we’d make that same decision.”

On why the storyline with Debra as Rock’s manager was dropped: “I don’t think anybody cared. When we got into it it was a way to try and put a further wedge in between them – them being Rock and Austin – but I don’t think anybody cared. It was a force more than anything.”

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