Bruce Prichard On Tracy Smothers’ Passing, WWE’s Initial Idea For In Your House Concept, WCW’s World War 3 Match

In a recent edition of Something to Wrestle, Bruce Prichard discussed the passing of Tracy Smothers, WWE’s initial idea for the In Your House concept, WCW’s World War 3 match, and much more. You can read his comments below.

Bruce Prichard on the passing of Tracy Smothers: “Yeah, it’s way too soon. Tracy was 58 years old. Super nice guy, and I’ve known Tracy all the way back to his Mid South days. He lost his battle with cancer, tough son of a bitch, and yeah, may he rest in peace. I’ve had just a fucked up last two weeks with a lot going on personally, and when you hear that, it just puts things in perspective for you a little bit because he’s one year older than I am, and that quick, he’s gone. I feel like I just saw him, and that was over a year ago at one of these conventions. I remember sitting with him at a show that Gary Damron had, and Tracy and I sat there and watched the whole show. The enthusiasm Tracy had for the entire show from start to finish and talked to every single guy and had a comment on everything out of love and out of sheer enjoyment. Tracy was a great guy, and he’s gonna be missed. It’s just really a shame. Cancer -for those of you out there, if you can help, that’s one out of everything that I really hate and fight. Cancer sucks. Tracy is gonna be missed, and I’m kind of at a loss for words really.”

On WWE’s initial idea for the In Your House format: “There was the problem of perception, and that comes with when you’re looking at the value of something, and we were giving them two hours – sometimes the shows were better than our major pay-per-views. But again, to the average audience, you’re getting an hour less of content and you’re paying less. So, just by definition when you look at the monthly pay-per-views of the competitor – in this case, WCW – where they were still doing three hours shows and they were still doing it at a higher price point, in looking at ours, it was ‘Well, this must be less than’ based on the price point and based on the length of the event. We didn’t think initially the audience was gonna be there monthly. We didn’t think they’d pay for full price for a monthly pay-per-view, and we were proven wrong and changed eventually from the In Your House format to if we’re gonna go monthly, go with major pay-per-views monthly. It doesn’t cost any more to produce three hours than it does to produce two hours, and the return is gonna be greater – obviously, the same number of buys at $27 is better than the same number of buys at $19. We were evaluating everything along the way.”

On WCW’s World War 3 Match and how it compared to the Royal Rumble: “I’ve always been a big fan of the two-ring battle royal. I’ve always been a big fan of the two-ring six-man tag team matches and being able to utilize two rings to your advantage and make it a special event. So, I was intrigued, I’ll admit, on the three-ring circus which is what it eventually turned into in WCW. That’s the one that was just fucking horrible with 800 people in it and everything……that’s one of those you look at and say ‘Well, as a spectacle, I gotta see what the hell it’s gonna be.’ However, as the product at the end of the day, it’s kind of like ‘Oh fuck, I’m sorry I looked.’ It was not good. But compared to the Royal Rumble, there was never any ‘Oh my god, they’re gonna do this 800-man three-ring battle royal thing and people are gonna want that more than the Rumble.”

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