Kayfabe! – Timeline: The History of WWE – 1990 as Told by Bruce Prichard

Kayfabe!
Timeline: The History of WWE – 1990 As Told By Bruce Prichard

As far as overall entertainment goes, I would put this right alongside the 1997 Timeline with Cornette, it doesn’t hit the same level as the Cornette edition, but it probably comes closer to doing so than any other WWE Timeline has. Bruce’s impressions of Vince McMahon, Roddy Piper, Dusty Rhodes, and Ultimate Warrior are hysterical. Bruce’s story of how he came up with the Brother Love character is one of the big highlights. Bruce also drops some rather interesting tidbits, like the original plan for Tugboat being to turn him heel on Hogan and make him the Iraqi Sympathizer, but once Slaughter became available that got shelved. The big running online joke is that Kevin Sullivan came up with the whole concept of ‘booking your own divorce’ – but the Macho Man was six years ahead of him. After Randy and Liz were split on TV, with Randy going with Sherri, he filed for legal separation just to play along with the storyline. The Big Bossman babyface turn came about because people at the Cobb County jail were telling the WWF that they were doing wrong by Ray Taylor to portray him like that, because he was such a nice guy, and even the prisoners liked him. Bruce even gives the story about how Coliseum Video came to be, the company was formed through a collaboration between Titan Sports and H&H Video, who were in the porn business. There was even a character in Boogie Knights who was based on the head of H&H.

Of course, when discussing the year 1990 and Brother Love, you can’t forget the Undertaker. The original concept wasn’t even an Undertaker, it was supposed to be the personification of evil, to contrast with Brother Love in his white suit, was attempting to act like the personification of all that’s good. But, when Vince saw the outfit he remarked that he looked more like an Undertaker and it stuck. But, between his backstage and office duties, Bruce was being stretched too thin to be on the road as his manager, so they decided to scrap him as the manager. And, how’s this for a funny tidbit: Road Warrior Hawk, while sitting on the shitter, came up with the name of Undertaker’s new manager!

One thing that Bruce sometimes gets labeled as is being an apologist for Vince, but, he makes it hard to disagree with him once you understand his point of view. Sean brings up the Red Rooster, and Bruce tells the same story he did in his Guest Booker interview of how Vince came up with the rooster metaphor for Terry. Bruce also points out that Vince seemed to make a big investment in this so-called rib. Terry was paired with the top manager, Bobby Heenan, and their split and Terry’s babyface turn was done on SNME, and then he was still kept around for over a year. The reason it didn’t work was because Terry didn’t like it, and didn’t try make it work. Bruce compares it to Dusty getting the polka dots, Dusty embraced the concept, and as a result he was able to get over with them. Sean also asks about the gobbledy gooker, and, Bruce says that he was the plan from day one. In 1990, WWF was still marketing towards kids, with the idea being that kids at house shows would want to be able to get their picture taken with the gobbledy gooker (Note from Mike: Not to mention, how stupid would it have been for an actual wrestler to hatch out of an egg?). Sean asks about Greg Valentine in Rhythm ‘n’ Blues, and it was Vince’s idea. Greg had been around for so many years, so maybe the character would freshen him up. It didn’t work, and Greg despised it. Bad New Brown’s Harlem sewer rats were supposed to be a vehicle for Bad News’ feud with Jake, like the Snake and Dragon from Jake’s feud with Steamboat, but, Bad News hated the idea, and that’s when he decided to leave.

Having worked alongside Vince for twenty-two years, this is likely the closest that we’re ever going to get to an actual shoot interview with Vince, unless KC is somehow able to get JR or Pat Patterson to do something. It really is interesting to hear Bruce’s anecdotes about Vince’s quirks and how his mind works. Bruce talks about how people are intimidated by Vince, but he never was. He worked with him for twenty-two years, and was never afraid to tell Vince that he thought he was wrong, and Bruce attributes that to being why he was there for twenty-two years.

9.0

The final score: review Amazing

The 411

This is head and shoulders above Bruce's Guest Booker interview, and one of the better WWE Timelines in recent memory.