Bruce Prichard Says Triple H Not Going Over Steve Austin at Summerslam Was Vince McMahon’s Call, Thought He Wasn’t Ready Yet

– During the latest edition of Something to Wrestle, Bruce Prichard discussed the Triple H/Steve Austin feud in 1999, and the angle where Triple H gets thrown into a room with a rattlesnake on Raw. Below are some highlights.

Prichard on Steve Austin refusing to job to Triple H at Summerslam 1999: “I don’t think that Steve and/or a lot of the agents at the time felt that Hunter was ready for the championship yet. That wasn’t a Steve call, that was a Vince call, and that was a lot of the agents. When they heard that, they felt that he’ll be ready someday, he’s just not ready right now, not with Steve.”

Prichard on the Raw angle with Triple H beating up JR, and Austin throwing Triple H into a room with a rattlesnake: “JR kind of put himself in that situation by the way that he would — Jim let you know that Stone Cold Steve Austin was his guy in the way that he would announce everything. He would let you know, Stone Cold! Stone Cold! Stone Cold! She pooted! She pooted! She pooted! People felt it, and there was favoritism there when Jim did that, and it was a natural extension to put Jim into that physicality. People loved JR. He was a sympathetic character. He didn’t belong in the ring. So when people would pick on him and Steve would have to come to his defense, it was a way to get sympathy without having to beat Steve up.”

“The snake s***, oh boy, that was a pain in the ass to shoot because the snake was trained to strike. And the idea was when Steve got put in ther,e obviously we had protective glass there between him and the snake, if you look closely, you can sure as f*** see it. But it was the best that we could do at that point. Hopefully people didn’t notice it as much. But the snake was supposed to strike as soon as Steve got into position where he was supposed to be. And that f***ing snake didn’t feel like working that day. He’s just like, ‘Yeah. F*** him. Ya got glass there. Take the glass down and I’ll strike. But that was the drizzling s***s because you had the non-working snake that didn’t want to work with us or cooperate, and it just absolutely sucked.

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