Bruce Prichard Looks Back On WWE's Partnership With Playboy

While WWE is doing its best, with mixed results, to be a more family-friendly company these days, it wasn't that long ago that WWE was in business with Playboy. From the late 90s to the late 2000s, several notable WWE female wrestlers posed for the adult magazine, including Sable, Chyna, Torrie Wilson, Christy Hemme, Candice Michelle, Ashley Massaro, and Maria Kanellis.

As a member of the WWE creative team back then, Bruce Prichard was around for the WWE Playboy era. During the most recent episode of "Something to Wrestle With," Prichard explains why WWE and Playboy were ripe for a partnership during that period.

"I think it was natural," Prichard said. "You've got beautiful women that are athletic women that are on television every week that are definitely Playboy worthy, if not better than a lot of Playboy models. I think it was a natural [fit], and it probably wouldn't have happened because it was an era in which you were playing to families...

"But Playboy had also cleaned up its act, to where they tried not to be as risque as, let's say Hustler or other magazines that were out there. They tried to be a little more upscale...In my opinion, it was a marriage that was waiting to happen and a natural one."

Prichard also contested that the relationship between the two sides ended due to WWE moving into the PG Era in the early 2010s, or because of disagreements between the two sides. Rather, Prichard believes WWE and Playboy's partnership merely reached its natural endpoint.

"Everything runs its course," Prichard said. "There was no big blow up, there was no dispute or anything like that. It just was time."

If you use any quotes in this article, please credit "Something To Wrestle" with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription