Bruce Prichard Reveals Why He Stopped Managing The Undertaker
At the 25th Anniversary of Raw, The Undertaker will make his first WWE television appearance since losing the main event of WrestleMania 33 against Roman Reigns last April. The wide speculation is that his appearance could set up a program with John Cena at this year's WrestleMania in New Orleans, as this match is likely to occur according to the Wrestling Observer.
Former WWE producer Bruce Prichard, also known as Brother Love, will also be making an appearance on Raw 25. As noted, regarding the Undertaker wrestling another match at WrestleMania, Prichard believes "As long as he could get on a walker and make his way down to the ring, then he will be wrestling at WrestleMania. And he looks better and feels better than he has in 10 years."
Aside from being one of the most notable and purposely-obnoxious personalities of WWE in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Prichard also was the first person to manage The Undertaker when he was introduced by the "Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase at the 1990 Survivor Series pay-per-view.
This alliance was short-lived, and Undertaker was then managed by Paul Bearer for many years of his WWE career. Prichard was a recent special guest on the WrestlingINC Podcast, and discussed why he only managed Undertaker for a short while.
"I worked behind the scenes, and I was in studio producing the television shows at that time," said Prichard. "And, I was given a choice. Here's the deal: Undertaker, we debuted him, it was my idea to manage him. I brought him in, did this whole thing about how I wanted to bring him in, who I wanted him to be, and I wanted to manage him. I saw it as a television character, the Undertaker as an attraction became such a strong attraction in house shows, that Vince [McMahon] felt him going alone in house shows, you're only getting half of the package if I'm not there. So he said, you need to decide. You're either gonna be a talent and manage the Undertaker, and that means you're gonna be on the road traveling making all the same dates he does, or you can be back in the studio, and do your television duties. I chose to stay back in the studio and do my television duties."
As a result, Undertaker needed a manager, and Prichard explained how Paul Bearer was created.
"Bill Moody, who was Percy Pringle, who is Paul Bearer, came in for a job interview," Prichard said. And, in the middle of it, they said, 'What do you do?' because he wasn't active in wrestling at the time, so what are you doing? He said, 'Well, I'm a mortician by trade. I always keep my mortician's license active.' And everybody started laughing. Oh my God; he'd be perfect for the Undertaker! Because now we gotta think, how do you replace me. And, here you got a mortician, in addition to that you got the first manager of Mean Mark, or The Punisher, or whatever [he was], and it was perfect. You couldn't write that, it worked out really well."
Prichard would also explain how most of the theatrics that Bearer did was thought of by him, because "as a producer, you have to be everybody." You can view Prichard's version of Paul Bearer above.