When it comes to This Day in Wrestling History, We’ll borrow from Brother Love and say is, “I looooove you.”
Those three words echoed through our televisions and continue to do so in our memories, and it all started with Brother Love debuting on WWE’s Wrestling Challenge on May 31, 1988.
When he first walked out, we had no clue what kind of character we were in store for, and Bruce Prichard quickly grabbed hold of us and never let go.
To this day, he’s one of the most beloved managers in WWE history, and it all started with Prichard having an idea and pitching it.
The pitch
Special thanks to @awrestlinghistorian for the quote.
“I pitched the character to Vince (McMahon) and he looked at me and said he loved it and for me to find someone to do it. And I was like ‘I’m going to do it, I’m the guy, I’m going to do it.’
“’Ah, you can’t do it with that face pal, God damn.’
“I told him ‘Nah, I’m going to change the look, it won’t look like me.’ And I ended up going to his office while he was having a meeting with two other people in the office and I walked in and slapped my hand down on the desk, I went in character, not with the red face or anything like that, went in and did the character for him then left and went back to the studio, then got the phone call.
“We did it in the studio a few days later, he wanted to see it on camera. And then the rest as they say is history, but the beautiful thing about it was three weeks after I debuted, Jim Bakker – who was the host of the 700 Club and a big religious program out of the Carolinas and probably the biggest televangelist on the air at the time – got caught sleeping with his secretary Jessica Hahn in a hotel down in Florida, and I was made.
“Because everybody thought I was copying him, the majority of it was Robert Tilton out of Dallas. “Success In Life.” – Bruce Prichard WrestlingInc interview, December 6, 2016
Forgotten success with and beyond Brother Love
Many of us forget that he was the Undertaker’s first manager before Paul Bearer took over, and he’s been one of Vince McMahon’s top people ever since.
Thanks to this portrayal and his other behind the scenes work with the WWE, Bruce Prichard is not only the current executive director for Raw and Smackdown, but he also has the top wrestling podcast.
Pretty awesome for a man that we used to love to hate.
Where does Brother Love rate in your scale of managers? Let This Day in Wrestling History know in the comment below.
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