Why Bruce Prichard Was Fired From WWE Twice, Explained
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Bruce Prichard was always one of Vince McMahon's key right-hand men in WWE. His time in the company has spanned over thirty years, which is quite the achievement for a backstage person not named McMahon. In those thirty years, he's become quite the figure. His knowledge of professional wrestling is unmatched, and he tells the most interesting and crazy stories on his podcast, Something To Wrestle With. However, it hasn't always been rainbows and unicorns for him because if Vince is able to fire his own son, then no one's safe, and Prichard felt that first hand, not once, but twice.
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Bruce Prichard Gets Released In 1991, But Is Brought Back Only A Year Later
Before having such a huge role backstage, Bruce Prichard played the role of Brother Love on screen. He still had a position behind the scenes, but Brother Love was a regular character on WWE TV. He's famously the first manager of The Undertaker. However, the character of Brother Love was controversial as it was intended to poke fun at the scandalous televangelists of the 80s. In May 1991, on the Brother Love Show, a segment aired where Brother Love played the role of a faith healer, gifting a blind and crippled person sight and the ability to walk. The segment was panned as disrespectful and offensive, and not long after, Brother Love was written off of television through a beatdown from The Ultimate Warrior.
It was commonly considered that Bruce Prichard was let go because of the segment, but Prichard has since revealed that he chose to leave because he was not getting along with certain people backstage. A little over a year later, Vince McMahon was able to bring him back by telling him that he'd only interact with Vince, Pat Patterson, and the talent. He was in a much more prominent position, but as time went on, Stephanie McMahon's position in the company started to grow. This would be the catalyst for his second departure from the company.
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Bruce Prichard's Tense Relationship With Stephanie McMahon And A Misunderstanding Led To His Second Release
Simply put, Prichard didn't work well with others. It was the cause for his first release and eventually the cause of his second as well. Stephanie would become one of the top members of the creative team. Writers would report to her. Bruce Prichard's work relationship with her wasn't bad, but it was far from perfect. When Stephanie went on maternity leave for her first child, people would then report to Prichard. This same situation would happen again when Stephanie had her second child. However, this time, people were so used to reporting to Prichard that they continued to do so even after Stephanie returned. This grinded Stephanie's gears. Prichard would get yelled at if the writers continued to do that, but then get blamed if things were late.
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This tense relationship came to a boiling point in 2008. Prichard and his family had to evacuate from their home because of a hurricane, so they stayed with JBL for a while. One of the things that Prichard brought with him was a gun. He didn't want to leave the gun unoccupied at JBL's house, so he brought it to work with him. He was responsible about it. He didn't try to hide it, he told security that he had it, and he even asked what he should do. Well, towards the end of the day, he was asked by some writers if he wanted to go out after work. He said he would, but he had a gun on him. Somehow, through a wonderful game of telephone, this ended up to Stephanie McMahon and the story became that he pulled a gun on the writers. Stephanie chewed him out about the gun, told him to leave, and not to talk to anybody on his way out. He obliged, and about a week later, Prichard was fired once again.
Bruce Prichard Came Back In 2019 As Head Of Creative
Prichard, once again, came back to the company. Not including a one-off appearance at Raw 25 in 2018, he returned in early 2019 to join the creative team. Later that year, he became the lead writer for SmackDown while Paul Heyman headed Raw. After only a matter of months, Vince McMahon took Heyman out of his creative role, and put Prichard in charge of both shows. He also took the position of interim Head of Talent Relations after John Lauranitis was ousted.
Bruce Prichard can easily be considered one of the most powerful men in this industry alongside the McMahon family. He was brought back by Vince himself to lead the creative team. However, even then, he wasn't immune to a classic McMahon power struggle. Regardless, he made some mistakes, and he's admitted to them. Now he's in quite the position of power, even with McMahon out in Triple H in control of creative.
