I didn't talk to Shane. 10 seconds later I don't recall talking to Shane Another 10 seconds later I might've even talked to Shane at that point. Classic Bruce.
This whole thing is classic conrad & Bruce. Conrad talks for 90% of the episode reading off a page written by some hack researcher who mostly stole from the observer. Bruce's 10% is Bruce talking out both sides of his mouth. Shane wasn't a part of this. Well, except I might have talked to him at that time. lol
He is (no surprise there). When Shane left ECW in 1999, McMahon even reached out to him, but Douglas opted to go to WCW. So considering that, there definitely was an interest in Shane and knowing Vince, he never says no to anybody who can draw even the slightest bit and basically always brings back guys who worked for him before.
@Natural Born Master Agreed. Douglas' ring work was average at best and only got over by cursing and bitching about HBK and Flair. HHH may have stolen his gimmick, but he put his own spin on it and became the top heel.
@@BrendanSlob Well..it is true in his later years he started to slow dow, especially when he started roiding up in his first world title push. But I agree he has more charisma than Douglas who has nothing but bitterness to fall back on in his promos.
Holy fuck. How can anyone believe anything Bruce says at this point. My god. "Do you remember ever talking to Shane at all?" Bruce: "No". Also Bruce: "I may have talked to Shane once or twice"
I figure someone like Saturn called the WWF and said "we want to come in me, Benoit, Malenko, Eddie and Shane Douglas". And the WWF probably told Saturn "we are interested but we don't want Douglas".
It really doesn’t even matter in context if the WWF wanted Shane to begin with. Shane has been consistent that he didn’t want to leave WCW, didn’t ask for a release and went further to meet with Busch behind their back to say he didn’t want his release and threw the others under the bus when he told him that he’d had no idea about them asking for releases, and the key factor often glossed over is that since Shane didn’t get a release like the others had he couldn’t have legally been involved to begin with. The most discussion he could’ve even had was discussing when his contract would be up but negotiating with him would’ve been a waste of time since he didn’t get a release and would’ve been contract tampering. So it would’ve made no sense to even present him in the discussion about coming in since he had said he didn’t want to leave and didn’t get a release to even be able to go with them and the idea that they should’ve stood firm about talking with the WWF based on Shane being included with them makes zero sense considering he didn’t want to leave and didn’t even have a release to be allowed to leave like they had so standing firm for Shane when he couldn’t even legally go with them makes zero sense in risking your livelihood to be loyal to a guy who couldn’t legally join you and had already broken the loyalty first by not getting a release with them and expressing to the company that he wanted to stay while expressing that he didn’t know anything about their request to leave. He didn’t stick with them as a group to get released to leave together and threw all of them under the bus when he passed the buck on the asking to leave situation which could’ve really fucked then over if they hadn’t found a way to obtain the releases and were forced to stay in WCW since he would’ve been in the good graces still while they wouldn’t have been. When it really breaks down in the end Shane expected that they’d be loyal to him, even having entirely different goals and options, but never stuck with them when he covered his ass to stay and didn’t join with them to get released as well. Not a fair expectation in any sense of things.
@@1223steffen As in "hey bro Vince doesn't want you back" hmm maybe we should say sign without telling him. That's an awkward conversation. Yeah good call
He didn't want Shane Douglas to feel bad? lol you are giving Vince way too much credit. He just wasn't interested and said to the other guys to sign with the WWF without Douglas or you don't have deals.
Saturn said Shane was actually telling wcw that he was trying to get the Radicalz to stay in WCW. Shane also wasn't offered a release to my knowledge nor was konnan who did want to jump
I understand the gimmick of the show but it can get really annoying to me because Conrad talks from the view of an outsider with insider accounts, some verified, some not. Prichard was a chief coadjuctor within the WWE machine. My guess is that WWE thought they scored big and didn't really give Douglas much thought one way or the other. What was said between he and his wrestling allies is hard to say. I'm unaware of Malenko having ever given his side, two of the players are dead, and Saturn doesn't seem like one who has that great of recall one way or the other. Re Douglas, I've always had the impression that he was tedious to work with: demanding, prone to quit, paranoid. Foley made issue in his first book that Douglas advised that he never go in WWE, and that they'd screw him over. When you attach those negative features next to what he has to offer, I'm not sure what you're left with. He was largely barely above average at his best and usually too prone to injuries because of his chronic steroid abuse. At least Guerrero had an excuse with his substance abuse. You can't really rely on people like that, not when you have three tried and proven professionals in his spot, and Saturn looked like someone who had a body and was enough fun to do some neat character work with. Douglas is one of those guys who liked to be the big fish in a small pond because his ego was worth more than being part of a larger bureaucratic process. The problem with that is that professional wrestling especially requires a lot of altruism to be a functioning apparatus. When you're someone like Ross or Prichard and you have to manage some 60-80 egos, Douglas just sticks out like a sore thumb in what is already a glorified babysitting job. That said, I hope Douglas is happy. I always thought he was handsome, but I can see why the company didn't give him much thought, which seems to be the point of contentious between Conrad and Prichard. Fun podcast though. It comes up in my feed every now and then and it's always interesting to war game their thoughts on certain personalities. But most managers don't want to deal with know-it-all types in the middle rung, especially if your talents don't justify that attitude. It's not like Douglas was Steve Austin, and even the ego of the latter would lead to its own drama.
To be fair as far as Shane telling Foley not to go to WWE because they'd just screw him over, he was pretty on point there. Listen to JR talk about how he barely was even able to get Foley hired and that Vince only let JR hire him so that JR would learn what it was like for "a talent you believe in to break your heart." Vince never intended to push Foley and only decided to do so later because Foley's talent and personality would not be denied. It started with that sit down interview with JR and then they were off to the races with Foley. But Vince was not on board with Mick until he and JR proved Vince wrong.
@@stephensanders8572 Have you ever thought about the fact that Douglas might suck? With all due respect, you come off like one who believes all the BS Douglas spews. I'll cover Douglas' weaknesses 1. Douglas is obviously very weak. His long line of injuries and muscle tears indicate that. He wasn't working in ECW anymore, or even WCW. He was working in a land of giants. I don't buy at all that Razor Ramon sandbagged him. Douglas was a handsome guy who took steroids in excess to jack himself up. That does not mean though you're joints and tendons can keep up pace. 2. Douglas has no real sense of self awareness. Think 1991 in his WWF run. The way Douglas phrased his wording was so bizarre, in a way that makes him so unlikable and excessively erudite. He was cast as a Rockers substitute basically (which he was at live events). In his Royal Rumble promo, he said something like "I will vanquish 29 other superstars, as I am poised to win the Royal Rumble." But he's cast as a teen heartthrob The thing is that Douglas' only real attribute is that he's very attractive. But that doesn't make you cool in itself. Douglas was kind of like the second-tier hit in high school who mimicked the cooler kids by wearing mall zombie clothes, thinking it'd get him laid. But instead of getting one of the top prizes, he still got that geeky, quiet girl in Calculus class. Then Douglas resents that and blames everyone else for why that happened The thing is, as an academic myself, Douglas isn't even that smart. He went to a private school whose SAT average was about 1000. He claims to have been a pre-med major, which is bs. There's no such thing as pre-med. That's just a generic designation you might get at a community college. It's like doing pre-engineering. It's nothing more than a generic catch-all that you took generic lower division courses and met the checks Then he says some island offered him a med school spot. Stephen... that doesn't happen anymore than Ben Carson was offered a spot at West Point. I did my undergrad at a college whose SAT average is about 1420. It's about Georgetown's level. No one gets offered slots in med school. Med schools are too competitive for that. They don't need to bait anyone to get in. Med students all have one thing in common: They got an A in organic chemistry. I'm not even sure what Douglas majored in. He seems to change it by the interview: political science, physical education, literature. In none of those degrees would you take Organic. My general point is more counterintuitive. Dean Douglas was a good fit for him: a heel blowhard with a stick up his butt. That was Douglas in terms of what his personality attributes are. That he took himself so seriously, like all narcissists, meant that that gimmick would fail. 3. Prichard is pretty much right that the WWF doesn't sign people to bury them. That's just a smark conspiracy. If you really think about WWF booking between late 1992 and 1996, they created an extraordinary number of stars in rapid time after the 1992 roster purge: positioning gradually Bret Hart as main event, Yokozuna (put over by Hogan), Michaels slowly positioned, Owen Hart from jobber to main event in only 5 months, Razor Ramon from WCW opener to main event immediately, Diesel from having only one year of working with top guys to the responsibility of carrying the company (and Nash grew a lot as a performer, whereas most would have cracked, like Eddie Guerrero did). They went as far as the 1-2-3 Kid could go, who was a popular GWF act but would have made no headway only a few years prior. Mabel failed as an act. Crush too. Luger was a modest success. So was Bulldog. Ludvig Borga failed. Tatanka wasn't a total failure. They even brought back Bob Backlund and did something with him. The company had no reason to bury Douglas. They went to see if he was worth the hype, and he obviously wasn't. It's arrogant to assume otherwise You also ignore the obvious issues: hard to work with, politicking past what his place permitted, complaining. 3. I remember Douglas whining in the PWTorch about how much he made in the Fall 1995. He was too stupid to realize that the Fall does the worst aggregate drawing in the company calendar year. Had he stuck around, he would have made a lot more, as business picked up in January 1996. 4. His PWTorch interviews is the only reason why people like you repeat his bs. Douglas cried in four parts about how he got sabotaged. It's ridiculous. The truth is that Douglas just told low information rasslin fans what they wanted to hear. I've examined to the extent that it was worth about supposed Kliq burials. I don't see it. Nash paints a good depiction: they were 4 guys who partied together and had a lot of fun in a period where everyone else made very little in a lockeroom with arguably the worst morale short of the aftermath of the deaths of Owen Hart and Chris Benoit. Of course people get upset about that. That happens in every work environment I don't see how Adam Bomb got buried, or Jean-Pierre Lafitte (who was arguably the most talented), or a cosplay bore like Bam Bam Bigelow. Bigelow was never main event quality. I can remember so many of his matches where the audience was silent. I don't think Bigelow ever gave anyone a reason to care about him. 5. Re Foley, it's just Douglas trying to seek validation for his own bitterness. Really, you never seem to think to yourself how much scum he had to be to tell Foley that. Foley had a wife and kids. He could labor away in ECW or Japan death matches making maybe at most $100k a year. His downside in WWF, without any merchandise, PPV appearances, or dolls factored, had a substantially greater upside to anything ECW could offer him. Think about that. From a financial standpoint, Foley had nothing to lose. 6. I question Ross' account or your account of what Ross said. They heavily invested in his character: weird promos, two theme songs, an immediate feud with the Undertaker (and Foley winning!), a main event run (September 1996). Foley was arguably the most pushed heel since Yokozuna. He was more heavily pushed than Razor Ramon. When did Ramon ever get that kind of rub? Get real. 7. Foley had obvious drawbacks. His bumps were one of them. No one predicted that he'd have a long career - and he didn't. He retired at only 35 years old. Had Foley only been three years older, he would have been close to retired. Another drawback is that Foley is really unathletic. One implication of that is they're a lot more prone to injury. McMahon has a better sense of that than Jim Ross does I also think Foley's bumps damaged wrestling in the long-term. No one could top it, so impressive stunts fell flat. The only reason he got the World title had nothing to do with his wrestling per se, even if it's connected. Foley wrote a really good book (his title run was written as an afterthought). The hope IMO is that he would be a company representative to NY media markets, and could do better at it than Steve Austin. Foley's strong points were that he could get over talent by being willing to bump in a way that made the heels look vicious. Is that World Champion quality? Historically, it isn't, not in the WWF. Only in the NWA because of the structural factors embedded in the traveling champion. But Foley wasn't traveling champion material. He wasn't a good enough worker for that. He would have been a special attraction, and he was booked that way in the WWF as well. Learn to think though and stop being suggestible in taking people at their word. Douglas never got pushed in the big leagues for a reason. In WCW, he seemed injured every few months lol. I'm sure that's the fault of everyone else too.
Amusing thing about Douglas too is his character work was always as unoriginal and as uninteresting as his academic career. Word is that HHH stole his gimmick. What gimmick? The Franchise and adjacent gimmicks of that sort is the oldest trope in combat sports. Give me a break. It has been rehashed a million times. Besides, HHH plays it better on his worst day than Douglas ever did on his best. Douglas only got over one time in his entire mediocre career: playing a meta role in a crowd of smarks whose promotion they watched ran nothing but perpetual debt and couldn't expand outward. But playing a meta character to malcontent neckbeards is a lot easier to do than playing one assigned to you that you have to get over. All those WWF guys mentioned in my previous post got over and landed all the subtleties down in order to get over. Even Nash did, despite the fact that he had so little experience for the astronomical burden placed on him. Douglas is just a lazy, whiny blowhard. Always has been, always will be. That's why he's a slump lord in Pittsburgh with his crap duplex property and Foley is a millionaire by contrast. You guys don't think, ever. Rasslin fans are some of the most suggestible people I've ever come across. Nothing more than a glorified cult
@@vannavanity1195 I really enjoyed reading your response, it was a trip down memory lane! I always enjoyed Douglass's work and his current podcasts but never really thought about any of his career as in depth as you have explained it, so I'll take you at your word. Cheers and thanks for the informative thought provoking post!
Bill Busch was the worst person at the worst time to be in charge of wcw. Bischoff would have just fired Sullivan and mike graham. Busch wasnt a wrestling guy he was an account for time warner. At the end of the day the kevin Sullivan's and mike Graham's of wcw were just as responsible for wcw's demise as anyone.
I see a lot of people taking Shane side and I’m not someone who believes Bruce Prichard either but Shane has been playing the victim he’s entire career but when you really start listening to shoot interviews from multiple people that really aren’t friends, like if Kevin Nash is saying the same thing Jim Cornett is saying, and then I hear Jim Ross say may be the same thing that Bruce is saying I’m going to tend to believe it if I hear it from four different sources that were interviewed 4 Different times especially when you’ve got these interviews that are years apart from each other. I think Shane was a good in ring worker but I never bought him as a main event guy but whenever she leaves the company he always paint this picture that he was this victim that didn’t do anything wrong. In the WWF he always tries to paint this picture that everything was going great for him but the Kliq just had it out for him. He never talks about undertaker and yokozuna cussing him out for not carrying his weight and for his constant complaining. Any time he was in WCW or WWF he always had a problem with creative because they would put him in an angle and usually if you’re a baby face you have to lose a few of the matches on the way to the big payoff match so there’s something to celebrate when you win. Shane never got that. Jim Cornett talked about it and he says he’s someone that likes Shane but there was an angle where Shane was going to get screwed over and lose a match and the payoff was he was going to get revenge on Jim Cornette and everyone would tune in to TV that week to watch Shane beat up Jim who the fans hated as a heel manager. Shane could not get past the idea that he was going to be forced to lose a match and went to management and complained. He would always tell the ECW fans that ECW was the place to be, drop some “F “bombs when he would come back and he would put down WCW in WWF….. until one of those companies offered him a job and then he would leave ECW like a thief in the night and then of course the story would repeat itself Shane wouldn’t be happy with creative, it was never his fault, they would let him go, then he’s back in ECW cutting the same promo again.
The thing with a lot of wrestling fans is that they extrapolate their feelings about heel/face into things like this. They will generally be anti-kliq, regardless of context. They will be anti-Vince, regardless of context. If someone seems to be an underdog (face) they will side with that person. Shane Douglas is an ECW darling, so they will take his word over anything or anyone.
His gripe here just doesn’t make much sense. He openly says he never wanted to leave, never asked or got his release, but has such an issue when the guys who got their releases and wanted to leave moved forward with it. He went behind their backs to make sure he was still good with Busch even according to himself. So he has this big issue about them leaving him behind but for one it doesn’t even matter because he openly didn’t want to leave to begin with. He also didn’t have the freedom to even negotiate with the WWF because he didn’t get the release like the other guys had so if they had stuck with him he’d have genuinely killed it because the WWF couldn’t even talk to him anyways without tampering. So his gripe with it is honestly stupid if we’re honest about it and backs up this OG comment about him always seeing himself as the victim or not doing anything wrong. The dude genuinely takes zero steps to even be able to negotiate to leave, says he didn’t want to leave, and then says he got stabbed in the back when the guys who took all the steps to leave moved forward with it. If he wanted to be in their team he’d have done the things they did too but he never did.
I’ll never fully grasp what Shane’s issue was nor why somebody like Russo would be calling him about those guys being in Connecticut to negotiate going to the WWF. I guess I can get that they had all made a pact together and that it hurt when a friend lied about it but when thinking on it realistically what did he expect or need to be aware of happening when he had made it known he didn’t want to leave while the others had gotten their releases. So it doesn’t make much sense for anybody with WCW to be keeping tabs on the radicalz negotiating to go to the WWF or care what they’re doing since they’d given them full releases that didn’t prevent them going to the WWF - what would the office expect and if there was an issue to go to the WWF the release would’ve had terms to prevent that but didn’t. The only thing that makes sense for WCW to care at all is knowing that some guys who didn’t get released were close to those guys and ensuring that current guys under contract were there talking with the WWF. Outside of that none of the drama makes sense. Shane expressed he didn’t want to leave, doubled back without the others to make sure the company knew he didn’t want to leave and threw the others under the bus by saying he hadn’t known about any of that, and didn’t have his release to even be able to participate in a negotiation with the WWF. WCW giving the dudes full releases to go wherever they chose doesn’t make any sense to be upset that they’re talking to the WWF or surprised to learn that they’re talking with the other company that they can earn a living working for and if they were going to be upset with them going there then they should’ve blocked it in their releases but didn’t do so. So it makes for a more interesting story to hear all the drama that evidently happened and the hurt feelings but none of it really makes any sense for the company to be mad that the guys are moving on since they’re free and clear to do so nor does it make any sense for Shane to expect that he’d continue to be in the loop or feel stabbed in the back not being aware or included in their negotiations when he didn’t want to make the jump and couldn’t have been involved legally if he wanted to be since he never got a release. And all in all it feels pretty self righteous to say you were stabbed in the back by them when you also say that you went behind their backs to cover your add with Bill Busch and drop all of the heat about asking for releases on the other guys which really could have fucked them over if they hadn’t gotten the releases and were forced to stay. It isn’t cool to absolve yourself for going behind the group to protect your own interests since your end games didn’t align but then condemn the others for not including you in their dealings with the WWF when it was obvious they’d be talking to them soon and you’d already broken the pact to stick together since you didn’t request a release and leave when they had. Once you decided to stay when they made the push to leave you took yourself away from the pact by not sticking together with them from the start and openly operating behind their back to push the Heat over to them and make sure they knew you didn’t want to leave.
Well you forgot about Dean Malenko he was a referee for the WWF back in the 80s so technically he was a employee of the WWF now besides Parry Saturn and Chris Benoit have wrestle for the WWF before The Radicals but Eddie Guerrero never wrestle for the WWF before the Radicals at least I don't think so he's former partner Art Barr did he a tryout match as his beetle juice gimmick The Juicer or something like that
Wow Eddie looks so small in that pic standing next to those other small guys. I mean he looks smaller than Malenko, not that theirs anything wrong with that but I'm shocked cause I never recognized that before.
Its because when he got that champion push in wwe in the mid 2000s he was heavily on the gas it was very obvious, in the wcw I'm not sure he hit the roids that hard if at all
At the very least I think Shane leaves a lot of stuff out of his stories so he can play victim a lot. I’m not saying he’s a bad guy or he sucks or anything like that But It’s very rare to hear him all up to any mistake ever in any shoot interview. Every single time it was a conspiracy against him every time. If you listen to shoot interviews from other people in the wrestling business that tells stories about situations with him going back to the late 80s all the way to the early 2000s there’s a reoccurring theme of Shane not ever Thinking he’s done anything wrong but then you hear shoot interviews from Jim Cornett, from Kevin Nash, from Bruce Prichard, from Jim Ross, and not all of these guys are buddies that hang out. And they all will tell stories of trying to put him in angles as a baby face but he didn’t want to do the job to the heel even though it meant like two months later he would get his revenge at a clash of champions or a PPV or something like that but he couldn’t get over that he would be losing a match, they all say that he constantly complained, I mean there are some guys that tells their versions of stories but other wrestlers will go up to their misgivings every now and then wrestlers like Kevin Nash and Sean Waltman and even big van Vader Willow up to mistakes they’ve made but she never ever does. He loves to tell the story of the Kliq ruining his WWF run but he leaves out the part where guys like undertaker and yokozuna cussed him out for whiny and not carrying his share of the load when he was there. If you listen to him he was doing everything perfectly and it was just those guys for some reason and just decided they didn’t like him out of the blue and for that reason he was run out of the company. When you take things like that and you look at how ECW was really the only place he made it and you think about the promos he would cut in ECW which really weren’t ever that great he just use the word “fuck “a lot and simpletons think that means it’s a great promo, he would always trash WWF and WCW to the ECW fans….. until he got a deal to go to one of those two companies and make a lot more money and then he would leave like a thief in the night and then cycle with repeat itself, there would be problems, Shane plays victim, he didn’t do anything wrong he was great it was everyone else his problem and then he goes back to ECW and cuts the promo again in the whole cycle repeats itself.
@@JaySports644 - All of them. He was sold a crock of shit that these guys were big stars being held down in WCW. They were midcarders, but he paid them way beyond their drawing power. Eddie is THE worst drawing champion in WWE history (that's from 1963-now) and Benoit was not much better. Vince could have signed someone decent from WCW like DDP for the same money he wasted on those 4 and actually made some money.
I dunno about that lol. They may not be your typical World Champion gimmicks as far as ratings/tickets/merch sold but they were both worthy of their reigns & the good thing about having the WWE title and the World Heavyweight title at the time is that they could give someone who might be an unconventional choice to reign as top champion the opportunity, out of respect for their overall contributions & still have another top champion that sells hella merch. I think all four had pretty successful and memorable runs in the WWE so I don't think it was a total waste, plus Malenko served as an agent for 19 yrs following his in-ring career sooo... lol... I understand your perspective but I still don't necessarily agree with it lol
@@mattwheeler491 - The facts disagree with you. Two of THE WORST drawing champions ever. Eddie (to his credit) was devastated at how badly he was doing as champ and asked to have the belt taken off him. Murderer had an ego though. He was Billy Gunn level at best, but thought he was Hulk Hogan level. To go from Bruno Sammartino, Billy Graham, Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Ultimate Warrior, Steve Austin, Rock, etc to charisma vacuum Benoit made almost every casual fan switch off for good. That is like Indy Car switching from 200mph open wheels to 30mph mobility carts and expecting people to pay to watch it. You do NOT put midcard talent at the top and expect anything other than losing tons of money. People who draw money "deserve" the top spots, not "hard working" channel changers.
@@handsolo1209 Beniot didnt have a personality. He was extremely bland. Guerrero was over with the Hispanic crowd though. I'll give him that. Also he helped get Bradshaw over as a super heel. Which was good for Cena's push.
@@JaySports644 - I liked Eddie and though all he lacked was a few inches in height, but he, like all of The Radicalz were midcard talent and were lucky that they were in WCW with actual stars like Hogan, Flair, Savage, Sting, etc to give them bigger paychecks and more exposure. Without the stars elevating them, they were ROH level talent.
Saturn trained with 3H they were buddies. But WWE at the time wanted Kidman and Rey they were locked in WCW. Bruce is a liar here. Konnan contacted Bruce. WWE also wanted Raven. They shut down Jarrett, Disco, Konnan, Kevin Sullivan, Russo and Douglas. Outta all those guys Raven asked for his release. Jarrett never had a run. Most WCW midcarders didn't wanna work WWE after the failed runs in WWE of former WCW stars such as Kronik, Nash, Scott, Bagwell and DDP. Disco went in depth getting calls from Johnny Ace he didn't want to go. Nash pacifically told former WCW stars and Scott Steiner saying if they went to WWE you'd be buried. Steve Corino had multiple tryouts w WWE and recommended by Dusty and never got hired as a in ring preformer. Rick Steiner also never went back and Jerry Lynn enjoyed a coffee break w WWE. Sting finally went to WWE and was buried worst run of his career as well as Vader who had the worst run of his career. Dr. Death Steve Williams was also buried in the Brawl for All. He told WWE officials he was injured and could barely walk at the time. They had plans for Newjack twice but the second time around New Jack buried them on Cable news over the Benoit scandal. Most WCW guys buried WWE into the ground on Cable news during the Benoit scandal and deaths of wrestlers. Most noteworthy was Mark Mero who buried WWE into the ground at the time. Mero whom was a WCW wrestler had the same syndrome of the other failed WCW wrestlers in WWE. Even The Steiner Bros first run in WWE was failed.
The Steiner Bros were suppose be the face of the New Generation Era tag team. They were getting a third run with the straps by defeating the Quebecer's at 1994.
Raven was already gone by this time. He walked out in mid to late 99 when Bischoff told the locker room that anyone who wasnt happy could leave. A bunch of guys had been saying they wanted to leave but when push came to shove, Raven is the only one who actually had the guts to leave. He still has a year left on his WCW deal and the stipulation was that he could not go to WWE until that year was up. So he hung around ECW for a year and then went to WWE. As a side note, JR hired Raven and when Vince found out about it he wasnt happy about it
and so what if he did. people got to pay their bills. no offense i just don;t believe in shaming people for working retail or waiting tables or what not.
Shane Douglas was criminally underrated. He was a workhorse in his match with 2 Cold Scorpio for the ECW tv title which was a clinic, his fued was high caliber and exceptional pitbull feud was intense heel heat at its best, and his matches with the hollywood blondes and singles matches with Steve Austin were beyond its time in wcw.
@@JorgeMunoz-gn5do Shane was great in ECW and pretty solid in his early WCW career, but honestly by 1999-2000, Shane wasn't a high caliber guy. I remember his matches around that time and they were all boring as fk. He was slow in the ring (not really his fault, i think he had a ton of injuries that piled up from his time at ECW) and the only thing memorable in a lot of his matches was the fact that Torrie Wilson was with him
I didn't talk to Shane.
10 seconds later
I don't recall talking to Shane
Another 10 seconds later
I might've even talked to Shane at that point.
Classic Bruce.
the artful dodger
This whole thing is classic conrad & Bruce. Conrad talks for 90% of the episode reading off a page written by some hack researcher who mostly stole from the observer. Bruce's 10% is Bruce talking out both sides of his mouth. Shane wasn't a part of this. Well, except I might have talked to him at that time. lol
@@WVTarheel
LOL
Shane's stories have never changed
I feel like Bruce is lying.
He is (no surprise there). When Shane left ECW in 1999, McMahon even reached out to him, but Douglas opted to go to WCW. So considering that, there definitely was an interest in Shane and knowing Vince, he never says no to anybody who can draw even the slightest bit and basically always brings back guys who worked for him before.
For me, this is one of the stories that it's hard to tell who's lying. I'm leaning towards Shane telling the truth though.
I was gonna write the same thing I feel like Bruce is lying
A rare time I thought this when I listed to the episode.
Usually
As much as I love listening to Bruce's stories, I'll believe Shane every time over Bruce.
They didn't want Shane Douglas back because Triple H stole his gimmick.
@Natural Born Master Agreed. Douglas' ring work was average at best and only got over by cursing and bitching about HBK and Flair. HHH may have stolen his gimmick, but he put his own spin on it and became the top heel.
@Black jacks armory Right, he'd just bitch and moan about how everyone held him back until he taps out.
@ken BIG FACTS have been saying this since 2000
@@American-Zero HHH has never been known as a great in ring worker either. Just had more charisma
@@BrendanSlob Well..it is true in his later years he started to slow dow, especially when he started roiding up in his first world title push. But I agree he has more charisma than Douglas who has nothing but bitterness to fall back on in his promos.
Shane Douglas has told the same story very consistently
Holy fuck. How can anyone believe anything Bruce says at this point. My god. "Do you remember ever talking to Shane at all?" Bruce: "No". Also Bruce: "I may have talked to Shane once or twice"
I figure someone like Saturn called the WWF and said "we want to come in me, Benoit, Malenko, Eddie and Shane Douglas". And the WWF probably told Saturn "we are interested but we don't want Douglas".
they should have said we are not coming
That is what was said,more than Saturn confirmed that everyone was wanted except Shane
It really doesn’t even matter in context if the WWF wanted Shane to begin with. Shane has been consistent that he didn’t want to leave WCW, didn’t ask for a release and went further to meet with Busch behind their back to say he didn’t want his release and threw the others under the bus when he told him that he’d had no idea about them asking for releases, and the key factor often glossed over is that since Shane didn’t get a release like the others had he couldn’t have legally been involved to begin with. The most discussion he could’ve even had was discussing when his contract would be up but negotiating with him would’ve been a waste of time since he didn’t get a release and would’ve been contract tampering. So it would’ve made no sense to even present him in the discussion about coming in since he had said he didn’t want to leave and didn’t get a release to even be able to go with them and the idea that they should’ve stood firm about talking with the WWF based on Shane being included with them makes zero sense considering he didn’t want to leave and didn’t even have a release to be allowed to leave like they had so standing firm for Shane when he couldn’t even legally go with them makes zero sense in risking your livelihood to be loyal to a guy who couldn’t legally join you and had already broken the loyalty first by not getting a release with them and expressing to the company that he wanted to stay while expressing that he didn’t know anything about their request to leave. He didn’t stick with them as a group to get released to leave together and threw all of them under the bus when he passed the buck on the asking to leave situation which could’ve really fucked then over if they hadn’t found a way to obtain the releases and were forced to stay in WCW since he would’ve been in the good graces still while they wouldn’t have been. When it really breaks down in the end Shane expected that they’d be loyal to him, even having entirely different goals and options, but never stuck with them when he covered his ass to stay and didn’t join with them to get released as well. Not a fair expectation in any sense of things.
Close. Konnan was also in the group, and he was also not wanted. Group of 6, with 2 not wanted.
I think Vince didn't want him and they didn't want to make Shane feel bad. Which is untrustworthy but understandable
Feel bad?
@@1223steffen As in "hey bro Vince doesn't want you back" hmm maybe we should say sign without telling him. That's an awkward conversation. Yeah good call
Mr. New Florida then they should have told Vince hire Shane or none of us
He didn't want Shane Douglas to feel bad? lol you are giving Vince way too much credit. He just wasn't interested and said to the other guys to sign with the WWF without Douglas or you don't have deals.
@@johnnyskinwalker4095 I meant Eddie Guerrero. Eddie checked in with Konnan. Idk just saying
During that time he was the XPW champion
He should have become the WCW World Champion instead of Russo's boy Jeff Jarrett.
They screwed Douglas.
Might not of had the raw athleticism as the rest but could run circles on the mic.
ShredAddict 80 run circles around Eddie THEN definitely not at eddies peak
Why is the word allegedly in the title?
Friggin Bruce, STOP TALKING ABOUT SHANE, HE WAS NEVER CONSIDERED, ok ok sorry
shane says differently. I watch an old rf video shoot from 2003. He has stuck to the same story. Dean melenko betrayed him. Selfish man
Man Bruce can you try not to lie so much your tone and random out bursts shows lying. Someone needs to play this to Shane
Saturn said Shane was actually telling wcw that he was trying to get the Radicalz to stay in WCW. Shane also wasn't offered a release to my knowledge nor was konnan who did want to jump
I understand the gimmick of the show but it can get really annoying to me because Conrad talks from the view of an outsider with insider accounts, some verified, some not. Prichard was a chief coadjuctor within the WWE machine.
My guess is that WWE thought they scored big and didn't really give Douglas much thought one way or the other. What was said between he and his wrestling allies is hard to say. I'm unaware of Malenko having ever given his side, two of the players are dead, and Saturn doesn't seem like one who has that great of recall one way or the other.
Re Douglas, I've always had the impression that he was tedious to work with: demanding, prone to quit, paranoid. Foley made issue in his first book that Douglas advised that he never go in WWE, and that they'd screw him over.
When you attach those negative features next to what he has to offer, I'm not sure what you're left with. He was largely barely above average at his best and usually too prone to injuries because of his chronic steroid abuse. At least Guerrero had an excuse with his substance abuse. You can't really rely on people like that, not when you have three tried and proven professionals in his spot, and Saturn looked like someone who had a body and was enough fun to do some neat character work with.
Douglas is one of those guys who liked to be the big fish in a small pond because his ego was worth more than being part of a larger bureaucratic process. The problem with that is that professional wrestling especially requires a lot of altruism to be a functioning apparatus. When you're someone like Ross or Prichard and you have to manage some 60-80 egos, Douglas just sticks out like a sore thumb in what is already a glorified babysitting job.
That said, I hope Douglas is happy. I always thought he was handsome, but I can see why the company didn't give him much thought, which seems to be the point of contentious between Conrad and Prichard.
Fun podcast though. It comes up in my feed every now and then and it's always interesting to war game their thoughts on certain personalities. But most managers don't want to deal with know-it-all types in the middle rung, especially if your talents don't justify that attitude. It's not like Douglas was Steve Austin, and even the ego of the latter would lead to its own drama.
To be fair as far as Shane telling Foley not to go to WWE because they'd just screw him over, he was pretty on point there. Listen to JR talk about how he barely was even able to get Foley hired and that Vince only let JR hire him so that JR would learn what it was like for "a talent you believe in to break your heart." Vince never intended to push Foley and only decided to do so later because Foley's talent and personality would not be denied. It started with that sit down interview with JR and then they were off to the races with Foley. But Vince was not on board with Mick until he and JR proved Vince wrong.
@@stephensanders8572 Have you ever thought about the fact that Douglas might suck? With all due respect, you come off like one who believes all the BS Douglas spews. I'll cover Douglas' weaknesses
1. Douglas is obviously very weak. His long line of injuries and muscle tears indicate that. He wasn't working in ECW anymore, or even WCW. He was working in a land of giants. I don't buy at all that Razor Ramon sandbagged him. Douglas was a handsome guy who took steroids in excess to jack himself up. That does not mean though you're joints and tendons can keep up pace.
2. Douglas has no real sense of self awareness. Think 1991 in his WWF run. The way Douglas phrased his wording was so bizarre, in a way that makes him so unlikable and excessively erudite. He was cast as a Rockers substitute basically (which he was at live events). In his Royal Rumble promo, he said something like "I will vanquish 29 other superstars, as I am poised to win the Royal Rumble." But he's cast as a teen heartthrob
The thing is that Douglas' only real attribute is that he's very attractive. But that doesn't make you cool in itself. Douglas was kind of like the second-tier hit in high school who mimicked the cooler kids by wearing mall zombie clothes, thinking it'd get him laid. But instead of getting one of the top prizes, he still got that geeky, quiet girl in Calculus class. Then Douglas resents that and blames everyone else for why that happened
The thing is, as an academic myself, Douglas isn't even that smart. He went to a private school whose SAT average was about 1000. He claims to have been a pre-med major, which is bs. There's no such thing as pre-med. That's just a generic designation you might get at a community college. It's like doing pre-engineering. It's nothing more than a generic catch-all that you took generic lower division courses and met the checks
Then he says some island offered him a med school spot. Stephen... that doesn't happen anymore than Ben Carson was offered a spot at West Point. I did my undergrad at a college whose SAT average is about 1420. It's about Georgetown's level. No one gets offered slots in med school. Med schools are too competitive for that. They don't need to bait anyone to get in.
Med students all have one thing in common: They got an A in organic chemistry. I'm not even sure what Douglas majored in. He seems to change it by the interview: political science, physical education, literature. In none of those degrees would you take Organic.
My general point is more counterintuitive. Dean Douglas was a good fit for him: a heel blowhard with a stick up his butt. That was Douglas in terms of what his personality attributes are. That he took himself so seriously, like all narcissists, meant that that gimmick would fail.
3. Prichard is pretty much right that the WWF doesn't sign people to bury them. That's just a smark conspiracy. If you really think about WWF booking between late 1992 and 1996, they created an extraordinary number of stars in rapid time after the 1992 roster purge: positioning gradually Bret Hart as main event, Yokozuna (put over by Hogan), Michaels slowly positioned, Owen Hart from jobber to main event in only 5 months, Razor Ramon from WCW opener to main event immediately, Diesel from having only one year of working with top guys to the responsibility of carrying the company (and Nash grew a lot as a performer, whereas most would have cracked, like Eddie Guerrero did). They went as far as the 1-2-3 Kid could go, who was a popular GWF act but would have made no headway only a few years prior. Mabel failed as an act. Crush too. Luger was a modest success. So was Bulldog. Ludvig Borga failed. Tatanka wasn't a total failure. They even brought back Bob Backlund and did something with him.
The company had no reason to bury Douglas. They went to see if he was worth the hype, and he obviously wasn't. It's arrogant to assume otherwise
You also ignore the obvious issues: hard to work with, politicking past what his place permitted, complaining.
3. I remember Douglas whining in the PWTorch about how much he made in the Fall 1995. He was too stupid to realize that the Fall does the worst aggregate drawing in the company calendar year. Had he stuck around, he would have made a lot more, as business picked up in January 1996.
4. His PWTorch interviews is the only reason why people like you repeat his bs. Douglas cried in four parts about how he got sabotaged. It's ridiculous. The truth is that Douglas just told low information rasslin fans what they wanted to hear.
I've examined to the extent that it was worth about supposed Kliq burials. I don't see it. Nash paints a good depiction: they were 4 guys who partied together and had a lot of fun in a period where everyone else made very little in a lockeroom with arguably the worst morale short of the aftermath of the deaths of Owen Hart and Chris Benoit. Of course people get upset about that. That happens in every work environment
I don't see how Adam Bomb got buried, or Jean-Pierre Lafitte (who was arguably the most talented), or a cosplay bore like Bam Bam Bigelow. Bigelow was never main event quality. I can remember so many of his matches where the audience was silent. I don't think Bigelow ever gave anyone a reason to care about him.
5. Re Foley, it's just Douglas trying to seek validation for his own bitterness. Really, you never seem to think to yourself how much scum he had to be to tell Foley that. Foley had a wife and kids. He could labor away in ECW or Japan death matches making maybe at most $100k a year. His downside in WWF, without any merchandise, PPV appearances, or dolls factored, had a substantially greater upside to anything ECW could offer him.
Think about that. From a financial standpoint, Foley had nothing to lose.
6. I question Ross' account or your account of what Ross said.
They heavily invested in his character: weird promos, two theme songs, an immediate feud with the Undertaker (and Foley winning!), a main event run (September 1996). Foley was arguably the most pushed heel since Yokozuna. He was more heavily pushed than Razor Ramon. When did Ramon ever get that kind of rub? Get real.
7. Foley had obvious drawbacks. His bumps were one of them. No one predicted that he'd have a long career - and he didn't. He retired at only 35 years old. Had Foley only been three years older, he would have been close to retired. Another drawback is that Foley is really unathletic. One implication of that is they're a lot more prone to injury. McMahon has a better sense of that than Jim Ross does
I also think Foley's bumps damaged wrestling in the long-term. No one could top it, so impressive stunts fell flat.
The only reason he got the World title had nothing to do with his wrestling per se, even if it's connected. Foley wrote a really good book (his title run was written as an afterthought). The hope IMO is that he would be a company representative to NY media markets, and could do better at it than Steve Austin.
Foley's strong points were that he could get over talent by being willing to bump in a way that made the heels look vicious. Is that World Champion quality? Historically, it isn't, not in the WWF. Only in the NWA because of the structural factors embedded in the traveling champion. But Foley wasn't traveling champion material. He wasn't a good enough worker for that. He would have been a special attraction, and he was booked that way in the WWF as well.
Learn to think though and stop being suggestible in taking people at their word. Douglas never got pushed in the big leagues for a reason. In WCW, he seemed injured every few months lol. I'm sure that's the fault of everyone else too.
Amusing thing about Douglas too is his character work was always as unoriginal and as uninteresting as his academic career. Word is that HHH stole his gimmick. What gimmick? The Franchise and adjacent gimmicks of that sort is the oldest trope in combat sports. Give me a break. It has been rehashed a million times. Besides, HHH plays it better on his worst day than Douglas ever did on his best. Douglas only got over one time in his entire mediocre career: playing a meta role in a crowd of smarks whose promotion they watched ran nothing but perpetual debt and couldn't expand outward. But playing a meta character to malcontent neckbeards is a lot easier to do than playing one assigned to you that you have to get over. All those WWF guys mentioned in my previous post got over and landed all the subtleties down in order to get over. Even Nash did, despite the fact that he had so little experience for the astronomical burden placed on him.
Douglas is just a lazy, whiny blowhard. Always has been, always will be. That's why he's a slump lord in Pittsburgh with his crap duplex property and Foley is a millionaire by contrast. You guys don't think, ever. Rasslin fans are some of the most suggestible people I've ever come across. Nothing more than a glorified cult
@@vannavanity1195 I really enjoyed reading your response, it was a trip down memory lane! I always enjoyed Douglass's work and his current podcasts but never really thought about any of his career as in depth as you have explained it, so I'll take you at your word. Cheers and thanks for the informative thought provoking post!
Bill Busch was the worst person at the worst time to be in charge of wcw. Bischoff would have just fired Sullivan and mike graham. Busch wasnt a wrestling guy he was an account for time warner. At the end of the day the kevin Sullivan's and mike Graham's of wcw were just as responsible for wcw's demise as anyone.
I see a lot of people taking Shane side and I’m not someone who believes Bruce Prichard either but Shane has been playing the victim he’s entire career but when you really start listening to shoot interviews from multiple people that really aren’t friends, like if Kevin Nash is saying the same thing Jim Cornett is saying, and then I hear Jim Ross say may be the same thing that Bruce is saying I’m going to tend to believe it if I hear it from four different sources that were interviewed 4 Different times especially when you’ve got these interviews that are years apart from each other. I think Shane was a good in ring worker but I never bought him as a main event guy but whenever she leaves the company he always paint this picture that he was this victim that didn’t do anything wrong. In the WWF he always tries to paint this picture that everything was going great for him but the Kliq just had it out for him. He never talks about undertaker and yokozuna cussing him out for not carrying his weight and for his constant complaining. Any time he was in WCW or WWF he always had a problem with creative because they would put him in an angle and usually if you’re a baby face you have to lose a few of the matches on the way to the big payoff match so there’s something to celebrate when you win. Shane never got that. Jim Cornett talked about it and he says he’s someone that likes Shane but there was an angle where Shane was going to get screwed over and lose a match and the payoff was he was going to get revenge on Jim Cornette and everyone would tune in to TV that week to watch Shane beat up Jim who the fans hated as a heel manager. Shane could not get past the idea that he was going to be forced to lose a match and went to management and complained. He would always tell the ECW fans that ECW was the place to be, drop some “F “bombs when he would come back and he would put down WCW in WWF….. until one of those companies offered him a job and then he would leave ECW like a thief in the night and then of course the story would repeat itself Shane wouldn’t be happy with creative, it was never his fault, they would let him go, then he’s back in ECW cutting the same promo again.
The thing with a lot of wrestling fans is that they extrapolate their feelings about heel/face into things like this. They will generally be anti-kliq, regardless of context. They will be anti-Vince, regardless of context. If someone seems to be an underdog (face) they will side with that person. Shane Douglas is an ECW darling, so they will take his word over anything or anyone.
His gripe here just doesn’t make much sense. He openly says he never wanted to leave, never asked or got his release, but has such an issue when the guys who got their releases and wanted to leave moved forward with it. He went behind their backs to make sure he was still good with Busch even according to himself. So he has this big issue about them leaving him behind but for one it doesn’t even matter because he openly didn’t want to leave to begin with. He also didn’t have the freedom to even negotiate with the WWF because he didn’t get the release like the other guys had so if they had stuck with him he’d have genuinely killed it because the WWF couldn’t even talk to him anyways without tampering. So his gripe with it is honestly stupid if we’re honest about it and backs up this OG comment about him always seeing himself as the victim or not doing anything wrong. The dude genuinely takes zero steps to even be able to negotiate to leave, says he didn’t want to leave, and then says he got stabbed in the back when the guys who took all the steps to leave moved forward with it. If he wanted to be in their team he’d have done the things they did too but he never did.
Hard not to feel a little sorry for Shane.
I’ll never fully grasp what Shane’s issue was nor why somebody like Russo would be calling him about those guys being in Connecticut to negotiate going to the WWF. I guess I can get that they had all made a pact together and that it hurt when a friend lied about it but when thinking on it realistically what did he expect or need to be aware of happening when he had made it known he didn’t want to leave while the others had gotten their releases. So it doesn’t make much sense for anybody with WCW to be keeping tabs on the radicalz negotiating to go to the WWF or care what they’re doing since they’d given them full releases that didn’t prevent them going to the WWF - what would the office expect and if there was an issue to go to the WWF the release would’ve had terms to prevent that but didn’t. The only thing that makes sense for WCW to care at all is knowing that some guys who didn’t get released were close to those guys and ensuring that current guys under contract were there talking with the WWF. Outside of that none of the drama makes sense. Shane expressed he didn’t want to leave, doubled back without the others to make sure the company knew he didn’t want to leave and threw the others under the bus by saying he hadn’t known about any of that, and didn’t have his release to even be able to participate in a negotiation with the WWF. WCW giving the dudes full releases to go wherever they chose doesn’t make any sense to be upset that they’re talking to the WWF or surprised to learn that they’re talking with the other company that they can earn a living working for and if they were going to be upset with them going there then they should’ve blocked it in their releases but didn’t do so. So it makes for a more interesting story to hear all the drama that evidently happened and the hurt feelings but none of it really makes any sense for the company to be mad that the guys are moving on since they’re free and clear to do so nor does it make any sense for Shane to expect that he’d continue to be in the loop or feel stabbed in the back not being aware or included in their negotiations when he didn’t want to make the jump and couldn’t have been involved legally if he wanted to be since he never got a release. And all in all it feels pretty self righteous to say you were stabbed in the back by them when you also say that you went behind their backs to cover your add with Bill Busch and drop all of the heat about asking for releases on the other guys which really could have fucked them over if they hadn’t gotten the releases and were forced to stay. It isn’t cool to absolve yourself for going behind the group to protect your own interests since your end games didn’t align but then condemn the others for not including you in their dealings with the WWF when it was obvious they’d be talking to them soon and you’d already broken the pact to stick together since you didn’t request a release and leave when they had. Once you decided to stay when they made the push to leave you took yourself away from the pact by not sticking together with them from the start and openly operating behind their back to push the Heat over to them and make sure they knew you didn’t want to leave.
I just don't believe Bruce Pritchard...he just comes across as a liar...that's just my honest opinion....just seems very very very untrustworthy!!!!
Only when he's talking
He is the biggest ass kisser of Vince
It would explain why he is laughing at the WWF so long. He comes across as a total stooge.
Sounds like Shane tried to start his own Kliq and it fell apart.
That's why his group was called the triple threat
And Benoit and Malenko and Douglas were the original triple threat although the weren't together long
Well you forgot about Dean Malenko he was a referee for the WWF back in the 80s so technically he was a employee of the WWF now besides Parry Saturn and Chris Benoit have wrestle for the WWF before The Radicals but Eddie Guerrero never wrestle for the WWF before the Radicals at least I don't think so he's former partner Art Barr did he a tryout match as his beetle juice gimmick The Juicer or something like that
Bruce Prichard is Vince McMahon's fluff boy
Yup......
Wow Eddie looks so small in that pic standing next to those other small guys. I mean he looks smaller than Malenko, not that theirs anything wrong with that but I'm shocked cause I never recognized that before.
Its because when he got that champion push in wwe in the mid 2000s he was heavily on the gas it was very obvious, in the wcw I'm not sure he hit the roids that hard if at all
I agree with Bruce on this one... I never thought I would?
Does this mean Shane is a liar?
At the very least I think Shane leaves a lot of stuff out of his stories so he can play victim a lot. I’m not saying he’s a bad guy or he sucks or anything like that But It’s very rare to hear him all up to any mistake ever in any shoot interview. Every single time it was a conspiracy against him every time. If you listen to shoot interviews from other people in the wrestling business that tells stories about situations with him going back to the late 80s all the way to the early 2000s there’s a reoccurring theme of Shane not ever Thinking he’s done anything wrong but then you hear shoot interviews from Jim Cornett, from Kevin Nash, from Bruce Prichard, from Jim Ross, and not all of these guys are buddies that hang out. And they all will tell stories of trying to put him in angles as a baby face but he didn’t want to do the job to the heel even though it meant like two months later he would get his revenge at a clash of champions or a PPV or something like that but he couldn’t get over that he would be losing a match, they all say that he constantly complained, I mean there are some guys that tells their versions of stories but other wrestlers will go up to their misgivings every now and then wrestlers like Kevin Nash and Sean Waltman and even big van Vader Willow up to mistakes they’ve made but she never ever does. He loves to tell the story of the Kliq ruining his WWF run but he leaves out the part where guys like undertaker and yokozuna cussed him out for whiny and not carrying his share of the load when he was there. If you listen to him he was doing everything perfectly and it was just those guys for some reason and just decided they didn’t like him out of the blue and for that reason he was run out of the company.
When you take things like that and you look at how ECW was really the only place he made it and you think about the promos he would cut in ECW which really weren’t ever that great he just use the word “fuck “a lot and simpletons think that means it’s a great promo, he would always trash WWF and WCW to the ECW fans….. until he got a deal to go to one of those two companies and make a lot more money and then he would leave like a thief in the night and then cycle with repeat itself, there would be problems, Shane plays victim, he didn’t do anything wrong he was great it was everyone else his problem and then he goes back to ECW and cuts the promo again in the whole cycle repeats itself.
I have to say honestly, Bruce is so corrupt that he should leave wrestling and work for the government.
JJ Dillion of the three was the only who mattered. Graham was a Sullivan bootlicker and Sid was not respected by the booys
Company guy. Just like Jim Cornette. Vince McMahon is always going to be their boss.
Cornette is literally the antithesis of company guy.
Bruce seems like he’s lying.
I really don't trust Bruce Pritchard
You Can't Trust Him He Talks Out Of Both Sides Of His Neck And He's always been somebody's BOY
I am sure after he hired those 4 guys, 2 words came to Vince's mind: Buyer's remorse!
@@JaySports644 - All of them. He was sold a crock of shit that these guys were big stars being held down in WCW. They were midcarders, but he paid them way beyond their drawing power. Eddie is THE worst drawing champion in WWE history (that's from 1963-now) and Benoit was not much better. Vince could have signed someone decent from WCW like DDP for the same money he wasted on those 4 and actually made some money.
I dunno about that lol. They may not be your typical World Champion gimmicks as far as ratings/tickets/merch sold but they were both worthy of their reigns & the good thing about having the WWE title and the World Heavyweight title at the time is that they could give someone who might be an unconventional choice to reign as top champion the opportunity, out of respect for their overall contributions & still have another top champion that sells hella merch.
I think all four had pretty successful and memorable runs in the WWE so I don't think it was a total waste, plus Malenko served as an agent for 19 yrs following his in-ring career sooo... lol... I understand your perspective but I still don't necessarily agree with it lol
@@mattwheeler491 - The facts disagree with you. Two of THE WORST drawing champions ever. Eddie (to his credit) was devastated at how badly he was doing as champ and asked to have the belt taken off him. Murderer had an ego though. He was Billy Gunn level at best, but thought he was Hulk Hogan level. To go from Bruno Sammartino, Billy Graham, Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Ultimate Warrior, Steve Austin, Rock, etc to charisma vacuum Benoit made almost every casual fan switch off for good. That is like Indy Car switching from 200mph open wheels to 30mph mobility carts and expecting people to pay to watch it. You do NOT put midcard talent at the top and expect anything other than losing tons of money. People who draw money "deserve" the top spots, not "hard working" channel changers.
@@handsolo1209 Beniot didnt have a personality. He was extremely bland. Guerrero was over with the Hispanic crowd though. I'll give him that. Also he helped get Bradshaw over as a super heel. Which was good for Cena's push.
@@JaySports644 - I liked Eddie and though all he lacked was a few inches in height, but he, like all of The Radicalz were midcard talent and were lucky that they were in WCW with actual stars like Hogan, Flair, Savage, Sting, etc to give them bigger paychecks and more exposure. Without the stars elevating them, they were ROH level talent.
Prichard is lying thru his teeth.
Saturn trained with 3H they were buddies. But WWE at the time wanted Kidman and Rey they were locked in WCW. Bruce is a liar here. Konnan contacted Bruce. WWE also wanted Raven. They shut down Jarrett, Disco, Konnan, Kevin Sullivan, Russo and Douglas. Outta all those guys Raven asked for his release. Jarrett never had a run. Most WCW midcarders didn't wanna work WWE after the failed runs in WWE of former WCW stars such as Kronik, Nash, Scott, Bagwell and DDP. Disco went in depth getting calls from Johnny Ace he didn't want to go. Nash pacifically told former WCW stars and Scott Steiner saying if they went to WWE you'd be buried. Steve Corino had multiple tryouts w WWE and recommended by Dusty and never got hired as a in ring preformer. Rick Steiner also never went back and Jerry Lynn enjoyed a coffee break w WWE. Sting finally went to WWE and was buried worst run of his career as well as Vader who had the worst run of his career. Dr. Death Steve Williams was also buried in the Brawl for All. He told WWE officials he was injured and could barely walk at the time. They had plans for Newjack twice but the second time around New Jack buried them on Cable news over the Benoit scandal. Most WCW guys buried WWE into the ground on Cable news during the Benoit scandal and deaths of wrestlers. Most noteworthy was Mark Mero who buried WWE into the ground at the time. Mero whom was a WCW wrestler had the same syndrome of the other failed WCW wrestlers in WWE. Even The Steiner Bros first run in WWE was failed.
The Steiner Bros were suppose be the face of the New Generation Era tag team. They were getting a third run with the straps by defeating the Quebecer's at 1994.
Raven was already gone by this time. He walked out in mid to late 99 when Bischoff told the locker room that anyone who wasnt happy could leave. A bunch of guys had been saying they wanted to leave but when push came to shove, Raven is the only one who actually had the guts to leave. He still has a year left on his WCW deal and the stipulation was that he could not go to WWE until that year was up. So he hung around ECW for a year and then went to WWE.
As a side note, JR hired Raven and when Vince found out about it he wasnt happy about it
@@stephensanders8572 Who the hell hired Johnny Polo?
They betrayed Shane
Don't he work at target now?
Yeah, Ric Flair told me that. WOOOOOOOOOO
Not anymore. He left that job in 2008 according to reports
and so what if he did. people got to pay their bills. no offense i just don;t believe in shaming people for working retail or waiting tables or what not.
He was working in management.
@@turboturkey oh god... Its a leftist... Haha I just asked where he worked at.. Clown
Shane Douglas is not welcome in WWE.
Yes because triple Untalent ripped off the Franchise gimmick from Shane Douglas from 92 to 99 from ecw in wwf 99 as the game as a cheap carbon copy.
Bruce is full of it
Full of what?
Shyte?
Sounds like a great big pile of KABAAKISMS BAAAY BEE
They screwed Shane
@Cause I Said So why didnt they tell him
Shane Douglas is so over rated.
Yeah just a sort of solid all-rounder, not main event shit.
I know people will crap themselves, but Douglas was that eras Cody Rhodes.
Shane Douglas was criminally underrated. He was a workhorse in his match with 2 Cold Scorpio for the ECW tv title which was a clinic, his fued was high caliber and exceptional pitbull feud was intense heel heat at its best, and his matches with the hollywood blondes and singles matches with Steve Austin were beyond its time in wcw.
@@maddognogood8346 lol at the virgin nerd
@@JorgeMunoz-gn5do Shane was great in ECW and pretty solid in his early WCW career, but honestly by 1999-2000, Shane wasn't a high caliber guy. I remember his matches around that time and they were all boring as fk. He was slow in the ring (not really his fault, i think he had a ton of injuries that piled up from his time at ECW) and the only thing memorable in a lot of his matches was the fact that Torrie Wilson was with him
Hey, Bruce is lying. What else is new?
Two of them are now dead and one's an eBeggar.