On the latest edition of his Something To Wrestle podcast legendary personality Bruce Prichard spoke about Bret “The Hitman” Hart’s reaction to the ending of WrestleMania IX, and why WWE decided to finally launch Monday Night Raw. Highlights are below.
Talks the creation of Monday Night Raw:
“I always laugh about it when I go back to what we were trying to do and what we were trying to do from a budget standpoint. We had Primetime Wrestling on Monday nights where we would bring in a lot of talent as guests and do kind of a panel type television show, and as we looked at it, that was becoming very expensive to pull people off the road in the middle of tours to come in and do this. Then you had to put them up in hotels and what have you. Business overall was kind of down. The thought of, do we concentrate on the Northeast and do we maybe build an arena in Stamford and take the warehouse that we had and turn that into an actual studio arena? The warehouse was attached to the studio, and that was the thought starter for Monday Night RAW. It evolved into the Manhattan Center and what have you, but it was a way to save money initially to do a live television show. Have the tour come through in the Northeast, have talent there, and do a live show. It was more than anything to save money and try to present the product in a different light….this was an opportunity to expose your stars, but we also wanted to give them a little extra and have a little more competitive matches – not to the extent that it would become. However, this was the infancy of trying to do that.”
What Bret Hart’s reaction was to Hulk Hogan returning:
“I think Bret was excited and looking forward to the opportunity to work with Hulk, but also, I think there’s a little bit of we didn’t really know. Great, Hulk is back for WrestleMania. But at the beginning, there wasn’t a lot of, ‘We know Hulk is gonna be here for the long run.’ It was much-debated of bringing Hulk back and what we did with Hulk. I think Hulk was always looked at as a short-term deal.”
How Bret reacted when he was told he was losing to Yokozuna at Mania IX:
“Bret was upset. No doubt about it. I don’t remember when Vince had the talk with Bret – it probably was the night before because we hadn’t really made the decision until the day before. There was a lot going back and forth. ‘Is this the right thing to do? What should we do?’ I think Vince going with his gut, we did what we eventually did. As far as the [Yokozuna] match going shorter, that was a timing issue. The show had gone long, and we were to the point where to make sure we got everything in, some of the time was cut off on that and they got that midway through. That was a Vince call at the time. It was communicated while they were in the ring. You had to be careful to make sure you got everything on the air back in those days because whatever time it was, you had your three or four hour window and you had to be off at 55 minutes into the hour so they could rewind the tapes for replays. It wasn’t the way things are now. That’s why we kind of rushed the match, and I regret it because I think Bret could’ve had a hell of a match with Yoko, and he has had great matches with Yoko.”
Says he was even more upset when Hogan got the title:
“Yeah, Bret was definitely upset. I think Bret looked at it as a lack of confidence that, ‘OK, here I am, and now they’re going in a completely different direction.’ And an old direction at that, not realizing it was temporary. He’s in a big spot and he’s got his family there and basically everyone is there, in his eyes, for him. I think that would be a kick in the gut for anybody to go out and you’re presumably at the top of your game. So, yeah, he’s looking at it as this is major and the biggest deal he could imagine, and somebody else is walking out [with the title]. People are calling their friends asking who won, and it’s not his name mentioned. It’s not even a guy that was in the match. That was a kick in the nuts to him.”
(H/T and transcribed by 411 Mania)