WWE Hall Of Famer Was “Damaged Goods” Says Bruce Prichard

In 1996, it was Vader time in WWE but according to company executive Bruce Prichard, the former WCW and IWGP World Champion’s time had been and gone before he ever got there.

Speaking on his Something To Wrestle podcast, Bruce Prichard reflected on Vader’s time in WWE and thinks the company got “a shell” of the star that he was in Japan:

“This was a time when Vader had put on an awful lot of weight. People romanticize about Vader, but when he was in Japan, he would just beat people up. I don’t think anybody ever accused Vader of being a great worker. He was a bully that liked to beat people up, and they let him get away with it. By the time he got to WWE, he was a shell of that guy [in Japan].”

Prichard went on to say that he believes WWE got “damaged goods” in Vader and that the star wasn’t helped by coming out on the wrong end of a fight with Paul Orndorff:

“In many ways, we [WWE] got damaged goods. You didn’t get the guy that you had seen for years. You got a guy who got his ass kicked in the shower by somebody in flip-flops. It’s no shame to get your ass kicked by Paul Orndorff, but I think when you’re supposed to be the tough guy and bully, I think there was shame in there for him.

“He was breaking down. All of a sudden, he realized that, ‘Oh, it’s a little different when you’ve got guys as big as you and they’re hitting back.’ It’s all good when you’re in there bombarding people and they don’t hit back. You think Undertaker is going to take that? Nah. He was younger, stronger, and faster, and was not going to get pounded on [by Vader].”

Bruce Prichard also recently opened up about the trials and tribulations of booking WrestleMania and says it can be a “Catch-22 situation.”

h/t Wrestling Inc