Bruce Prichard On Which WWE Legend Came Up With Nation Of Domination, The Rock, Ahmed Johnson
On episode 20 of Something To Wrestle With Bruce Prichard, the former WWE producer talked about The Nation Of Domination in the course of discussing the 1997 Royal Rumble. Prichard shared who came up with the idea for the faction, The Rock's emergence as a heel with The Nation Of Domination, and Ahmed Johnson being stiff in the ring.
According to Prichard, WWE Hall Of Famer, Ernie Ladd, came up with the idea for Nation Of Domination.
"Originally, I believe [The Nation Of Domination] was Ernie Ladd's idea. Yeah, Ernie consulted with us. Ernie, from time to time, would come up with some good ideas, good perspective."
On the subject of The Rock, Prichard said that WWE's braintrust had high hopes for the third-generation professional wrestler early on, but he emerged as a heel with The Nation. Prichard went on to say that The Rock talking about himself in the third-person was Jim Ross' idea.
"Well, everybody had high hopes for him in the early days by taking his dad's name and his grandfather's name, Rocky Johnson and Peter Maivia, making him Rocky Maivia, and I'll never forget [Jim] Cornette, 'give him a goddamn f–king name! Rocky Maivia!' And it was when he came back from injury and went into the Nation of Domination and that's where he emerged as a heel. And it started with The Rock stuff, which, by the way, the whole Rock speak, 'The Rock says', talking about himself in third person, that was something that Jim Ross came up with."
As for Ahmed Johnson, Prichard divulged that Johnson was not Ron Simmons' favorite opponent, but he wanted to help him out. Moreover, Prichard suggested that nobody wanted to work with Johnson because he was a stiff worker in the squared circle.
"I don't think that Ahmed was Ron's favorite opponent. Ron really wanted to help Ahmed; however, Ahmed could be difficult at times. He felt he knew better and was fairly stiff at times. And he wasn't stiff to Ron Simmons, I can tell you that. He had a reputation for being stiff. I don't know how many people he hurt, but he stiffed people and people didn't like working with him because he was stiff."
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