Bruce Prichard On Who Was Originally Scheduled To Have Owen Hart's Role For Bret Hart Feud
The 1993 edition of Survivor Series was the topic of conversation on a recent episode of the Something To Wrestle podcast. Former WWE producer Bruce Prichard revealed plans that were scrapped for the match between the Hart Family and Shawn Michaels and his knights.
Before he became the "Big Red Machine" Kane, it's no secret that Glenn Jacobs had a rough start to his WWE career. Not only did Jacobs have to experiment with a multitude of characters and gimmicks, he also had a lot of work to do before he was fit to compete in the ring. Prichard revealed that Jacobs was under consideration to be one of the knights at Survivor Series, but his lack of inexperience made them nix that idea.
"Glenn was greener than grass. Glenn was greener than the Christmas tree outfit that he wore as the Christmas Menace, or Christmas Creature from Tennessee, which was hilarious. Every time that picture would surface we would put it up around the dressing room for the Christmas Creature, which was a green unitard, from head to toe with a tensile and balls hanging down from it. He was just very green. Jerry Jarrett had promoted him as the second coming of Sid Vicious. He took him in because he had a great look, but he was not ready for prime time," Prichard said. "We had to get him some more experience before we can get him in, but we liked the size and there was potential. Plus, he was a super nice guy. There was something there, but we didn't have a developmental; we didn't have a school, so we just sent him to Memphis where he had an opportunity to work every day. Glenn was going to be one of the Knights under the mask. He didn't become a knight because he was too green. Way too green. Not even a year in the business at the time. We brought him up there because we needed bodies, put it that way, but we just didn't know. We didn't know how green he was at the point."
Prichard said there was also an idea to have the knights be legendary wrestlers and have their identities revealed throughout the match. One superstar that was under major consideration was Terry Funk.
"We were looking for names. We were looking for names that would be surprises where it would be fun. A fun deal to be part of the Survivor Series. Originally, those who got it would be like, 'Oh my God. That knight is walking around like Terry Funk. I think that is Terry Funk. I think that is Greg Valentine.' I think Jimmy Snuka was one of the names that were being bantered back and forth. It was looking for legendary names under masks to team with Jerry Lawler, but then when Jerry Lawler went away we needed someone else to fill his shoes so that was someone where we had no one else and we wanted a big-time replacement," Prichard said. "Terry Funk was still getting to be one of those knights. Pat Patterson had an idea where what if the knights get unmasked throughout the match. One time you reveal it is Greg Valentine, another knight was going to be Terry Funk, and whoever else it was. So, we shared this with Bret Hart. We talked about it with Bret Hart and asked for his opinion on some of the things we were throwing out there with the knights, and different ways to come up with a finish."
Concerning the Hart Family, Bret Hart entered into a feud against his brother Owen after the event. Prichard said the original idea was for Bret to feud with Bruce Hart, but Bret personally requested to have the angle changed to a rivalry with Owen.
"In addition to that, so much of this genesis of the whole Hart Family being together was Bruce Hart had written a letter to Vince about an angle between him and Bret. The angle was pretty good, and it pretty much runs in line with what we did with Owen Hart. Bret Hart came up to us that he agreed with us, he liked the angle idea but he didn't want to do the angle with Bruce Hart he wanted to do the angle with Owen Hart," Prichard said. "We all agreed because one of Vince McMahon's dilemma was that he wasn't sure about bringing Bruce Hart in and it was Bret Hart was the one who brought Owen Hart up and we were all excited, which is when we started to bring up the whole Bret Hart and Owen Hart angle."
The plan for Funk to be one of the knights in the match started out well as Funk was open to the idea. Unfortunately, Funk had to tend to his horse that had fallen ill, so he couldn't compete at the event.
"Going back to the guys getting unmasked. Everybody came into Stamford, Connecticut the night before the pay-per-view and Bret Hart had got with Terry Funk and explained that he was going to put Funk in the Sharpshooter and then unmask him, and Terry is like, okay, he starts listening, so apparently they stay up all night long having drinks," Prichard said. "I get a message on my answering machine from Terry Funk saying that Funk had to go home, his horse was sick, and that was it. I call the hotel and he wasn't there. He had left. He folded up his knight outfit and left it outside Bret Hart's door, so the Funk's horse was sick and he went home."
If you use any portion of the quotes in this article please credit Something To Wrestle With Bruce Prichard with an H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
Source: Something To Wrestle with Bruce Prichard
Peter Bahi contributed to this article.