Bruce Prichard Recalls Vince McMahon Prank Where Jonathan Coachman Was Arrested

In WWE there are always stories about messing with an employee that stands the test of time. One of the top stories within the WWE office was Jonathan Coachman getting arrested. Speaking with Conrad Thompson on the Something To Wrestling With podcast, Bruce Prichard discussed in detail how this all got together. Surprisingly enough, it was all over football.

"So, you need a football pool," Prichard stated. "Everybody needed a football pool and Coach volunteered to do it. Coach was busting his a** getting everybody in the pool and getting everything that needed to be done so those that wanted to be in it could be in it. Busting Coach's balls, we said wouldn't it be funny, gambling's illegal, won't it be funny if we just had him arrested?"

Was Prichard the only mastermind behind it? According to him, another person was involved. One of the top tag team champions of all time and a WWE Hall of Famer was able to pull this off.

"This started with me and Jerry Brisco just bullsh*tting," Prichard continued. "Jerry goes, 'Yeah why don't we get him arrested.' There were a couple of cops, we were in North Carolina, and we are coming down the escalators... Jerry starts talking to the cops. He says, 'Hey guys, uh, would you help us out?' Jerry comes up with this f*cking idea. We go to Vince and say, 'Hey, we're doing this football pool. 'What the f*ck is a football pool? You're going swimming? I don't get it.' He then says OK do it, and everyone starts putting their two cents in. We literally set up this elaborate deal for them to go, 'Excuse me Jonathan Coachman, yeah, you're under arrest. Hey man, we're trying to be discreet, we're not going to embarrass you or anything like that. Out of respect to Mr. McMahon, we'll let you be cuffed in front. Not with your hands behind your back or anything, but we have to cuff you because you're a criminal."

That was only the first part. Seeing how he was cuffed in front of him and not behind, it made for the perfect opportunity for Vince to get involved in the only way he knows how.

"They take him into Vince's office, he's in a meeting. He's like, 'YEAH? What's going on here?' The police do their thing and Vince was like, 'Goddammit it, I'm trying to produce a television show here, and in the middle of the goddamn doing it, I got you doing, you doing, you're doing what? A f*cking football pool?' He just went off on Coach and Coach is just shaking, almost in tears. They start to take him out and Vince goes 'Wait a minute, goddamit you can't take him out like that.' He throws a napkin, a lemon napkin at him, to put over the cuffs, so people don't see that he's cuffed in front. Coach thinks that when he yells 'get back here' that he's going to get him off the hook, and Vince is going to save him. He just put the napkin on top of his cuffs. They take him out, now everybody's kind of in on it, so they are watching Coach, he's doing the perp walk down the hall and everyone's looking and whispering."

How did this story end you may ask? A story that Coach will never live down?

"Everybody is whispering and talking and they back the f*cking squad car up to the very back door, they put him in the back, hit the lights and go. They drive up, turn left and one guy gets on the phone and goes, 'Oh, OK, alright, no we're not that far we can turn around, we can come back.' They tell him they got to go back and get one thing, a comment from someone. The cops turn around and come back and when they pull down everyone is out to see Coach... and they let him off the hook. It was classic."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Something To Wrestling With with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.