Bruce Prichard On Why Roddy Piper Replaced Scott Hall To Face Goldust At WrestleMania
Goldust's first WrestleMania match of his career took place at WrestleMania 12 when he faced Roddy Piper in a Hollywood Backlot Brawl. But many don't know he was originally supposed to face Razor Ramon in a Street Fight.
Goldust had defeated Razor at Royal Rumble in 1996 to win the Intercontinental Championship. The feud was supposed to culminate in a rematch for the title at WrestleMania 12. Former WWE producer Bruce Prichard revealed on his Something To Wrestle podcast that Razor refused to work with Goldust, so Vince McMahon nixed the match completely.
"Razor Ramon didn't want to work with Goldust so Vince [McMahon] said to just cut that match off," Prichard said. "He didn't want Razor to ruin WrestleMania. If Razor wasn't into it he felt that he wasn't going to give it his all, and them going out and invest all this money into a Street Fight then why do that if he isn't going to build up the right way?"
The backstage plans were for Piper to originally work an angle with Gorilla Monsoon, but Prichard came up with a different idea. Prichard said Piper was gracious enough to step in and work with Goldust in a non-title match. Despite the last-minute change, he said they put on a great match.
"Roddy Piper would always credit me for bringing him back and coming up with this idea. It was an idea born out of necessity and not having anything else with him and with Goldust," Prichard said. "The whole original idea of bringing Roddy Piper back at all was to do something different with Gorilla Monsoon and to have a WrestleMania moment for Roddy Piper. A lot of things lined up; the stars and the moon lined up and we were all elate, especially because whenever you think about letting Roddy or leaving Roddy to his own device things can sometimes get a little hokey and not exactly what you wanted. I thought everybody in that match was phenomenal."
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Something To Wrestle with Bruce Prichard with a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
Source: Something To Wrestle with Bruce Prichard
Peter Bahi contributed to this article.