As reported earlier, WWE released Bruce Prichard on Monday. He had been with the company for 22 years (with the exception of a brief time period). His firing was a Stephanie McMahon call.
As noted last night, Prichard was not at TV tapings for the past two weeks and people were told he was on vacation. Stephanie had been negative on Prichard in recent years as she saw him as Vince McMahon's biggest yes-man. She's buried him in the past, sometimes in front of others at creative team meetings, believing he was not paying attention and/or giving non-committal answers. She made the official call to cut him loose. With Prichard being a senior member in WWE, he had a large contract that Stephanie could justify cutting - although he often complained about taking a pay cut when he moved from Head of Talent Relations to creative.
In the past, he was an important member of the creative team, but no so much in recent months. He had also largely lost contact with Vince. He was supposed to attend meetings at WWE's headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut two weeks every month, but recently, it was more like two days every 8 to 10 weeks. The creative team was not given a reason regarding his dismissal from the company.
Bruce Prichard is the brother of Tom Prichard, who currently works with WWE's developmental talents in Tampa, Florida. Bruce Prichard has had numerous drug problems in the past, which has caused him to miss job promotions in the company as a result. He was supposed to land the head of television role producer Kevin Dunn ended up taking. Since 2004, WWE required Prichard to take urine tests once per week.
Regarding his future, it wouldn't be surprising to see Prichard wind up in TNA. He developed a close friendship with Jeff Jarrett while both their wives were battling with cancer. Prichard was quite upset when Jarrett's wife Jill passed away last year as a result of the disease, to the point that some people were worried about him.
Prichard was a major supporter of Undertaker and John Bradshaw Layfield ever since they arrived in the company and he helped them with their rises to fame. In fact, Prichard is listed as one of the VP's of JBL's company.
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