Bruce Prichard Dealing With Family Medical Emergency

The wrestling world is sending kind thoughts out to Bruce Prichard, WWE’s Senior Vice President and Executive Director of WWE Monday Night Raw and WWE Friday Night SmackDown. Prichard’s family dealt with some unexpected “medical events,” according to Conrad Thompson, the co-host of Prichard’s podcast Something to Wrestle. Prichard was set to record an episode chronicling Trish Stratus’ WWE career but could not make the recording session due to the emergencies.

While Prichard sometimes misses podcasts due to his heavy workload at WWE, Thompson wanted fans to know the personality, who portrayed the character Brother Love on WWE television, had a serious personal matter to deal with. “Unfortunately Bruce is not with us today so we’re doing a ‘Best of.’ I do want to explain, though,” Thompson said. “Bruce had a… Boy he’s probably going to be upset with me for sharing this with you, but I want to give you a peek behind the curtain. Bruce’s family had a couple of medical events. Well, let’s just call it what they are; there were a couple of surgeries this week that interfered with our regular recording schedule.”

While introducing a “remixed” archive episode chronicling John Cena’s rise to fame, Thompson also made sure to cut off the trolls and critics of the show, who will likely bash Prichard, 58, for missing another episode of the show and/or the quality of the current WWE product. “That [emergency] wasn’t in his plan, wasn’t in my plan, but here we are,” Thompson said. “We’re doing our best to bring you brand-new programming every single week, but obviously, when something like this happens, it’s not in anybody’s plan.

“I recognize that all of us love this podcast —maybe me most of all — but I want to remind everybody that Bruce is a real person, and I know it’s easy to go online and dunk on WWE … but I do want to remind everybody if you’re listening to this you love this show and you probably love Bruce Prichard. Well the Prichard family could use a few extra prayers today if you got them, if that’s your sort of thing.”

The AdFreeShows.com exec, who also co-hosts 83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff and The Kurt Angle Show with Kurt Angle, also clarified Prichard himself was OK and would be at Friday’s SmackDown taping in Cleveland, Ohio. The duo plans to record several episodes soon, including ones about Faarooq and SummerSlam 2001, as well as the “snake-bit” Trish Stratus retrospective.

“I recognize that it’s been it’s been a challenge since Bruce went back to WWE,” Thompson said. “He’s working, as we say in the South, from ‘can to can’t.’ But this week, man, if it wasn’t for bad luck, Bruce would have no luck at all. So if you can throw a few extra prayers the Prichard family’s way. I’m sure the extended Prichard family and everybody in the household will greatly appreciate it. But for now, man, let’s think about happy times let’s send some positive vibes, some happy thoughts.”