Bruce Prichard on the idea behind “recasting” Razor & Diesel

[héad.casé]

It was spurned over a telephone call one weekend over the fact that we owned Razor and Diesel. We created Razor and Diesel. We could put anybody we want in there, no different than a movie and a television show. You look at BeWitched, how many Darrin Stephens were there? A lot of different television shows have had a lot of different characters play title characters before and they just put them in with no explanation at all.”

“This was actually a Paul Heyman idea, Paul Heyman says, ‘I’ve got a guy sitting in the ECW locker room who does a better Razor Ramon than Scott Hall could ever do!’ That’s a quote, I said ‘Really? Well shit.’ We were just talking one day and he told me about this guy Rick Bognar, and how he would always come in and do a Razor imitation.

“We were talking and I’m like, well, by God, that’s a coincidence. Paul told me about it before we were going to do the Razor – Diesel gimmick, and I recalled that and it was very recent in those conversations. And said, son of a bitch, we may have a guy. I said ‘Hey, get me Rick Bognar.’ I think Rick was in Calgary at the time. Those were great gimmicks. There was no fake Diesel and fake Razor. There is Razor and Diesel played by different people.”

www.wrestlinginc.com/news/2021/09/bruce-prichard-explains-idea-behind-wwe-recasting-razor-ramon-and-diesel/

["Playboy" Don Douglas]

He's so full of shit he squeaks.

[Jaws the Shark]

That I can find evidence of Rick Bognar, the pretend Razor Ramon, making a total of four ECW appearances in 1996 across two weekends makes me think that this is a massive lie.

[Deleted]

Then why did you have evil JR represent them and why did you guys act like it was a joke?

If they were the actual Diesel and Razor Ramon, why didn't they dominate in the same fashion and why didn't they main event for years?

If you honestly wanted to make them main eventers, then you failed miserably, wasted two talented wrestlers, and pissed off your fan base, who could watch the real things change wrestling history with your biggest competitor.

Everyone involved looked like absolute morons.

[Deleted]

He's a liar cause the whole characters were designed to get heat on Jim Ross who said he was "bringing back" Razor and Diesel.

They were never supposed to be the same people. It was always a "Har Har, there's your Razor and Diesel now!" kinda deal.

[jason1980s]

At least Glenn Jacobs wound up rebounding. I wonder how many sleepless nights he had thinking about quitting wrestling over the true "crap" that WWF gave him in gimmicks.

I have heard that story about Rick doing a Razor impression before but not sure if was from Bruce. He was pretty boring just walking to the ring. I'm not sure though the idea was supposed to be a joke early on. I think it just turned into it because WWF knew the idea wasn't working and would never work and of course, another way to make JR look silly by looking foolish for bringing in these fakes.

[Spider2024]

Sept 28, 2021 12:06:47 GMT -5 "Playboy" Don Douglas said:

He's so full of shit

It's why he always looks flushed.

[Kyle Butler]

Rick might’ve been able to talk like Razor but he couldn’t work like Scott Hall

[Kevin Hamilton]

It's just a fundamental misunderstanding of what the audience watching wants. In theory, it'd be more akin to recasting Tom Brady or something given that it's in kayfabe supposed to be a sport.

Shows ABOUT rasslin can work, Netflix GLOW for example, but that's not what the actual show is supposed to be.

[pinja]

His frame of reference is Bewitched. Why not make everybody a mute and play funny piano music in the background, because Buster Keaton got really over with it?

[Ronny Rayguns Is All Elite]

Purposely getting cheap knock offs of popular wrestlers could be a great META heel move.

Bruce is either a moron if he thought they would genuinely get over with the crowd or he's going out of his way to lie here and making himself look terrible at understanding how the crowd is going to react to something

[Aceorton]

The only part of this story I believe, other than them realizing they own the character concepts, is Paul Heyman shamelessly overselling the abilities of one of his guys.

[cjh]

If you listen to StW, Bruce will clearly bait Conrad into an argument sometimes so that it's not just them agreeing with each other.  I'm pretty sure Bruce has said in the past that he thought the idea sucked, too.

[I'm Team Bayley and Indi]

(also a movie based on a show that did recast it's Jan for the Brady Bunch Hour)

[DSR]

Sept 28, 2021 13:37:03 GMT -5 Ronny Rayguns Is All Elite said:

Purposely getting cheap knock offs of popular wrestlers could be a great META heel move.

Kinda sorta worked for nWo Sting.

[Ronny Rayguns Is All Elite]

Sept 28, 2021 14:18:50 GMT -5 DSR said:

Sept 28, 2021 13:37:03 GMT -5 Ronny Rayguns Is All Elite said:

Purposely getting cheap knock offs of popular wrestlers could be a great META heel move.

Kinda sorta worked for nWo Sting.

I heard he was more popular in Japan than the Real Sting, not sure how accurate that is

[The Blue Nova]

If bruce said it was sunny outside I would have to go look. also there is no way Paul E was not on the WWE's pay roll 1996 on. lol

[cjh]

Sept 28, 2021 14:37:53 GMT -5 The Blue Nova said:

If bruce said it was sunny outside I would have to go look. also there is no way Paul E was not on the WWE's pay roll 1996 on. lol

ECW's parent company HHG Corp. was paid $1,000 a week by WWE starting September 1996.  Jim Ross handled payroll during his time as head of talent relations, and he confirmed it.  WWE wanted to sign ECW talents 2 Cold Scorpio, Doug Furnas, Phil LaFon, and Terry Gordy all at once, so Heyman and Vince McMahon had a meeting where Vince agreed to financially support ECW.

[TOK Hehe'd Around & Found Out]

Hasn't Bruce explicitly said that the only reason they booked the storyline was to help with their lawsuit against WCW

[chazraps]