boss has had some wild ideas in his time but this could be the craziest of them all.
The 76-year-old chairman – who earlier this month – once pitched for to wrestle a real life bear during a planned show on Wall Street.
Let that sentence sink in for a moment.
Back in 2000, the company joined the New York Stock Exchange, and the company put up a wrestling ring with the likes of ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin, Triple H and Kurt Angle there to mark the new era.
Speaking on his own Something To Wrestle With podcast, WWE executive Bruce Prichard said: ‘Vince wanted to put a ring in the middle of Wall Street. Shut Wall Street down and put a ring there, and have matches at noon. Huge spectacle, we’re gonna go live on WWF.com.
“So it’s like, okay, cool. I thought he was just kind of telling me this. So I knew that, “Okay, we need to put on a show, we need to come up with something”.
‘But what he was telling me was, “Hey, I want to do this, get it done.” As he trails off, he goes, “And I want a bear. I want The Rock to wrestle a bear”. The Brahma Bull versus the bear.’
You know, as you do!
Naturally, there were some concerns about this, with Bruce realising the issues with the stunt.
‘First of all, you had the animal rights activists that would not look kindly on a wrestling bear. Even though the human rights activists probably should have been alarmed. Because trust me, the bear always goes over,’ he added.
‘So anyway, as we’re getting closer to this, the idea becomes, “Well, do you really want a bear hanging around on the New York Exchange the day your stock goes public?” “Well, the bear was out today on the New York Stock Exchange”.
‘No, you don’t want that. You want the Brahma Bull.’
Thankfully, the event was a roaring success – just without a giant grizzly crashing the party.
