Bruce Prichard: Mean Street Posse Was Supposed To Be A One-Off, But It Took On A Life Of Its Own

The Mean Street Posse wasn’t supposed to be more than a one-off, but they proved to be successful enough that they stuck around for a memorable WWE run.

Bruce Prichard recently discussed the stable on the Shane McMahon episode of “Something To Wrestle” and talked about how the group came to fruition and dismissed the notion that it was an attempt by Shane to “get his buddies jobs.”

“Well, he wasn’t getting his childhood friends jobs. Shane would tell stories about the ‘mean streets’ of Greenwich and the Mean Street Posse. ‘I’ve got my posse…’ and the stories were actually true stories about his best friends, but they were not called the Mean Street Posse [in real life], that came out of the over exaggerations of the [stories he told on TV] about the mean streets of Greenwich, which were not too mean. Every once in a while the lights will be too light on Greenwich Avenue and that can hurt your eyes, but other than that,” Prichard explained, “not much ‘mean’ in Greenwich, other than bank accounts.”

Prichard explained that the premise behind the group was that Shane told these mythical-like stories so much that they could put the group on television as a one-off appearance.

“Originally, we were going to create through other talent that we had in developmental and bring guys in to portray the Mean Street Posse. We ended up using them in a vignette, the actual guys, and lo and behold we had our Mean Street Posse. It was supposed to be a one-off type of deal that took on a life of its own. Sometimes it does,” Prichard explained, “and it was in no way, shape or form a [pitch by Shane of] ‘Hey, I’ve got to get my buddies jobs.’ It was these stories that became larger than life, and then we shot something with the actual Mean Street Posse and it was like, ‘Well shit, I guess we can use them for some stuff. They’ll never get in the ring, we’ll never have to worry about that! It’s a one-off, just have them in the crowd.’ And then it grew from there, be careful what you wish for.”

Bruce also talked about the perception of Shane McMahon trying to be “one of the boys” and how he fit in despite being Vince’s son. Prichard explained that Shane is in a tough spot because all he wanted was to be himself, but that’s not an easy thing when you’re Vince McMahon’s son.

“Not walking in those shoes, it’s really hard to judge, hard to explain to people just what that’s like. It’s tough. It’s a tough road and when you are next to the boss, whether you’re his son or you just work with him all of the time, you’re judged in a separate way. People look at you [a different way] and for Shane, I think Shane was just trying to be his own man,” Prichard said, “Shane just wanted to be Shane. It’s difficult because you walk into any situation and you’re already prejudged before anyone ever says hello to you, as to who you are and what you are. In this case, it’s his genealogy. Shane’s walking in, ‘Oh, it’s ‘Vince’s kid.’’ He looks like Vince, walks like Vince… Shane just wanted to be Shane, and I think that Shane tried to just be himself, and he happened to be Vince’s son.”

Conrad Thompson also asked about the stories over the years that Shane liked to party too much. Prichard said some of the stories were blown out of proportion because it’s the ‘boss’s kid’ and it’s easy to do, but “some of them are well-earned.”

“Again, safety first, as we would later deem him ‘Mr. Safety’. I know that whenever Shane and I would go out it would be a little too late, and if there were alcoholic beverages involved, things like that, ‘I’m not letting you get in a car and drive home.’ It wasn’t always the most fun telephone call to make at 2:30 in the morning, to say, ‘Hey, I’m staying at Bruce’s’” Prichard noted, “but it was the best call to make. So yeah, he had a lot of fun, but I don’t think any more than anybody else.”