Former WWE writer Kevin Eck has posted a new blog over at SportingNews.com, as O.J. Simpson was back in the media spotlight this week after being granted parole stemming from a 2007 arrest which resulted in Simpson being convicted of armed robbery and kidnapping. Simpson served 9 years of a 33 year prison sentence.
Eck noted in his blog that current GFW Executive Bruce Prichard revealed on his “Something to Wrestle With Bruce Prichard” podcast that both WWE and WCW wanted to work with Simpson after he was acquitted of the double murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman, back in 1995.
Prichard revealed a match was penciled between OJ Simpson and Roddy Piper at WrestleMania 12 in Anaheim, however the match was scrapped when negative backlash became too deafening for WWE to ignore. Piper was reportedly on board with the match idea, and preliminary discussions were held between WWE and Simpson’s people, however, “the backlash was deafening,” Prichard said. “The people were like, ‘If you do this, you’ll never have another sponsor.’ … So we punted.”
Prichard added that the idea for the match would have been for Roddy Piper to “beat the s**t” out of Simpson”, in hopes that the audience would react well to seeing Simpson finally get his “comeuppance” after being acquitted of murder.
“We thought the end game of O.J. getting the s— kicked out of him would satisfy some people,” Prichard said. “As those words come out of my mouth, you realize how ridiculous this is today. But you always have to try something on even if it sounds ridiculous.”
Eck also revealed that back in 2000, when he was the editor of WCW Magazine, creative team member Vince Russo wanted WCW to pay Simpson millions of dollars to take a lie detector test live on PPV. Russo’s suggestion was based on the fact that Simpson said he would take a polygraph test on pay-per-view for $3 million, which would go toward a reward to catch the “real” killer, however Simpson later said he would keep the money for himself. Russo justified the angle as a good idea claiming WCW needed a ‘publicity stunt’ to help boost poor ratings.
Nick was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and lived there until the age of 18, when he decided to pack his flack jacket and move to New York City.
