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WWE Chairman Vince McMahon once pitched for The Rock to face a bear for a special event.
The Rock, a ten-time world champion, is regarded as one of the most decorated superstars in WWE history and is nicknamed The Brahma Bull. The nickname is where McMahon got the idea for a Bull vs. Bear match.
On the latest episode of Something to Wrestle with Bruce Prichard, the current Executive Director of RAW and SmackDown revealed that McMahon wanted to do something big when the company was set to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
He asked Prichard to find a bear to wrestle The Rock in the middle of Wall Street, the financial hub of New York City.
"Shut Wall Street down and put a ring there and have matches at noon. Huge spectacle, we’re gonna go live on WWF.com [now WWE], so it’s like, okay, cool. I thought he was just kind of like telling me this. So that I knew that, ‘Okay, we need to put together 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’s trailing off he goes, ‘…and I want a bear! I want The Rock to wrestle a bear. ‘The Brahma Bull’ versus The Bear. The honest to God living wrestling bear, which used to be an attraction back in the day,” said Prichard. [H/T Fightful]
Better sense prevailed, and The Rock didn't wrestle a bear, but the company was able to put on matches in the middle of Wall Street. The then President of the USA, Bill Clinton, was speaking a few blocks away from Wall Street, which meant that there were roadblocks in the area, enabling WWE to put on matches.
How Vince McMahon was convinced to change his mind about The Rock facing a bear in WWE
Prichard said that McMahon changed his mind after being told that a 'bull market,' i.e., The Brahma Bull, sounded much better than a bear being on Wall Street.
"Well, 'The bear was out today on the New York Stock Exchange.' No, you don't want that. You want 'The Brahma Bull.' You know, it's a bullish market and not a bear market, for God's sakes. So we had 'The Brahma Bull' and we didn't have any bears hanging around there," said Prichard.
The Wall Street event happened in October 2000 after the company was listed on the NYSE. The occasion to ring the bell was attended by superstars such as The Rock and Stone Cold Steve Austin, among other top names in WWE.
Would you have liked to see a Bull vs. Bear match in the middle of Wall Street? Let us know in the comments section below.
