In the latest episode of the Something to Wrestle With Podcast with former WWE Creative Team Member Bruce Prichard, he revealed that a match between "Hot Rod" Roddy Piper and O.J. Simpson nearly happened for WrestleMania XII. Simpson, who was acquitted for the double murder of his estranged wife Nicole Brown-Simpson and Ronald Goldman in 1995, was a serious contender for a WrestleMania appearance according to Pritchard, who commented.
"The original plan was for O.J. Simpson to have a match at WrestleMania against the Hot Rod. I remember calling Roddy and pitching Roddy the idea, which he was for. We had had preliminary talks with O.J. Simpson's people, who at that point, were looking for anything that had a paycheck attached to it. We floated the idea out there, we did talk to O.J.'s people, I talked to Piper about it, Piper was on board. We were bringing him back in to get involved. If you go back, in the early time of Piper's re-emergence [with the WWF], he does make comments about O.J. Simpson. He makes comments about right and wrong in America and 'what's going on and that he's here to make things right in the WWF. The end game to that was going to be the one off and have Piper beat the sh-t out of O.J.Simpson at WrestleMania in Anaheim, California."
Prichard went on to speak on why the match never materialized.
"Once that started getting out beyond the inner circle of O.J. Simpson's people and out in Hollywood," Prichard explained, "the backlash was deafening." "The people were like, 'if you do this, you'll never have another sponsor ' Just extremely, extremely negative. So we punted. We thought the end game of O.J. getting the sh-t kicked out of him would satisfy some people. 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."
Vince McMahon is no stranger to controversy, as many wrestling fans know. But it's hard to say if had this match between Simpson and Piper would have happened at WrestleMania XII, would have been a dream or a disaster.
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