Bruce Prichard had an eventful day with Ozzy Osbourne back in May of 2007.
During the latest episode of his Something to Wrestle podcast (via AdFreeShows), Prichard recounted his experience working with Ozzy for a SmackDown taping in Baltimore. According to Bruce, Osbourne was a great guy and would work with him any day of that week.
"Worked with Ozzy Osbourne one time in Baltimore, Maryland, and the reason [I’m mentioning this] is because we were just in Baltimore. So, Ozzy, man. Great guy. Absolutely fucking awesome. Incredibly talented, super fucking good guy. We had Ozzy for -- he had a new album coming out and was gonna sing his new hit single. Oz came in and Oz was absolutely fan-fucking-tastic, during the day. Came and did his rehearsal and realized that Oz didn't know the words to his new song. So, Ozzy had to have a teleprompter to get him through the lyrics of his new song. Not unordinary, you know, that's something that a lot of stars do when they're in concert, they go through so many different songs and they'll edit them so they'll have the lyrics on a teleprompter a lot of times. Ozzy was one of those guys. Again though, he was one of those guys that you'd say, ‘Man, give me an Ozzy Osbourne every week.’ I'll work with him every day. He was that good," Prichard said.
Getting a teleprompter was easy enough, but Prichard noted that when Ozzy returned from his afternoon break, he was a completely different person. He also shared the details of his interaction with Vince McMahon, which involved chicken breast, teeth falling out, and a less-than-cleanly handshake. Here is what happened:
"So then Ozzy left. Goes back to the hotel to relax. As he came back, I met someone else. When he came back he was a completely different cat when he came back. He was eating chicken breast. Big, fat, juicy chicken breast. He was picking it up and he was eating the chicken breast, and he wanted to say hi to Vince. He kept asking me, ‘Is Vince here? I’d love to say hello. I did the WrestleMania, you know, with the Bulldogs, and I’d like to say hello.’ So I go grab Vince and say, ‘Vince, Ozzy would love to say hi.’ Bring Vince in and Ozzy’s sitting there and he’s got the chicken breast in his hand, in his right hand, and it's got sauce and shit on it. Ozzy bites into the chicken and -- he sees Vince, and he goes to pull the chicken out, and his teeth came out. Then he just kind of puts everything back in and then goes to shake Vince's hand with the chicken juice and all the stuff all over it, which was, again, a high spot for me."
Later in the day, with SmackDown getting ready to go live, Prichard began to worry as Ozzy was failing to grasp what he was needed to do during his segment.
"So we're getting ready to go do the bit I'm going to do with Ozzy. He was gonna do something with Jillian Hall and Jillian's gimmick was that she was a bad singer but she thought she was a great singer. I’m explaining this to Ozzy. I said, ‘Ozzy,’ I said, ‘You know, you've got to kind of look at her like, you know, oh fuck man, basically, keep practicing dear or something along those lines, and she's horrible.’ [Imitates Ozzy]. So we try to rehearse it and he's just not getting it. He's not getting what I needed, and we're going live in Baltimore up on that shit fucking stage, and it’s like, I got to go live with Ozzy," Prichard exclaimed. "So I tell Ozzy, I'm looking at him, I go, ‘Dude,’ I said, ‘You know what, man, I just need you to be you. I just need you to be Ozzy, man.’ He looks me dead in the eyes and goes, ‘I'm Ozzy. I’m Ozzy.’ Just kept repeating, ‘No, I'm Ozzy’, as if I was confused now at this point."
Osbourne was present at WrestleMania II, where he and Captain Lou Albano managed The British Bulldogs to a WWF Tag Team Championship victory over The Dream Team of Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake and Greg "The Hammer" Valentine. Ozzy's other appearances with the company came much later. He performed his song 'I Don't Wanna Stop' live on the May 18, 2007, edition of SmackDown, and then two years later served as the guest host of Raw on November 2, 2009.
He was recently inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, Class of 2021.
Bruce Prichard currently serves as the Executive Director of both Raw and SmackDown.
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