Rick Rude was vastly underrated as a talker and wrestler. He was one of my favorite wrestlers growing up. His pile-driver was the shit.

Prichard is evading the wrestlemania questions.

I remember those training montages, Rude running on the beach, lots of intensity saying he can beat the Warrior..... That felt like a genuine shift to being a main eventer. One of the all-time greats.

Wrestlemania 7 had so many missed opportunities. Why no LOD vs Demolition? Why no Rockers vs Harts? These matches seemed so obvious at the time.

Rick was a phenomenal performer. Literally excelled at all. Absolute travesty both his career and life ended WAY too soon. In my top 10 performers ever in the business. #RIPRick.

Rick Rude was one of the Greatest Ever I agree he should have been in the main event of WM 7 and going in as WWF Champion Hulk Hogan vs Rick Rude would have been awesome

It’s mind boggling that Warrior got the push he did and Rude never did, if they had chemistry in matches it’s because Rude carried him

Some wrestlers have stated that Hulk Hogan did not like working with Rick Rude mainly because Rude was a legitimate "bad ass" outside of the ring. If Rude "potatoed" you, then you couldn't give him a "receipt", because then you'd really make him angry. Barry Darsow said that Rick Rude beat up a number of guys in the locker room for one reason or another. I think that Hogan's huge ego couldn't handle being stretched by Rude, especially if he couldn't retaliate in kind. Given that Hulk Hogan was Vince McMahon's "golden goose", if he didn't want to work with you, then that affected your "push" in the company. Notwithstanding, Rick Rude is appropriately regarded as one of the greatest heels in the history of pro wrestling.

Rick taking the " Atomic Drop "was always so funny and well done, for a kid in the 80's it made you believe it so much. And then you'd see a Terry Funk match and for a kid it just seemed so real and a natural progression of selling and Ass-Kickery ! 😱

I always thought Rude should of been put in the Shawn Michaels spot in 92

This was the first ppv I ever bought as kid!!☀️

@ Conrad: I hope you're being coy when you state that you don't understand the reason why there wasn't a Hogan-Rude matchup at WM 7. Essentially, Hogan wrestled Rude in a few house show matches at the Boston Gardens and at Vancouver in early '88. After wrestling Rude a couple of times, Hogan complained that Rude was too unpredictable and wrestled too wildly for a typical Hogan style match. Hogan called Rude a Tazmanian Devil and wanted nothing more to do with him after their scheduled house show matches. That's what he told Vince. Also, in the early fall of '90 after SS, Rude got fed up as we wanted to be the new WWF champion. Warrior told Rude that Rude didn't have what it took to be champion and Rude basically kicked Warrior's butt in the locker room. Vince, and maybe even Bruce himself put Rude in a program with the Big Bossman where Rude insulted Bossman's mother, and both men would lead their respective teams in Survivor Series 1990. But, Rude wanted out. He and Vince worked out a deal where Rude agreed that he wouldn't wrestle for the WWF's main competition (WCW) for a year. Rude kept his word. He left in October of '90 and appeared on WCW's Halloween Havoc in 1991, wrestling only in the indies and in Japan for about a year.

According to Ric Flair Hulk Hogan said Rick Rude was the Tasmanian devil and didnt want to work with him in wwf or wcw in 94.

Hogan Rude would have been gold

Maybe Hogan/Rude at WrestleMania wasn't meant to be, but it could have been a hell of a match for Survivor Series, the Rumble, hell even Saturday Night's Main Event. You're telling me they couldn't have Hogan/Rude *one* time at SNME? 🤔

Wow. Bruce really doesn’t answer anything anymore.

Rick Rude was the best working heel the company has ever seen. He was the perfect guy to get face champions over. Such a shame they never gave him a run with the winged eagle, even if it was short run as a transitional champ.

Rick Rude was one of the best heels. I think if Mr. Perfect turned babyface a match between the two would have been great. Both very talented strong wrestlers or performers imo. Plus they respected each other being best friends in real life so they would have sold for each other very well.

Rick Rude and Curt Henning were two heels that should have had a run with the world title. They would have drawn tons of money for people to see them finally get beat. They could draw heat like no others.

Survivor series 87 Rick Rude was in the Main event on Andre's team

I never remember Rude being out of shape. The man was in outstanding shape even in WCCW.

Rick Rude got his time on top in WCW. He was given a better opportunity there and dominated until he injured his back. God bless!

Haha I love the little tiffs between Conrad and Prichard.

Hogan gave the typical "That doesn't work for me brother" that's why you never seen rude vs. hogan

I love the old stories and fantasy bookings. The 80s and 90s WWF was amazing entertainment. However, i always find Bruce to protect what happened, instead of speculating on how other angles, pushes etc would work. He frustratingly tows the company line instead of exploring other ideas.

Conrad and Bruce are an epic podcast duo!

Rest In Peace Rick Rude and Ultimate Warrior. WWE definitely drop the ball on WWE

Rude managed by Heenan against Hogan for WM 7 would have been MONEY

Loved Summerslom 1990 but that steel cage main event squash match sucked. I feel Rude should have been champion. Rude was way better in WCW anyway.

Rick Rude deserved a World title reign or main event. To answer the question of where he was at Mania 7 he was gone from WWF by the fall of 1990 and would be in WCW in 91. Rude was awesome and I think would have been good. It was hokey but I still remember laughing at Slaughter's antics. Ultimate Puke, Immortal slime. It was cheap heat but as a kid my family got a kick out of it. As for Warrior after Rude who did he really work with? They built up to Savage but they had him working six-mans with LOD feuding with Demoltion. This is supposed to be the guy and you have him working with a kind of past their prime tag team. They could have had him with work with Dibiase, Martel, Warlord, Rude, Perfect etc. They just go to slaughter and then he is done. Imagine if Warrior-Savage was for the belt and retirement on the line. I think it would have done better as a main event then Hogan-Slaughter. Yeah Warrior wasn't drawing as well as Hogan. And would have to drop the belt eventually but always felt like they cut his legs off to me(and granted he was difficult to work with) Hell I always thought Earthquake deserved a bit more of heel push. Why not have him beat Warrior and finish the Hogan-Earthquake feud. But never had Hogan get a pin on Earthquake in any of their matches until Mania when he slays the beast. Just fantasy booking. Still watched it and enjoyed it as a kid bu t its fun to look back

Wow for over 20 years me and my brother have been saying it should of been Rude vs Hogan at WM 7. No disrespectful to SGT but that match was boring! And this is why Rude went to WCW and became a 3x World champ and a bigger star

God damn I love the passive aggressive back-and-forth multiplied with burns and insults and inside jokes that are all on archive and make it

Rick Rude left the company in October and shows up in WCW at Halloween Havoc as the Halloween Phantom.

Rick Rude was prolly the 1st heel I liked back in the day. Well and mr. Perfect with those vignettes they did to bring him in from the AWA, well and ted diBiase and Randy savage, wait, have I always liked the bad guys lol

hard to shit on the WM7 card, because it was magical. hogan v. slaughter and warrior v. savage carried that card. jake roberts v. rick martel was a close 3rd for me. Also Taker's WM debut.

As a kid Rude was the perfect foil. I LOVED WARRIOR but I remember Rudes matches more than anything. He got the word "sweat hogs" over, I still have never heard that word before or since

Was at this at Summer Slam in Philly, LOD, and Hogan got the loudest pops…

I wanna send a question for an upcoming show. Where exactly do I send it ? Can someone provide a link ?

Bruce calling Meltzer a liar is rich

hogan and rude did battle in house shows. i saw them at the boston gardens. i couldnt say the date, but i recall the the whole laying down in the ring to arm wrestle as being something they were doing during house shows elsewhere.

Ya I was sad to see Rude go from WWF in 90 and the whole thing about him getting fired for saying bad things about the Boss Man's mother was the most absurd storyline in wrestling history possibly. They should of kept him around but I'm sure the budget didn't allow it and he had already feuded with all the top names outside of Hogan in the company at that time so a fresh start in WCW was good for him. Unfortunately he got hurt and that was terrible.

I still remember Jesse Ventura saying in the Warrior title match " Rude could of been champion 5 times". I also wanted Rude to become champion, he beat Warrior all over that cage. I knew then that Rude wasn't going to win, cuz he was just steps away from winning and just wouldn't step out of the cage. Rude vs. Savage would of been my Wrestlemania main event. Hogan vs Slaughter could of still been done without the world title involved.

NOTE: Rude was let go prior to Survivor Series 1990.

Rude should of been world champ at least 2 times him and warrior should of just did the wrestlemania 5 ending but have heenan hit warrior on the cage

If rick rude stayed in the wwf, I suppose he would have faced the big boss man at the 91 royal rumble instead of the barbarian. I wonder what could have been afterwards.

Got to agree, need to break away from Meltzer quotes. That’s like getting news from the unicorn farm.

My height of my fandom was Wrestlemania 6 and 7. This was so awesome to me. Rude was a bad ass heel. Shoulda been world champion.

Rick rude was alright a stand up kind of guy from what I heard

I like this annoyed, slightly angry version of him. It just sounds so much more like conversation than a podcast.

Such a shame Rude left the wwe (wwf) at the time

Mr. Bruce was so funny as brother love😀😀😀😀

It's sad that Bruce has to cover up for his & everyone's booking failures & politicking during that era. When you look back at Hogan's 80's run there's a reason why he mainly worked with giants. It's amazing he agreed to a program with Curt Hennig (R.I.P.). No matter how much Rude (R.I.P.) would have bumped for him, Hogan knew he was extremely outclassed. No disrespect to Slaughter, but the Iraqi sympathizer angle was a horrible excuse for shock value. Hogan/Rude would have made more sense as WM draw. Warrior was already over when they were trying to make him a credible champion with Rude. Just another recycled feud that Rude should have won

Rick Rude and curt Henning 2 of the best heels of all

They dropped the ball with Rude.

Should have pushed rick to the moon , one of the very best

Rick rude was pound for pound strongest guy ever in wrestling. Minny guy.

Hogan vs Rude did happen a couple of times on house shows. One was at Boston Garden and was on a Coliseum Video, and on a Hogan DVD.

Rude went to another level when he went to short hair.

This PPV made me a wrestling fan. 10 year old boy seeing Hogan get his revenge on Slaughter. Macho and Liz getting back together...I gad no idea about the story with those two, but it was awesome.

People get into it so much more when their are clips instead of just talking.

Rick Rude was the ultimate heel that should've received the strap at least twice. I'm a grown man but I'm still upset about that.

Never was a hogan fan but him vs rude would have been great ..slaughter never really entertained me

Linda would have loved that angle with rick , no resistance at all

I saw a house show on KZfaq with a match between Rude and Hogan.

As awesome as Rude was, as great of heel he was sometimes its forgotten from his start in WWE until a little after WM6 he was part comedy wrestler. Frankly you trim the comedy down a bit and dial up the serious he's probably in top spots. Not Rudes fault, but he wasn't treated seriously for most of his WWF run.

Rude and perfect are my 2 favorite wrestlers ever

Do you think Rick Rude should've been a 3x World Champion even against Hogan?

16:40 is the greatest thing I've ever heard on wrestling KZfaq 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽🤜🏽🤛🏽💯 thank you Bruce. FDM. Conrad Rude was not an attraction enough in 1990 to beat Warrior, Savage or Hogan ESPECIALLY at Mania, and he wasnt a proven nationally known wrestling and mainstream character like Slaughter either.

This is like listening to 2 brothers fight 😂

Vince didn't like the fact that Rude beat up his top star.

Rick Rude and Ted Dibiase both should have had title runs in this time period.

I do agree Rude should have been in more ppv main events, but you have to consider the time. There were only 4 ppvs a year, and one was the Rumble and the other Survivor Series. So if you're not counting multimen main events, there was only Wrestlemania and Summerslam. But still I think Rude should have gotten a ppv main event against Hogan.

Rude should of been atleast a 1 time wwf champion

There is a spelling error in the title Wan't should be wasn't

How do they not know why we never saw Hogan vs. Rude??? Their are countless interviews from insiders and wrestlers that all said Hogan always refused to work with Rude ( He called him the Tasmanian Devil ). Hogan never faced Rude in WWF or WCW and refused to be booked with him using his creative control because he thought Rude would look better then him.

Rude, Bret, Kurt, Shawn ... would have been awesome matches for years

Had Rick Rude stayed in the WWF, he would have had a good chance to win the title in 92 or 93.

Rude and Hulk should have been a SNME match. but main eventing WrestleMania? Sure it COULD have worked.....but I think they made the right choice with Slaughter. If you swap out Rude for Slaughter, that means Rude would have worked Warrior on his 4th ppv in the last 2 years, and then to what, have Hogan beat Rude in their first meeting? Yea that would have then killed all of the steam of the Warrior in the process. I definitely see what Bruce is trying to explain to Conrad.

Rude wrestled Hogan on at least one house show in 1987.

Rude should have been world champion for wwf he would of done a better job then warrior as world champion one last thing mr.perfact should have been wwf world champion he was perfect

Rude gets beat by Warrior on Saturday Night's Maine Event then again at Summer Slam & Conrad thinks it makes sense to have Hogan/Rude at Mania 7? I was around then watching & that would not have felt like a WM main event. Rick was not on that level.

Rick Rude should have been champ at least once along with Mr Perfect. I bet it was backstage politics involving Hogan

Bruce gets pretty touchy on anything Dave Meltzer reports. Not a fan if Meltzer personally but kinda funny how ultra defensive Bruce can get.

Rick should have been in the main event for the belt and won the belt the pop would have been huge

Wrestle Mania 7 should’ve been heel Warrior defending against Hogan in a rematch, or Babyface Warrior defending against Macho.

Can you guys have Bruce talk about the infamous Rocco?

**Vince McMahon voice** "Welcome Everyone to 5 🌟 Wrestling!!"

Dang tho, think they missed one there. Never thought about Rude, super heel, in that spot.

If Bruce just said clearly early in this interview: "As we proceeded into the fall, it was starting to look like Warrior wasn't getting over as champ (which on my end would still have to insist was pretty early / abrupt--but maybe the guy was already being a complete pain in the ass, so it wasn't feeling worth it to keep trying to build him as the on top guy), so we wound up basically winging it through the fall trying to figure out how to lead into Wrestlemania." It was as simple as that. Before his departure, Rude was heading into a program w/ Bossman (who it seemed they were grooming as kind of a Jake the Snake position near top of the card). Rude wasn't at the top of the card again, but was figuring in w/ guys they were positioning for top of the card. He wasn't really losing his "spot" per se, but maybe he was feeling like: "Oh, great, is it my job now to help put over non-champ faces to elevate them to the top of the card? Am I getting buried in the process?" So he walks out. Little does he realize, if he had stuck around, he very well may have figured into the top of the card plans. That's pretty much the story in a nut-shell. WWF was re-shuffling its deck by Thanksgiving, because it had lost a couple of hands it expected to win, or when it did win hands, the pot wasn't as large as they thought it was going to be. Before Royal Rumble, as an outside viewer, I had been under the impression they were working toward a Warrior / Savage main event. But that may have never been the intent, or maybe it was--for awhile--but BY the Rumble they were already deciding "neither of these guys are reliable enough for us". So they go with the Real American vs. American Turncoat angle to stoke the Gulf War heat. 'Cos that's about as good as they can muster at that point.

16:40 Bruce pretty much described AEW in a nutshell LMAO!!

Earthquake should've crushed Hogan then taken the strap off Warrior at Survivor Series or Royal Rumble. Setting up Earthquake defending against Hogan at WM7.

Rude beating warrior at mania 5 was a great upset. WM5 is underrated

Sgt Slaughter was picked to be Hogan's WrestleMania opponent because of his mainstream name value. He was a real life member of GI Joe. He was on the cartoon and movies. He had a GI Joe action figure. That made him the third most visible professional wrestler to the mainstream world in the 1980s after Hulk and Andre. He even had Presidents seek him out to salute him. Rick Rude had no mainstream name value outside the world of pro wrestling, period. Even though the Iraqi turncoat angle was awkward and not a good fit, Slaughter vs Hogan would draw more interest from non-wrestling viewers than Hogan vs What"s Him Name. People never factor what will sell the show to non-wrestling, mainstram viewers when second guessing past WWF decisions.

How would you rank these guys on which one would be a better WWE Champion: 1. Ted DiBiase 2. Rick Rude 3. Roddy Piper 4. Mr. Perfect 5. Jake The Snake Roberts

When I was a kid, thinking about Hogan retiring was like "oh wow" but in hindsight Holy Shit. He's going to wrestle like 2 more decades.

I thought the Iraqi/ Sgt Slaughter angle was hoaky as "F".

Fix the typo in the title.

Rick Rude did square off against Hulk Hogan in early 1988. RR was not in the main event at WrestleMania 7 , because he was no longer with the company by that time.

Great segment of the podcast. Always liked rick rude very underrated talent at the time. I think him like Ted Dibiase would have took the belt and ran with it as a heel at this time.

Jack Tunney announced from the very beginning of wrestlemania six that there would be no rematch between Hogan and Ultimate Warrior.