Jonathan Coachman says things nearly got physical with Bruce Prichard during a WWE road trip, and the whole thing started because Coach showed up about four minutes late.
While speaking on The Coach and Bro Show, Coachman was asked to finally tell the story behind a confrontation with Prichard that he had mentioned before. Coachman said he generally got along with Prichard, but admitted their relationship had its good and bad stretches.
“I’ve always gotten along with Bruce. I think a lot of people, they’ve had their good times with Bruce, and I don’t think it’s talking out of school to say you’ve had your good times and your bad times.”
Coachman said WWE had run a show in Fresno the night before, and he was then expected at a 9:00 a.m. shoot in San Jose the next morning. That meant getting up early and making roughly a three-hour drive. Coachman said he walked in at around 9:04, only to have Prichard immediately start ripping into him for being late.
“We had a show the night before in Fresno, and then the next morning we were going to do a shoot in San Jose. It’s a three-hour drive from one city to the next. So the shoot was at 9:00 a.m. I’m already pissed that I’ve got to be there at 9:00 a.m.”
“I roll in — it wasn’t any later than 9:04. Less than five minutes late. Bruce is in there, and he lights me up. I walk in, ‘Thanks for joining us! Thanks for showing up!’ He’s literally just undressing me at 9:04 in the morning.”
That was apparently the wrong morning to push him. Coachman said he had gotten up around 5:30 a.m. just to make the trip and wasn’t about to stand there while Prichard tore into him over four minutes.
“I was sitting there going, ‘Wait a second. Today’s not the day. Today’s not the day. I got my ass up at 5:30 in the morning to drive three hours to do a shoot at 9:00 a.m. The last thing you are going to do is get in my face to berate me about being four minutes late.’ So we had words.”
Vince Russo joked that WWE probably expected Coachman to drive the three hours the night before after the show. Coachman agreed, but said the frustrating part was that nobody else even seemed to care that he was a few minutes late.
“Nobody else cared, Vince. Nobody else knew what was going on. I did so much off camera that people never even knew about. I ran an entire room. I had a day job, so to speak. I was in a lot of different departments, and I always got the job done.”
When asked if the argument actually came close to becoming a fight, Coachman didn’t exactly back away from it. Russo said he couldn’t picture Prichard as much of a fighter, which gave Coachman the opening for one final shot.
“Would I say it came close to blows? I mean, it depends on which guy was going to throw.”
“If we would have thrown, I would have felt bad because I definitely would have won.”
Despite all of that, Coachman said the situation eventually cooled down and Prichard apologized for how he handled it. So what started as a four-minute delay nearly turned into a backstage fight after a long WWE travel night. Coachman didn’t forget the confrontation, but at least the two were able to move past it once Prichard apologized.
Do you think Bruce Prichard overreacted to Jonathan Coachman being four minutes late, or was Coachman in the wrong for not being there exactly on time? Let us know what you think in the comments.
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