Bruce Prichard

Bruce Prichard (born March 7, 1963) is an American professional wrestling executive, booker, and producer and a former manager, commentator, and occasional professional wrestler who works for WWE as Executive Director - CWT. In addition to his corporate roles with WWE, Prichard has also appeared as an on-screen character under the ring name Brother Love. As Brother Love, Prichard was the original manager of The Undertaker, and hosted a talk show segment, The Brother Love Show.

Prichard has also previously worked for Houston Wrestling, the Global Wrestling Federation, Total Nonstop Action Wrestling, and Major League Wrestling. Since 2016, Prichard has co-hosted the Something to Wrestle with Bruce Prichard podcast with Conrad Thompson.

Prichard began his career in 1973 working for Paul Boesch's Houston Wrestling promotion out of Houston, Texas. At 10 years old, he sold posters at the Sam Houston Coliseum with great success. He worked as assistant director of television at age 12 and acted as a ring announcer at age 14. Due to Boesch's working relationship with Bill Watts' Universal Wrestling Federation in the 1980s, Prichard would also act as ring announcer for some UWF shows. As Houston Wrestling became defunct in 1987, Prichard was hired by the World Wrestling Federation.

After entering the World Wrestling Federation in 1987 shortly after WrestleMania III, he first occasionally worked as an announcer for the WWF's television programs alongside Mike McGuirk and "The Duke of Dorchester" Pete Doherty and occasionally Bobby "The Brain" Heenan, before creating the Brother Love character.

In June 1988, Prichard debuted as "Brother Love", a red-faced, smarmy, dishonest, effusive and boisterous "preacher" character, dressed in a conspicuous white suit, tight red shirt and white tie, who claimed to preach not the word of God, but "the word of love." He was best known for his disingenuous catchphrase "I love you!", during which he would enunciate each word with exaggerated prolongations in a thick Southern accent. The character was inspired by controversial televangelists of the time, with Prichard specifically citing Robert Tilton as his most direct inspiration; despite this claim, it is acknowledged that the peak of Tilton's fame was in the early 1990s. However, shortly after the character debuted, similarities were also noted between Brother Love and controversial pastor Jimmy Swaggart's style of preaching. Swaggart was also referred to at times as "Brother Swaggart." Though Prichard has credited Tilton as the main inspiration for the Brother Love character, he has also credited Swaggart, Jim Bakker and even Oral Roberts as inspirations for the character as well. Months before Brother Love debuted, Swaggart and Bakker were involved in controversial scandals which tarnished their public images and resulted in networks cancelling their television shows.

In a 2016 podcast with Stone Cold Steve Austin, Prichard recalled that he had long been a fan of evangelist preachers, more for their theatrics than their religion. When Prichard first pitched the idea of Brother Love to WWF owner Vince McMahon, Vince generally liked the idea but did not believe that Prichard "had the face" for the role. Determined to get himself into the role that he had created, Prichard, dressed as Brother Love (minus the red face paint he would appear on television with), invaded a meeting at the WWF's headquarters between McMahon, the head of WWF International and the WWF's chief financial officer. While there, he gave an impromptu two minute sermon before quickly departing. When he arrived back at his office at the WWF's television studios five minutes later, he discovered that he had two missed calls from McMahon who he was relieved to find had liked what he had seen. However, Vince wanted to see how it worked on camera. Thus, the Brother Love character became a reality. Prichard also told that the bright red face make up was unknown to him the first time he appeared on television as Brother Love. As it was a television taping, Prichard thought it was just normal make up being applied and he did not look in the mirror, not knowing that Vince McMahon had ordered that he be given the red face.

Introduced to the WWF by Bobby "The Brain" Heenan, Love hosted a segment on the World Wrestling Federation's syndicated and cable television programs called "The Brother Love Show", in which he would interview wrestlers. The segment debuted on the June 19, 1988 airing of WWF Wrestling Challenge, and moved to WWF Superstars of Wrestling on October 8, 1988. The segment was patterned largely after Piper's Pit: Brother Love would berate face wrestlers (especially Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior) and openly support such heels as Ted DiBiase and Bobby Heenan. It was explained that DiBiase was Brother Love's main "benefactor". More than once, a wrestling feud was set up because of what occurred on "The Brother Love Show" (including Hulk Hogan's feuds against Big Boss Man (1988–1989) and Earthquake (1990), and the Jake Roberts-Rick Martel feud from late 1990 to early 1991). The Brother Love Show was also the setting for the unveiling of Ted DiBiase's Million Dollar Championship and Rick Martel's "Arrogance" cologne.

Brother Love made his pay-per-view debut at SummerSlam 1988 when he interviewed face wrestler "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan. He later featured prominently in WrestleMania V in 1989, when he took over Rowdy Roddy Piper's Piper's Pit and was promptly "de-skirted" by Piper. A year later, Sgt. Slaughter bestowed a medal upon Brother Love during SummerSlam for being the "greatest American".