WWE Executive Director Bruce Prichard recently opened up about the pivotal conversation he had with Vince McMahon just one month before his surprising return to the company in 2019. Speaking on his Something To Wrestle podcast, Prichard described a secret meeting in Phoenix that he believed would be his final goodbye to his longtime boss.
A Secret Meeting In Phoenix
In January 2019, while in Phoenix for live shows, Prichard reached out to McMahon, who was in town for the Royal Rumble. Despite initially hesitating to attend the show, Prichard agreed to meet McMahon at his hotel room late at night to avoid being seen.
“We sat up in his room and talked about everything under the sun, very little about business, other than really what I was doing,” Prichard said. “I look at my watch, it is five o’clock in the morning, oh God, my flight leaves in an hour and 15 minutes. I gotta go.”
Finding Closure
Prichard described the five-hour conversation as a necessary moment of closure. At the time, his podcast was highly successful, and he felt financially secure without WWE. As he left the room, he delivered a message to McMahon that he felt he needed to say.
“I gave him a big hug, shook his hand and thanked him for everything, and said, ‘I love that we had this whole conversation And we spent all this time together and caught up, and I’m not asking you for a job, and I am more comfortable and more confident now that I know that I will never ever work with you again,’” Prichard recalled. “And I’m good with it. Love you, love you, goodbye.”
Making Peace With The Past
When asked if the meeting was a way to resolve lingering feelings from his previous departure, Prichard admitted it was a “cathartic” experience. “It was closure, it was cathartic, and I think I owed, I owed. I owed him that, I owed him saying that to him and myself,” Prichard said.
Prichard recently returned to the Something To Wrestle podcast in November 2025 after a year-long hiatus.
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Something To Wrestle with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription. You can listen to the full episode on the Something To Wrestle podcast feed.
