In an interview with The News Hub, former WWE trainer Dr. Tom Prichard discussed his days as a wrestler, working as a trainer for the WWE, working under Vince McMahon and more.

Highlights of the interview are below:

On people that influenced him to become a wrestler: My early influences were The Funks, Harley Race, Wahoo McDaniel, Johnny Valentine, Jose Lothario, all the guys that went through west and east Texas in the 1960’s and 1970’s. There was a couple of guys that I would tell others to watch would be Boris Malenko, Dean’s dad. Everyone was an individual and pretty much true to themselves too were who they were. Johnny Valentine had this magnetism walking out of the ring without any music all he had to do was just look out into the crowd and get a reaction. That talent and that charisma that went along with him was hard to teach in fact, I don’t think you could teach it. I think you have to be born with it. The same with Johnny Valentine was certainly one that guys today could watch. Boris Malenko too he had little quirks and things in the ring that no one else did and made him stand out.

On training under The Iron Sheik: What happened was I was working in the wrestling office and when I was a kid during the summer and there was this football player wanted to try wrestling and every Friday before the matches, Gary Hart, he was the booker at the time and would bring one of the boys in with him from Dallas and talk with Paul that Friday afternoon around his matches. One Friday afternoon Gary brought The Iron Sheik who was wrestling as Mohamed Farooq back then and the football player came in and I always brought workout gear with me anyway in my trunk. Paul told me if I wanted to call him and head over to the Coliseum with Cosgrow. We went after the first two weeks the football player said to hell with it and I stuck around for about two months. I worked out with him a little bit. I got to go down to the ring in the Coliseum a little bit before the show. I hung around and got beat up and got stretched. Once again everything was different back then. It was a different business and a different way to break in back then and it was a different way to jump into the business back then. It was a different atmosphere back then and culture in the business and the country. It was something I was glad I went through because you had to break in back then in the 1970’s or 1980’s you had to know someone who knew someone that would let you in. It was a pretty closed off business back then. For me, I learned that way because it was still such a cool business. It was really intriguing even back then.

On working with Chris Candido as part of The BodyDonnas tag team: It was terrible, it was a really bad time. It wasn’t a great time for professionally or personally in my life. At that time it was a gig and it was still in wrestling. It was terrible. I hated every minute of it. I liked working with Chris but the rest of the gig was just really bad. It was my fault it happened like that. But that’s what happened. We can’t go back and change it and it was not the best time of my life or my career. You had to make the best of a situation or otherwise I would have had no job and no gig and that’s not where I was at yet. I had just come off a run and still had long hair and had to put it under a shield and a crew cut was just really awkward. It was uncomfortable for a lot of reasons. It just wasn’t a good time. That’s what the BodyDonnas were for. It just wasn’t a good place to be.

On working with Vince McMahon, Paul Heyman and Jim Cornette: They are all the same in sense that they had that passion and that drive for the business. I think Paul and Jim are very similar in their beliefs and they might be at the opposite spectrum at times. They both had a passion about them. I think that everybody says this and it’s true that the closest guy to Lorne Michaels on TV he just reminds you of Vince. That guy in control of everything that guy that has to know everything. I think that’s why he’s been so successful because he knows about everything going on and that’s why he will not be beat in sports entertainment by anybody. Paul is a mad genius too and some of the last promos he’s done for Brock and the build up to Wrestlemania 31 was just so great and that was all Paul Heyman. I have a ton of respect for Paul. I have a ton of respect for Jim Cornette too. Jim knows he gets passionate. He knows he gets carried away at times but that’s what makes him Jim. It’s what makes Cornette, Cornette. Not everyone is going to love him and he’s okay with that.

The interview is available in full at this link.