Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
Through the years, the World Wrestling Federation has had many memorable characters that have appeared for the promotion. Whether it was the Undertaker, Yokozuna, Doink the Clown, Mr. Perfect, the Honky Tonk Man or the Ultimate Warrior, etc…WWF/WWE fans have been accustomed to seeing outrageous characters come to life on their television screens. In the case of a colorful, boisterous character from Texas who sounded awfully familiar to another wrestler of much bigger fame…Reo Rodgers was certainly not one of those memorable gimmicks.
The story of Reo Rodgers begins and subsequently ends in the year 1993. To be more exact, he lasts a whole two weeks in the WWF, before riding off into the sunset. Who was Reo Rodgers? What was his purpose? Why was his character so short lived? This is where we will examine the legend that was Reo Rodgers. It all started when regular color commentator Jerry ‘the King’ Lawler took time off from the company to deal with some legal issues that involved Jerry Lawler being indicted on charges of the rape and sodomy of a 15-year-old girl.
With Lawler unexpectedly away to deal with the case, it left a void on color commentary on WWF Superstars. Vince McMahon desperately needed someone to work off of and that gathered all the company’s creative minds to come up with a suitable replacement. While in a meeting at Titan Towers (WWF headquarters) Bruce Prichard was fooling around doing an imitation of Dusty Rhodes. If you didn’t already know, Prichard does a spot on impersonation of Rhodes. So good in fact, Dusty’s son Cody only allows him and Paul Heyman to do the impression without Cody getting angry and walking away from a conversation.
In any case, Prichard started doing his Dusty impersonation to get a couple of laughs at this creative meeting. One of the people who loved it and laughed hard at it was Jerry Jarrett. At this point in time, Jarrett was brought onboard with the WWF after Vince was indicted in his infamous steroid scandal. According to Prichard, Jarrett loved the impersonation so much, he suggested to McMahon that Prichard should use it as a character.
Taken aback, Prichard explained that it was just an impersonation of Dusty Rhodes and that a character based on that impersonation would never work. Despite this, Jarrett pitched the idea to McMahon who ultimately loved the idea and gave it the green light. McMahon was no stranger to allowing parodies of Dusty Rhodes in the past considering that Dusty was the head booker of his greatest rival the NWA. Prichard admitted that he never told Vince the word “no” up to that point, but was completely against this idea and balked at it.
Vince wouldn’t accept Bruce’s reservations and went ahead with creating the character. Prichard told Vince that he needed to call Dusty and let him know about the gimmick and get his approval before being comfortable doing it. Prichard called Dusty and explained that this was a character that would parody the American Dream and not to take offense to it. According to Prichard, Dusty gave his approval telling Bruce to do whatever he has to to feed his family and put money in his pocket.
With Dusty’s blessing, Prichard reluctantly agreed to do the gimmick. Now, all that was needed was a name and a particular look. Since Bruce had played the character of ‘Brother Love’ for a few years prior, Prichard felt that the character needed facial hair to sort of cover his face. Since the character was going to debut in a short amount of time, Prichard was given a fake fu manchu mustache to wear. He then went shopping at a store in Connecticut to buy a few articles of clothing. Vince then gave Prichard a pair of Terry Funk’s old chaps to complete the ensemble.
As for the gimmick name, it was taken in part of Bruce’s middle name which was Roger. The name Roy Rogers kept on coming up, but naturally Vince said no because it was a real life person. From the name Roy emerged Reo and thus…Reo Rodgers was born! Reo Rodgers made his debut alongside Vince McMahon on November, 20th, 1993 on an episode of WWF Superstars. Reo provided the color commentary and according to Prichard absolutely hated it. He said it was extremely hard trying to stay in character the entire time.
Reo Rodgers would also get his own interview segment called ‘Reo’s Round up’ in which his one and only guest was ‘The Heartbreak Kid’ Shawn Michaels. Reo would also do a segment with Michaels in which they toured the Hart family house. In reality, it was WWF ring announcer Howard Finkel’s home.
After just two short weeks as Reo Rodgers, WWF production head Kevin Dunn and heard and seen enough and asked Vince to drop the character. That was the abrupt end to Reo Rodgers…who has never been heard from again.