[MEDIA] Houston Chronicle 11.03.03 article

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/features/hoffman/2199100

Nov. 3, 2003, 6:50PM

In pro wrestling, a rule breaker, or a bad guy, is judged by the
amount of "heat" he has.

"Heat" means, simply, how much do the fans hate your guts, how loudly
do they boo you and, more important, how many of them are willing to
buy tickets to watch you get beaten to within an inch of your life?

For pure red-hot heat, it'd be hard to come up with a more despised
wrestler than Brother Love in the '90s.

The weird part was, Brother Love really wasn't even a wrestler. He was
a spoof of Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker and other TV evangelists who
were getting into all sorts of trouble.

Each night, he'd stand in the middle of the ring, his face painted
red, in a ridiculous white suit and in a loud screeching voice offer
to pay poor people to do dumb, humiliating things -- like "kiss my
stinkin' feet."

And then half the time Brother Love wouldn't pay them. Fans would go
even more berserk.

It sounds weird now, but Brother Love sold tickets coast to coast and
around the world. Night after night, flight after flight, he was the
most hated member of Vince McMahon's traveling one-ring circus.

Today at St. Luke's Methodist Hospital, Brother Love -- in real life
Bruce Prichard of Houston -- finally pays for his sins.

"I'm having surgery to remove nodules and growths from my throat and
have my vocal chords shaved back. It's from doing the Brother Love
voice," Prichard said.

"It's similar to what happens to singers who never take a break from
the road. Plus, I wasn't just Brother Love, I also produced a lot of
the wrestling shows. I would be screaming at crews to get things done,
too."

When he comes out of surgery, Prichard will be under doctor's orders
not to speak for a few days and not to raise his voice for at least
six or seven weeks.

Prichard swears that he'll be a good patient. 

Brother Love, on the other hand, has been known to break his promise.