As previously noted, WWE official Bruce Prichard was not in attendance for the December 27th 2021 edition of WWE RAW and it was believed that he was dealing with a non-Covid health issue.
During his Something to Wrestle podcast, Prichard addressed his absence:
“So, to address some of the rumors and innuendo which is complete horseshit out there in the rasslin’ media, if you will. For years, and I will go back to the 90s, sh*t I’ll go back to the 80s,” he added. “I would always save my vacation until the end of the year so I could take vacation around Thanksgiving and Christmas. It steals a couple of extra days because if you do it close to Christmas, okay Christmas is an extra day off type of thing. Then when I got married, my wife’s birthday is in the latter part of November. So it’s always around Thanksgiving, it’s her favorite holiday so I like to take that time off.”
“This year, I took it at a time when we didn’t have two SmackDowns. We pre-recorded and we had a comp show. So there was no TV to go to in general. So I had my vacation timed during that time to where it looked like Bruce hasn’t been here for three TVs in a row. Then I got the flu. I was running a fever and not feeling well. We’ve got a great team and just an incredible support system that was there. I missed three TV’s. I did lose my voice, yes. Dude, I am good. I did bust an eardrum in the middle of all that. That was an extremely fun experience.”
