Approaching fifty years of age, and beyond his prime, Sprott joined the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) (now WWE) in mid-1985, shortly after the first WrestleMania event. In the WWF he performed as both Rick Hunter and The Gladiator, with both characters taking on the role of a jobber, cleanly losing to the stars of the day. Both Rick Hunter and The Gladiator made regular appearances on WWF Championship Wrestling and the later WWF Superstars of Wrestling, the WWF's nationally and internationally broadcast weekly television programs of the time.