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Post by Ultimate Figure Collector on Feb 1, 2012 21:44:04 GMT -5
I was watching an August 1998 RAW on Classics On Demand last night and I've always wondered what was The Brawl For All, all about? Was it WWE's way to try to compete with boxing? Was it just something to give mid card guys they had nothing for or what? Also was The Brawl For All worked or shoot? I could swear I remember reading years back that someone was suppose to win(I think Dan Severn) but legit got knocked out. Was there any truth to that rumor?
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Post by drifter on Feb 1, 2012 21:48:55 GMT -5
I don't know the exact reason for it, but the tournament was a shoot. Steve Williams was the one was set to get put to a new level with his involvement in the tournament. In fact I think Brawl for All was supposed to help make Williams come across as enough of a monster to challenge Stone Cold. Only problem was, when he face Bart Gunn, who he was supposed to easily beat, Bart knocked him out, ending any chance of a push. Bart won the whole thing, and they tried to play off it, as him being the upset winner by having him face Butterbean at WrestleMania 15. And that's where Bart's WWE push, and pretty much career ended, when Bean knocked him out 35 seconds into round one.
Oh, but even though Butterbean killed any heat Bart had, by knocking out Dr. Death in the Brawl for All, he made him a big star in Japan upon his debut there, after the WWF, because of how respected Williams was as a tough guy in Japan.
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Post by Rule 30 on Feb 1, 2012 21:50:26 GMT -5
I don't know the exact reason for it, but the tournament was a shoot. Steve Williams was the one was set to get put to a new level with his involvement in the tournament. In fact I think Brawl for All was supposed to help make Williams come across as enough of a monster to challenge Stone Cold. Only problem was, when he face Bart Gunn, who he was supposed to easily beat, Bart knocked him out, ending any chance of a push. Bart won the whole thing, and they tried to play off it, as him being the upset winner by having him face Butterbean at WrestleMania 15. And that's where Bart's WWE push, and pretty much career ended, when Bean knocked him out 35 seconds into round one. As well as all of that, it just lead to a bunch of injuries. |
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Post by drifter on Feb 1, 2012 21:54:08 GMT -5
I don't know the exact reason for it, but the tournament was a shoot. Steve Williams was the one was set to get put to a new level with his involvement in the tournament. In fact I think Brawl for All was supposed to help make Williams come across as enough of a monster to challenge Stone Cold. Only problem was, when he face Bart Gunn, who he was supposed to easily beat, Bart knocked him out, ending any chance of a push. Bart won the whole thing, and they tried to play off it, as him being the upset winner by having him face Butterbean at WrestleMania 15. And that's where Bart's WWE push, and pretty much career ended, when Bean knocked him out 35 seconds into round one. As well as all of that, it just lead to a bunch of injuries. Yeah, Blackman and Hawk were out for a while from regular action, and Savio Vega aggravated an old injury that basically ended his WWF career. And apparently Dan Severn was originally set to be in it but was pulled out, because the fear was if he lost in the tournament, it would hurt his MMA career. |
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Post by Ultimate Figure Collector on Feb 1, 2012 22:07:43 GMT -5
That's right, it was Dr. Death Steve Williams. I don't know why I was thinking Dan Severn. I knew it was someone who was a legit tough guy though who got knocked out by Bart Gunn but I didn't know if there was any real truth to that rumor.
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Post by drifter on Feb 1, 2012 22:10:31 GMT -5
That's right, it was Dr. Death Steve Williams. I don't know why I was thinking Dan Severn. I knew it was someone who was a legit tough guy though who got knocked out by Bart Gunn but I didn't know if there was any real truth to that rumor. Yeah, why they thought they needed the Brawl for All to build Williams up is beyond me. Too bad, when you think, in theory, it killed 3 WWF careers: Dr. Death by his knock out at Bart Gunn's hands, Bart Gunn when Butterbean beat him in less than a minute at Mania, and Savio Vega due to the injury he got in the tournament. |
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jakksking1
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Post by jakksking1 on Feb 1, 2012 22:13:55 GMT -5
Brawl for All was basically a massive massive failure in every sort of way imaginable. I dont know how else to describe it.
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Post by drifter on Feb 1, 2012 22:17:24 GMT -5
Jim Cornette said it was one of the worst things WWE ever did. You would even get We Want Wrestling chants during some matches. Apparently it didn't dawn on Vince, that wrestling fans, weren't turning into wrestling shows to see a tough man tournament.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 1, 2012 23:35:13 GMT -5
There was an alternative MMA group at the time in the late 90s called "Toughman" which was actually pretty decent and popular at the time. WWF tried to capitalize on this by doing their "Brawl For All" tournament. It was also used to (as stated above) push Dr. Death who was the favorite to win.
However, WWF made it a legit shoot fight instead of booking the thing and Dr. Death's push went to Bart Gunn of all people.
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jason1980s
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Post by jason1980s on Feb 1, 2012 23:57:10 GMT -5
I think Henry Godwinn aggrivated a previous neck injury and even though he was doing a Southern Justice bodyguard gimmick it didn't last much longer than fall 1998.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2012 0:17:22 GMT -5
But hey, it got us the awesome team of JR and Williams!
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2012 7:23:04 GMT -5
Brawl for All was basically a massive massive failure in every sort of way imaginable. I dont know how else to describe it. yup an utter failure. people say it was a vehicle to get Dr Death over......they werent wrong.it ended up being the hearse that drove his WWF career to the graveyard. |
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Johnny Lawrence - Cobra Kai
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Post by Johnny Lawrence - Cobra Kai on Feb 2, 2012 14:22:43 GMT -5
It was the worst of both worlds, really. It was too convoluted to be anything like a true shoot fight (points for takedowns?), yet too real to avoid the usual problems with shoot fights -- primarily the high chance of injury, the high chance that some of these pro wrestlers would lose credibility if they got beaten too badly, and the utter crapshoot of booking fights with the expectation that one particular guy was a lock to come out of it looking awesome.
Add the fact that, as already mentioned, wrestling fans would chant "boring" and "we want wrestling" during the fights and legit fight fans considered Brawl For All a joke due to the bizarre rules, and there was literally no target audience for this.
I will say that even with the wonky rules, the idea of seeing wrestlers in any kind of a shoot fight did intrigue me ... but with the possible exception of Dr. Death vs. Bart Gunn, every fight was a disappointment and failed to be as awesome as I had hoped.
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hammer
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Post by hammer on Feb 2, 2012 15:08:36 GMT -5
on top of all the rest of the nonsense that was covered... bart gunn actually knocked out 3 legit tough guys, in dr death, the godfather and bradshaw. the brawl for all couldve actually been used like it was supposed to, just for bart gunn instead of dr death. if memory serves, gunn was the only one who actually won his fights by ko, every other fight went to the ridiculous scoring system... which also if memory serves, they were blatantly trying to give dr death that fight against gunn, until gunn knocked him out.
but in the all or nothing booking style... they fed him to a legit and trained boxer, instead of just keeping what they had. cornette had a shoot on this (hey what a shock, a cornette shoot), and as usual he was brilliant.
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Bullgod
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Post by Bullgod on Feb 4, 2012 5:33:19 GMT -5
The Brawl for All was the most dumbest  ing this I ever saw in wrestling. WWE presents it as being "real" which is basically saying everything else we do is fake, which then started to kill off the rest of the product. Then the people who fought in the Brawl for All were just people who were off TV at the time who wanted a spot which is why they agreed to do it. Bart Gunn who everyone expected to get squashed straight away went on to win the whole thing which gave him a ton of heat backstage. Instead of capitalizing on Bart Gunn and possibly making a superstar out of him WWE decides to squash him to Butterbean at wrestlemania. So what did we learn from Brawl for All? We learned that WWE is all fake, they have a few legit tough guys but any of them who fought a real athlete wouldn't be able to last up to a minute! |
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jason1980s
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Post by jason1980s on Feb 4, 2012 11:17:49 GMT -5
So strange they were leading to a Dr. Death return (though I doubt fans even remember much from him a year ago) with him in the mask and then on TV with JR and yet it's Butterbean who faces Bart Gunn. At least with Dr. Death v. Bart at WM 15 everyone's a winner. If Dr. wins he's redeemed and can go on to better things, if Bart wins it shows Tough Enough's importance. The only good thing was Gorilla getting an amazing reception which he deserved.
Dr. Death's time in WWF was all bad. He even got a Jakks action figure despite not even having a TV match (I watched all the shows at the time I don't even recall one TV match). The toy could still be found in stores by the dozens about a year later. The toy didn't even represent accurately the outfit he wore. It was a lazy, crappy, attempt for Jakks to put out something probably on the basis of Alberto Del Rio where Dr. Death was expected to be "a big deal fairly quickly." I guess they figured Bart would be a big deal too. He wasn't even on TV from the end of BFA to around Winter 1999. All of a sudden he's got a nickname, the Hammer. Really all the BFA win did for him was keep him from being a member of JOB Squad if they needed a guy to replace Scorpio. Amazing Bob Holly can go from wrestlecrap to a near 15 year career. Hopefully Bart's doing well.
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PrideFcF
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Post by PrideFcF on Feb 4, 2012 11:42:02 GMT -5
Little known fact, Bart Gunn actually went on to compete in MMA. He went 1-1 with a TKO win over former popular UFC Heavyweight "Cabbage" Correira, and a decision loss to the popular Japanese fighter "Minowaman". No idea if he still competes in wrestling though.
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Post by Yeezy's Mullet: Team X Blades on Feb 4, 2012 11:59:59 GMT -5
Little known fact, Bart Gunn actually went on to compete in MMA. He went 1-1 with a TKO win over former popular UFC Heavyweight "Cabbage" Correira, and a decision loss to the popular Japanese fighter "Minowaman". No idea if he still competes in wrestling though. That's actually pretty impressive. Cabbage was widely known for having an iron chin. |
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PrideFcF
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Post by PrideFcF on Feb 4, 2012 13:04:33 GMT -5
Little known fact, Bart Gunn actually went on to compete in MMA. He went 1-1 with a TKO win over former popular UFC Heavyweight "Cabbage" Correira, and a decision loss to the popular Japanese fighter "Minowaman". No idea if he still competes in wrestling though. That's actually pretty impressive. Cabbage was widely known for having an iron chin. Yeah, even though it came during the decline of Cabbage as a fighter (Tank legit KO'd him a few fights earlier, and he started getting finished more and more during this time) you gotta tip your hat to the guy. Those were a couple of tough fights for him to take. |
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Bullgod
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Post by Bullgod on Feb 4, 2012 14:43:13 GMT -5
Little known fact, Bart Gunn actually went on to compete in MMA. He went 1-1 with a TKO win over former popular UFC Heavyweight "Cabbage" Correira, and a decision loss to the popular Japanese fighter "Minowaman". No idea if he still competes in wrestling though. I heard he's now an electrician. |
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