They could have been a contender #2

[Guest the_Staunton]

Funny how the cycle of life turns on us all. The WWF had a bald, untrustworthy bad ass on it's roster much earlier than Stone Cold Steve Austin. He was just as likely to beat up heels as babyfaces and he was bad. Really bad. Scary bad. His name was Bad News Brown. He was born in the wrong era.

 

Played by genuine bronze medallist Alan Coage, Bad News Brown should have been huge. In a time of cartoon characters, the gimmick of Bad News Brown was a very simple one. He kicked your ass. He liked doing it. Sound familiar? It was a superbly effective and wonderful gimmick. He was scary, he was violent, he was black and he was bad. There were vague affectations involving black power (the glove, the fist) and everything he did looked...kind of real...but really all the depth you needed was involved in the fact he could plain beat you up. If you are lucky enough to own a WWF Superstars tape of Bad News v some unlucky jobber, check it out and see if you need convincing. The guy was Bad. It was all in the name. Joss Whedon said that part of the reason Buffy did so well was everything was said in the title: Buffy The Vampire Slayer. You need know no more. Everything about Bad News Brown is in the name.

 

There was also the fact that you plain couldn't trust him. The WWF went to great trouble to emphasise that fact. He would walk out of a Survivor Series match. He double crossed Bret Hart in a Wrestlemania Battle Royal. It was a gimmick that would have been huge today and should have been huge then. The best gimmicks are born of simplicity. You have a heel that can kick your ass and you get the babyface to fight them. It makes money every time. Indeed, Brown did get some matches with Hogan...but he never held the world title or headlined a PPV, in spite of having a gimmick so utterly suited to such a status...and here's why.

 

The man behind the gimmick hated Vince McMahon. Hated him. See if you can find a BNB interview that doesn't use the phrase "Spineless cockroach." He hates Bret Hart. He wasn't fond of Roddy Piper...I think you might me getting the picture. Bad News had a miserable time in the WWF. He was lied to (his words) about money and he hated the politics. He had an apalling time in the WWF. There seemed to be racial issues involved as well. In one of the worst angles in wrestling history Roddy Piper painted half his body with black paint (to represent all the people of the world, allegedly). He was promised a push on many occasions but it never happened...in the end he quit out of sheer frustration.

 

Even more frustrating is the fact he wrestled in the wrong era. Surely if ever anyone was born to work for the WWF attitude generation it was Bad News. He had sports credentials, he could kick ass, he could brawl and he had a killer gimmick. Whatever the reasons it is truly sad that Bad News Brown never got his shot. Politics in wrestling truly sometimes does suck.

[Guest Asplagis]

"Bad asses" are a mainstay in wrestling, but the amusing part is telling the real ones apart from those who are only characters.

 

The Road Warriors were seemingly bad asses since they stiffed out their opponents in record time... However, Larry Hennig showed the world what those two were made of...

 

Taz is billed as a bad ass, yet he gets winded 30 seconds into a mere pro wrestling match...

 

Yoshiaki Fujiwara was perhaps a crazy drunken fool, but he could break your ankle or your arm in an instant with his deadly ankle holds and armbars... that is, if you pissed him off...

 

I often note to wrestling fans that Bad News Brown was the precursor of Austin in many ways, however, his character brings us memories of ECW's Taz more than anything. I dare say that Taz was little more than a 90's Bad News Brown. This of course sends ECW fans into a frenzy - it's one thing to say you don't like ECW, but quite another to state that Heyman stole many of his ideas from others...

 

To get back to the Brown/Austin connection, understand that the timing wasn't the same either. United States circa 1988 isn't the same country as the U.S. in the mid to late 90's. Brown didn't have the same climate of anti-corporate mistrust and anti-conservative, anti-political correctness that was slowly established in the 90's - would the X-files have enjoyed as much success back in 1987 ? To his credit, McMahon surrounded Austin's character with others which helped to build his "legacy" if you will, something Heyman never really did with Tazz. Also, the "Bret Hart saga" and Montréal screwjob simply added fuel to the fire.

 

Sadly for Coage, he came around at the wrong time, but in the right place. Though one might surmise that he could have been Taz had he made his debut in ECW, after all, the man was an Olympic level athlete once and would eventually turn to shoot style matches. But in the WWF he could have become Austin... of course, his skin colour might have prevented that... Racism isn't just backstage and in the board room, it's also in the seats...

 

Asplagis

[Guest Asplagis]

Oh yeah, in my hurry to post some comments about your story of Bad News Brown, I forgot to mention how he was in Stampede with Bret Hart...

 

And also, your article was nice, but perhaps too short. Then again, I'm known for my ten page essays on many matters related to wrestling so take that with a grain of salt...

 

Still, there were a few points that needed to be elaborated upon, points which I've outlined in part in my original reply.

 

Asplagis

[Guest DrainYou42]

 

It's no wonder he left, #3.01?

[Guest the_Staunton]

I know it was really too short...but it's pretty much a short story of missed opportunity, but I totally take your point. It's too bad things didn't work out for BNB because it was a brilliant, simple character in an era when things like that didn't exist...mind you, $3.01?

[Guest nWoScorpion]

I hardly belive that check is real. LOL although funny. Besides. if its dated 1991, he wasnt around since Sumerslam 1990.

[Guest Jack Tunney]

I once read an interveiw with BNB in which he complained about the racism that was in the WWF at the time.But of course a little bit later he makes Homosexual slurs about Pat Patterson.But oh well.........