The Quintessential Breakdown of Brawl For All - Part 2

Brawl For All was one of the most fascinating ideas in WWE history. It's when the WWE took the reality era to a logical place, having real fights, under extraordinarily stupid rules. You may think the WWE did this to capitalize on the popularity of the UFC, and I'm sure that was kind of the case, but there was just one problem. WWE is always like five years behind on things, so instead of the UFC being fresh and exciting, it was actually at its lowest point in popularity since starting in 1993. It was literally the worst time to have Brawl For All, but as it turned out, there was never going to be a good time to have Brawl For All.

The rules allowed punching and takedowns with most punches landed in a round worth five points, each takedown worth five points, and a knockdown being worth 10 points. The entire fight was three one-minute rounds with 30 seconds rest between each round.

We left after the first four fights of the first round. I should point out that the referee from the first four fights, legendary wrestler and shooter, Dan Hodge, is no longer refereeing, probably because he's embarrassed to be watching this. But I'm not embarrassed, so let's continue the action of these glorious first round battles.

Round 1: Bart Gunn vs. Bob Holly
Bart Gunn was one half of the Smoking Gunns until his teammate, Billy Gunn, decided to become a new-aged Honky Tonk Man known as Rockabilly, and eventually would move on to Degeneration X. Bob Holly started off as Thurman "Sparky" Plugg, a NASCAR themed pro wrestler, and he just slowly moved away from that but was still completely inconsequential at this point. The most interesting aspect of this was that these two were currently tag team partners but would have to square off in Brawl for All. It started off great as Bob Holly gave a shove to Bart Gunn's back before the match started. Then the fight started, and it was by far the cleanest fight that I had seen up to this point. It wasn't great by any means, but Bart Gunn threw a pretty clean jab, and Bob Holly tried to work inside to attack the body. Unfortunately, Bart was able to do damage with a hooking uppercut that you never see from professional fighters, because it's about the easiest angle to block imaginable, but it worked fairly well against Holly. Bart Gunn outpointed Holly in every round in what was the most technically skilled fight, but as I mentioned, it still wasn't a great fight.

Oh yeah, and the greatest part happened after the fight when Bart tried to congratulate his tag partner for a hard fight, and Bob Holly threw a sucker punch, and they started brawling. Somehow, this match was one of the few I couldn't find online, so here's video highlights from a hardcore match they had a year later.


Round 1: Dan "The Beast" Severn vs. The Godfather
So, unfortunately, I found the video but can't embed it, but you really need to watch it because the commentary really makes the match. The Godfather had a pimp wrestling gimmick where he came out with "hos" (local strippers) to the ring. He went up against Dan Severn, who earned his "Beast" nickname as a former UFC Champion who was an incredibly high level Greco Roman wrestler. Yep, just a UFC Champion vs. a Pimp in a real fight. The fight went as you would expect, where Godfather actually looked okay on the feet, but he couldn't stop a takedown. Severn clearly had two takedowns in every round, but the commentary is possibly the most clueless bullshit in the history of the WWE, which is saying a lot. Jerry Lawler and Shawn Michaels know about as much about fighting as my aunt. I'm not sure if they have ever seen any form of amateur wrestling in their lives. Every time Severn took him down, both of them were like, "Well, I don't think that's a takedown." Severn was literally pinning Godfather, and they both agreed, "Well, that may be a pin, but that's not a takedown." Also amazing was the fact that the production truck was listening to the guys on commentary for scoring, so they somehow had Godfather up 10-5 after two rounds. The real judges got the score right as Severn advanced with relative ease.

Round 1: Quebecer Pierre vs. "Dr. Death" Steve Williams
I know every review of these fights is, "Holy shit, this one is somehow even crazier than the one before," but holy shit, this one is even crazier than the one before, and it cannot possibly be topped. Quebecer Pierre wore an eye patch to the ring. This wasn't a gimmick eye patch either; he legitimately only had one eye. They let a man with one eye get in a legitimate fight against probably the second biggest favorite in the tournament, Steve Williams. Williams was afour-time All-American wrestler and football player at the University of Oklahoma. He's about as legit of a badass as you can possibly be without being a professional fighter. They matched him up against a one-eyed man. Dr. Death just tooled him with takedowns, which was good because it was pretty clear that ol' Stevie was not too strong with his boxing. Ol' Pierre was completely exhausted about ten seconds into the second round but he continued to take a beating until the ref eventually called a standing knockout with five seconds left since Pierre never fell to the ground, he was just really tired. Also, he only had one eye. Enjoy it in all of its glory.

Brawk For it All 5 by xusername26x

First Round: 2 Cold Scorpio vs. 8-Ball
Brawl for All was so consistently getting booed out of the building that they put this match on before Raw started and just showed about thirty seconds of highlights. 2 Cold Scorpio was a high flyer  who gave up about sixty pounds to 8-Ball who was part of a biker gang tag team. 8-Ball apparently beat on him early but then faded as Scorpio was able to take the final two rounds and win the match. It looked like there were some fun flurries, but since the WWE was worried about their precious ratings, we never got to see this match in its entirety.

But that wraps up the first round. Next time, we will go over the second round, and oh yes, it will continue to be a clusterfuck of epic proportions.