The Quintessential Breakdown of Brawl For All - Part 1

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.

Before we get started with the "fights," I'd like to point out that this tournament is officiated by a 70 year old dude who seems pretty spry. That's because he's Danny Hodge, a legend in amateur and professional wrestling, and I would probably pick him to beat at least half of these guys. And that's not in his prime. That's 70-year-old Dan Hodge just schooling fools. In his prime, he wins the whole tournament.

1st Round - Marc Mero vs. Steve Blackman
This was probably the most interesting fight of the first round on paper. Marc Mero was a Golden Gloves boxer and Steve Blackman was some sort of kickboxer who seemed to be good with numbchucks. Unfortunately, there were no numbchucks allowed for this one. I'm guessing the WWE thought this would be a good slugfest to get things going. Instead, Blackman put on a wrestling clinic, and there were only about seven punches thrown in the fight, as Blackman landed ten takedowns over the three minute fight. Honestly, Blackman's blast double looked pretty good, and he believably could have fought some real fights. I'd totally take Blackman over CM Punk in a fight. Unfortunately, the crowd booed the fight the entire time, so it was not an ideal start to things. Also not ideal, Blackman got hurt training for his next match and Mero got put back in the tournament despite losing his first fight 65-0.

Brawl For It All Fight 1 by xusername26x

1st Round - Mark Canterbury vs. Bradshaw
Canterbury was formerly in a white trash hillbilly gimmick as Henry O. Godwin (HOG, get it?) but wanted to go by his real name, so he could get all the fame from winning Brawl For All. Bradshaw thought he was the toughest guy in the WWE but would later get punked out by ECW announcer Joey Styles. This was more what the WWE was looking for, but it was still fairly shitty. These guys came out swinging for the fences and throwing haymakers but generally not looking like they knew what they were doing. After about 30 seconds, they came to a scary realization: Fighting is super tiring. So they both rested for the second half of the first round. Then Bradshaw threw some decent punches in the second round and rocked Canterbury, but it still wasn't enough to get a knockdown. Before the third round, the fans had started a "Boring" chant, and the third round delivered on that chant as neither guy had any energy.

Brawl For It All Fight 2 by xusername26x

1st Round - Brakus vs. Savio Vega
Poor Brakus. He was a massive German who had the look that Vince McMahon loves. They had vignettes building him up, but he got put in the Brawl for All and got his face smashed by Savio Vega, because Vega was a legitimately tough Puerto Rican. He fought like you would expect a bodybuilder to fight, big punches with thuds but no snap in them, and Savio was much quicker and repeatedly punched Brakus in the face. He tried using his strength for takedowns, but that only worked in the first round. Then, Savio adjusted, and repeatedly punched the guy in the face. This was basically the end for Brakus.

1st Round - Hawk vs. Darren "Puke" Drozdov
This may be my favorite fight of the entire tournament. It wasn't good by any means, but it was hilarious. Hawk was a tag team wrestling legend, and Darren Drozdov could puke on command. Hawk came out as Hawk with full wrestling attire and face paint for his fight. I think all UFC fighters should start wearing face paint, because it is totally awesome. Then to start this fight, it looked like Drozdov did not want to throw punches. Then Hawk kept punching him in the face, and Drozdov just kept taking punches. In the second round, Drozdov just repeatedly threw right hands but they connected a good amount and he rocked Hawk a couple times to win the second round. Then, they both threw punches in the third round. Since Hawk had the cardio of an obese 70 year-old, he had to spit his mouthpiece out to breathe, and Drozdov decided to do the same. They threw more punches at each other, and it was bad but mildly entertaining. Then, the most amazing thing happened. They called it a Draw. In the third round, they landed the exact same amount of punches. No fourth round, no nothing. I have no idea how they planned to decide who was going to move on. Luckily, Hawk was injured in the fight, so they had to keep Drozdov in the thing.

Brawl For It All Fight 3 by xusername26x

This is just the first half of the first round. There is so much more to come.

The 3 Coolest Things About WWE's Crush

The WWE Network is built for nostalgia, and I every few episodes of Raw, I will come across that a guy that I liked way too much or didn't appreciate enough. Crush falls into the former category, as I thought Crush was really cool. When watching now, I am wondering what I thought was so cool, so I decided to break down the three coolest things about Crush in the eyes of a child.

1. Demolition
I thought Demolition was awesome, because I was a WWF kid, so although I was aware that the Road Warriors were awesome, I thought Demolition was just as cool. When looking back, Hawk and Animal actually were awesome, where Axe and Smash were kind of flabby S+M-looking perverts. Anyway, Crush joined the team towards the end, so he had a lot of built in credibility from being associated with Demolition.

2. "Brudder"
A few years later he came back as a Hawaiian who said "Brudder" a lot. I thought that this was both exotic and totally badass.

3. Kona Crush
The coolest thing as a kid is also the lamest thing as an adult. His finisher was the Kona Crush where he basically just squeezed a dude's head until they gave up. The reason this is so awesome for a kid is that kids are small and weak, so being strong enough to just squeeze a man into submission is an amazing fantasy to live vicariously through a wrestler.

After a year of being a cool Hawaiian dude who beat up Doink the Clown for being mean to kids, he "hurt" his back trying to bodyslam Yokozuna and became a Japanese sympathizer, because Macho Man didn't call to check up on him while he was recovering. He then bounced around various tag teams and various organizations over the next few years until retiring due to real back issues.

Like too many wrestling stories, he passed away in 2007 at age 43. Maybe Crush wasn't built for the modern-day cynical adult, but he was still cool by me, brudder.

The Road Warriors Book Review

I recently finished the book, The Road Warriors by Joe Laurinaitis.Yes, father of James, and the professional wrestler known as Animal has a book about his time in possibly the greatest tag team of all time. Overall, it was an interesting read with a lot of good stories (which are always in abundance in the world of professional wrestling). The biggest downside of the book was that the descriptions of the wrestling matches came across as if what was happening was real. I found that distracting while reading through it, but it's still well worth a read if you have any interest in pro wrestling.

Here are a few of my favorite stories from the book:

First off, a lot of pro wrestling fans probably know this, but The Road Warriors helped create Zubaz.

So that's pretty awesome.

There was a bar in Minnesota called Gramma B’s that had the following bouncers, Nikita Koloff, Scott Norton, Hawk, Animal, The Bezerker, and Rick Rude. With those bouncers, they could have taken care of the Double Deuce way easier than Dalton did (that's a Road House reference for all those nerds reading this).

Haku got in a bar fight with a wrestler named Jesse Barr and popped his eye out of its socket. Note to self: Don't get in bar fights with Haku.

Animal was making good money but had zero game with the ladies. He fancied a lady at the gym, and when he found out it was her 21st birthday, he said to have some champagne on him as he handed her a couple hundred bucks. He didn’t even go out with her that night because he had to travel for wrestling. He casually tells this story like it’s not a big deal, but this is one of the saddest things I have ever heard in my life. At least it has a happy ending as he married this woman and produced a badass middle linebacker for the St. Louis Rams.

Hawk married a woman named Dale. That sentence epitomizes the world of professional wrestling.
On top of that, Macho Man pulled a Clubber Lang, and asked Dale if she’d like him to take her under the table and show her what a real man’s like.
Hawk retaliated by slapping him backstage at a show in Japan right before Savage was about to head to the ring.
Oh yeah, years later, they fought at, you guessed it, a Kid Rock concert. Professional wrestling has to be the most interesting profession in the world.

And finally, a story that is definitely not for the feint of heart. Mike Rotunda (best known as IRS) decided to go to the pool for some late night skinny dipping. He hopped the fence with no problems on the way in. On the way out, he did catch a problem, as the fence caught his guy and ripped the top skin off his member. He was so drunk that he didn't realize it until he woke up the next morning and had to go to the hospital.

Yeah, pro wrestling is awesome.

-Joe

P.S. Here is a good interview with Iowa Head Basketball Coach, Fran McCaffery.