Bad News Brown

[The Brain]

Every once in a while I like to create a thread for a random wrestler from the past doesn’t seem to get any attention around here. This time we’ll discuss Bad News Brown. I know Brown was a pretty big name in Stampede Wrestling in the 80s, but I’m not going to pretend to know much about that. I’ll focus on what I know; WWF.

Bad News lasted a little under three years in the WWF entering in early 1988 and leaving late in 1990. He never seems to be mentioned when discussing the heels of that era but he feuded with some of the big names during his short run. Bad News got a nice push right away when he won the battle royal at WrestleMania IV (a much bigger deal back then than the battle royal the leftovers compete in before mania goes on the air nowadays). During that match he double crossed Bret Hart which caused Hart to turn face (and remain face for nine years). Bret Hart wasn’t a top name yet but he was a pretty good opponent for a new guy to have his first feud. After the feud with Hart, which included some matches against Neidhart, Brown would go over guys like Koko B. Ware and Ken Patera to further establish himself before getting into some big time feuds.

It seems to be forgotten but Bad News Brown had a pretty big feud with Randy Savage during Savage’s first world title reign. Brown appeared on the Brother Love show and accused WWF President Jack Tunney of protecting Savage by refusing to give him a title shot. He claimed that Elizabeth was doing “favors” for Tunney to keep Savage on top. It was a storyline that was ahead of its time which led to Brown receiving title shots in Harlem street fight matches on the house show circuit. Since this was the time of the Mega Powers a feud with Savage led to a mini feud with Hulk Hogan too. While they weren’t ppv matches I’d say working with Savage and Hogan at all in 1988/1989 was pretty huge.

Let’s face it, you can’t go up any higher than working with Savage and Hogan, but Brown remained in the upper mid card by feuding with some of the top mid card faces of the time. Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Rowdy Roddy Piper, and Jake the Snake Roberts were a few more of his feuds before leaving the WWF. He had a reputation as a no nonsense brawler that you didn’t want to mess with. He also has a reputation as a bad ass in real life. Bad News Brown may not be among the first few names you think of when remembering the heels of that era, but he did pretty well for himself during his three years in the WWF.

What are your thoughts on Bad News Brown? Are you familiar with his run in Stampede? Do you have any idea what he did after WWF? I really don’t know if I should expect many replies here but if you have any thoughts or memories of Bad News Brown share them here.

 

[jaceynightheat]

Bad News Brown was really good back in the day. I was always surprised he didn't get the Intercontinental Championship. He seemed to be a solid heel that could feud with either main event or mid card without a problem. From what I remember, he made just about everyone have a good match.

 

[George Steele's Barber]

Brown was a complete bad ass. I asked what happened to him in a live discussion when Ezekial Jackson was on the screen. It just kind of popped in to my head.

The only other thing I remember about him is that I think he was the first guy I saw do an enzeguiri (sp?). I was always kind of surprised when he seemed to disappear. Nice synopsis.

 

[Mr_Ratings]

Rowdy Roddy said this on his DVD. " Bad News Allen.... Great Judo Fighter, lousy wrestler ".

After that I rewatched some of his matches and thought "Rod is right.... He sucks!". But what got him over was his militant black-panther esque gimmick.

He wouldve been a PERFECT fit for the Nation of Domination.

Wow I just read that he called himself the Ultimate Warrior in Stampede Wrestling. Looks like another thing that Vince ripped off lol

 

[Tripleb2k1]

He was a judo competitor prior to wrestling

he was trained by the Harts in the Dungeon

after he retired his legs were in bad shape but during the rebirth of Stampede Wrestling he did commentary with "Strikeforce On Showtime" Play by Play guy Mauro Ranallo

 

[jaceynightheat]

Wow Olympic Bronze Medalist & 2 time PanAm Games Gold Medalist.

Man, if he were born a few decades later, he could have gotten into MMA.

His character was def. a precursor to Sid, Steve Austin & other anti-heroes.

 

[Mr_Ratings]

"As written in the autobiography of the Dynamite Kid, his well-known toughness was accentuated in a confrontation involving André the Giant, who had made a racist comment on a tour bus for New Japan Pro Wrestling. Coage overheard it and made the driver stop the bus, walking off and yelling at the Giant to get off and fight him one on one. In one of the few times anyone can remember him backing down from someone, André did not move from his seat and later apologized for the remark. According to Hulk Hogan, whom was question about the incident on the television show "The Voice" this never happened. He claimed what actually happened was he was sitting in between Brown and Andre and after a joke was made by Andre, Brown reached into his bag and Andre said that if he pulled anything on him he would end him and that was the end of it."

I kinda dont believe what hogan says anymore. Bad News sounds like a legit bad ass. Besides a decent sized olympic medal winning Judo fighter would seriously hurt a late 80's slow moving Andre.

 

[SinCityBlitz]

"As written in the autobiography of the Dynamite Kid, his well-known toughness was accentuated in a confrontation involving André the Giant, who had made a racist comment on a tour bus for New Japan Pro Wrestling. Coage overheard it and made the driver stop the bus, walking off and yelling at the Giant to get off and fight him one on one. In one of the few times anyone can remember him backing down from someone, André did not move from his seat and later apologized for the remark. According to Hulk Hogan, whom was question about the incident on the television show "The Voice" this never happened. He claimed what actually happened was he was sitting in between Brown and Andre and after a joke was made by Andre, Brown reached into his bag and Andre said that if he pulled anything on him he would end him and that was the end of it."

I kinda dont believe what hogan says anymore. Bad News sounds like a legit bad ass. Besides a decent sized olympic medal winning Judo fighter would seriously hurt a late 80's slow moving Andre.

Brown was a legit bad ass but in no way shape or form would he be able to hurt Andre even in the late 80's. I don't think people realize just how big Andre was and also how slow Bad News was too. Once Andre got a hold of him he would be done.

The reason why Brown never got bigger than he did was his shitty attitude. A lot of wrestlers said that he was a real jerk off and extremely hard to work with because he liked to hurt people. He claims racism but it was mostly his demeanor. Too bad he didn't get an extended feud with Hogan.

He would have been perfect in the attitude era.

 

[berlinbrawler]

I only saw a few matches of him back in the day and honestly I wasn't impressed. But I admit I haven't seen enough for a fair and balanced assessment.

And then, many years later, I read Bret Hart's autobiography, and his opinion on Bad News wasn't very flattering, either.
According to Bret (you always should take what ANY wrestler writes in his book with a grain of salt), Brown only got his job in the WWF because Vince had asked Bret if Brown was any good, and because Stu Hart had urged him to put over Stampede talent to Vince, he lied and said Brown was fantastic. Brown, according to Bret, had a bad attitude, refused to do certain spots and had to have it his way, was a danger to his fellow wrestlers during matches and while he expected you to bleed for him, he flat out refused to ever bleed himself. Things like that. Bret wrote that the WWF eventually took notice and that was why he got let go.

 

[GameOver]

had the one of the earliest televised ladder matches too with Bret Hart in stampede wrestling, though it was likely only on a local TV station.

the first televised ladder match from memory was Jake Roberts vs JYD for the Stampede Title. correct me if im wrong i'm sure there were other organisations earlier that likely televised stuff too that's just the first one's i know about.

he quit WWF in 1990 siting they weren't using him correctly. he then went indy and Japans UWF til 1999 when he had to retire due to knee injuries

I dunno i didn't like him, but i guess that was the point he was an ass character and while i knew some of what he did in WWF it wasn't really common knowledge down here in Australia as he wasn't in those big matches on the PPV's and we got bugger all other of the programming back then.

I will give him toughness he certainly looked the part but otherwise he just seemed like a jobber.

 

[rokuma]

After the feud with Hart, which included some matches against Neidhart, Brown would go over guys like Koko B. Ware and Ken Patera to further establish himself before getting into some big time feuds.

With all due respect, Brain, you need to refer to him as "Hall of Famer Koko B. Ware" or "Hall of Famer Koko B. Freakin' Ware." Let's face it...carrying a bird to the ring and jobbing virtually every match for a solid 5 years in the WWF makes you a hall of famer and don't you forget it! Give this man his respect.

That being said, Bad News just never did it for me. I remember several of his matches and he looked like a total tough guy, but his gut always distracted me. Maybe it wasn't a big deal in that era, but with a guy like Steve Austin (similar gimmicks) and how great of shape he was in? It just seems like a tough guy would WANT to be in shape.

His wrestling was also lackluster. His style consisted of punches and kicks, no holds, and his finisher (The Ghetto Blaster) was a kick to the back of the head. His greatest achievement has to be the either the Wrestlemania battle royal when he double crossed the Hitman or his Wrestlemania 6 match with Piper (easily one of the strangest Piper moments with him painted half black and half white like some Oreo cookie or something). If those are the only two Bad News memories that stand out, I'd say his career was fairly lackluster. I think his push was just about right...he didn't need titles because he was a fighter.

 

[neildittmar]

Took a look at the Wikipedia page for Allen. Didn't know he died in 2007 of a heart attack. Sad.

Even as a kid in the 80s, I never thought that Bad News Brown was the greatest wrestler in the Federation. He had a brawling style that didn't seem to embrace very many wrestling holds and was very much based in "street-like" tactics. However, he successfully did what so few wrestlers (particularly today) manage to achieve... he stood out. From his demeanor to his vocal delivery to his near-constant sneer, Bad news Brown made you feel it much in the same way fans "felt" Jake Roberts during his prime.

Though Browns wrestling accumen was certainly lacking, his personality and promotional work was top notch in my opinion. I also thought his finishing move was absolutely devastating at the time, with the announcers putting it over correctly as something that could permanently injure an opponent. The fact that it was called "The Ghetto Blaster" was just icing.

In the early 90's I wondered a few times what happened to Bad News, but like most wrestlers who "leave", they are typically forgotten about in the day-to-day ongoings. I was hoping Brown would resurface in WCW as a similar character, but unfortunately that never came to pass.

While I think WWF was never really hurt by his departure, Brown was incredibly potent at making the audience believe. That's something that occurs few and far between, even up to and including todays wrestling landscape.

 

[Poop Master Flex]

I'm very familiar with Bad News Brown, to answer your question Brain he worked as head security at Towerlane mall in Airdrie, Alberta (a small city about 10 miles north of Calgary) until he died, I know because I knew the guy and worked there as well. After his run with WWF he ended up back at Stampede wrestling, wrestled for a bit, went to commentary for Stampede for a brief stint and then head security guard at the mall mentioned above. I worked nights there and he was the guy who would let me in the mall during closing hours so I could clean dump the oil from the deep fryers. I talked to him alot and once you got to know him he was actually very nice. He was very straight laced and didn't like BS so as long as you were straight with him you had no problems.

He wasn't very fond of wrestling (never was according to him as he did it for the money, that simple) and didn't like when people would come up to him and be "Hey aren't you Bad News Allen?", he wouldn't be an asshole about it but usually brushed people off who did that. He was also quite intelligent and was far from an idiot, he had some money issues obviously but was quite smart.

Outside of my personal experiences with Bad News I also remember his career both in WWE and Stampede and I always liked him. Bad News was very different from other heels, he played the tough loner (which was actually an accurate description of his real life persona) and did it well.

He was never a pretty wrestler, but at the same time it didn't matter, he was a solid heel, knew how to get a reaction from the fans (in the Stampede area there are few heels who were as hated as Bad News) and was someone you legitimately believed could be a champion because of his toughness. He also was pretty good on the mic and could have easily been a world champion in my opinion. He had a great personality and was a great heel.

I enjoyed Bad News on both a personal and professional level and personally I miss the guy.

 

[asiatic7]

I liked his character growing up as a kid in the 80's. I remember his match with Jake Roberts when he brought "Harlem sewer rats" to combat Jake's python, Damien (though the bag he had the rats in jumped uncontrolled, you never saw what was in it...funny stuff). He was a good character, and from what I heard confronted a few people on racism in the locker room and abroad (Dusty Rhodes calling S.D. Jones a n@#*er, Vince on using the name "Sapphire", Andre on the bus and he also claimed Piper was a big racist, which is'nt far feched if you look at any of his old promos about Mr. T). I heard he was a hard person to deal with, but look at what he had to put up with. Good thread Brain! R.I.P. Bad News Allen...