I'll cite my sources if prompted to do so, but I have a theory on the Brawl for All.
I think that WWE creative was very disorganized at the time, and they weren't really sure what they were green lighting. The UFC had done their first, wildly successful, tournament to recognize the supreme fighting style only five years prior. I think that the original idea was that this tournament would recognize the performer who was the most legitimately tough of anyone in the locker room.
Now; where I think everything was disorganized was in that I don't think that the WWE had a clear idea of who they expected to win. I remember watching promos for a guy named Brakus where he was claiming that he would debut at and win the Brawl for All tournament, only to be easily destroyed by Savio Vega. Dan Severn was allowed into the tournament, and his win over The Godfather was an absolute snoozer. Dr. Death appeared to have been ridiculously out of shape when he beat Pierre Ouellet by the skin of his teeth.
I think that there were many different factions of WWF creative, that wanted many different things to occur, and it became the jumbled mess that it became. It's my understanding that Ken Shamrock wasn't allowed in the tournament because of his UFC background, and that Dan Severn was a last minute replacement (for whom, I don't know). It's my belief that the WWF didn't realize beforehand how boring it would be to watch a Greco-Roman wrestling specialist like Dan Severn take an opponent to the mat and waste the entire round repeating that same strategy, thus they changed the rules to allow an automatic break if an opponent is taken down and had Godfather advance instead.
I believe that the WWE decided in the middle of the tournament that they wanted to go with a tournament that more resembled the Toughman competitions by encouraging more striking during a stand-up fight.
In an interview with Dr. Death, he explained that he was told that he would be permitted to do anything shy of permanently injuring his opponents, only to have the rules change thus forcing him to adopt a fighting style that wasn't his forte. Dr. Death referred to Bart Gunn in that interview as a "knockout machine".
I think that Bart Gunn was a pseudo-fortunate beneficiary of the rule changes to where his superior striking precision gave him an indomitable advantage over his opponents. I say "pseudo" because Bart would be rewarded with a crappy go-nowhere meta-angle where Jim Ross was angry with him, and he was obliterated by Butterbean at WrestleMania in a match that effectively wrecked any potential of anyone looking good for having participated.
I think that if there were no rules changes, Dan Severn would have wiped out the competition. I think that Dan vs Butterbean would have ended with Dan submitting Butterbean. Butterbean is one of the toughest guys in the world, but I've seen him tap to a 150 pound Japanese submission specialist.