Kronik - WWF 2001

[The Brain]

After WCW and ECW shut down in 2001 a slew of new talent headed to the WWF. A few guys got a good spot with the company, some were used in the mid card, and a lot seemed to get lost in the shuffle. A few months after the first batch of new talent debuted there were two guys that found their way back to WWF but were gone almost immediately.

The team of Kronik (Brian Adams & Bryan Clark) debuted in September 2001 and after only two matches they were gone before the end of the month. Upon their debut they were immediately put into an angle with Undertaker & Kane and challenged the Brothers of Destruction for the WCW tag titles at Unforgiven. The rumor at the time was due to a poor performance at the PPV WWF wanted to send Kronik to their developmental territory, Ohio Valley Wrestling, to wear off the ring rust and improve their game. The veteran team felt insulted and opted to just leave the company instead. The match at Unforgiven was pretty sloppy at times but I didn't think it was the disaster people said it was at the time. Adams & Clark had years of experience in both WWF and WCW so I would chalk it up to a bad night. The “demotion” to Ohio Valley didn't really seem necessary. I would have liked to have seen the team stick around.

I'm not saying Kronik would have made a huge difference in WWF programming but it's always good to have extra talent around. Matches against The Dudley Boys and APA could have been interesting. They could have been one of the more consistent teams around as others were about to be split up in the brand extension. Do you think Kronik should have been given more of a chance in 2001?

 

[Papa Pillman]

I always saw Adams and Clark as two sides of the same coin.

Both no doubt looked Impressive. But, both were sloppy and limited power wrestlers and ultimately their limitations always caught up to them, preventing either man from having an extended successful singles run anywhere they went, despite seemingly perpetually being positioned to have an opportunity to make that happen.

Both guys worked fine as parts of tag teams when they had a more rounded partner(s), but besides that they were a risk.

As a team, you had two big chiseled liabilities. Two limited power guys who look great on the surface, but struggle and get lost with extended ring time, and also have potential to seriously hurt somebody. Now don't get me wrong, that kind of team has managed to succeed in pro wrestling before(Hell, the Road Warriors could be accused of fitting the same mold), and in the dying days of WCW they were worth a shot, and I'll even admit to being somewhat entertained by them.

But in WWE once they were picked up, that formula just wasn't gonna fly. Neither Bri(y)an ever seemed committed to improving his craft. But to be fair, many who looked like them in the era they came up in weren't, and didn't typically need to be. But once WWE was the "only game in town" and had a glut of roster talent, they were in a position to tell the duo to go shore up some of their career long shortcomings, as they seemed to be deteriorating with age rather than solidifying. Clark and Adams chose to take it as slight rather than a moment of reflection and a chance to go put in some hard work and earn themselves a spot back into a prominent position with the biggest company on the planet. So they sought checks elsewhere, and the WWE was in a position to wave bye and never miss them at all.

 

[berlinbrawler]

I would have preferred the team of Crush and Adam Bomb. ^^ Seriously, though, both performers have always been rather underwhelming both in the ring and on the mic, so no, I don't think they deserved more of a chance. At the time there were so many extremely talented people around, why waste time and energy on two guys with a track record of not living up to expectations?

 

[THTRobtaylor]

I seem to remember some two fold issues both with the perceived attitude of the two and their actual performances. Notably Clark who refused to go to HWA when requested to and drew the ire of Undertaker in particular, as Adams was a long time friend of Taker and part of the BSK it put him in a tight spot during the feud with Kronik and while Adams did go, he didn't last very long there.

Where it seemed to go wrong was they believed they were "big players" in WCW when in reality they weren't. WWE wasn't tolerant in any way with the pick of the talents, and like Bagwell they blew their chance when it mattered most.

Crush had had his prior two runs so at least had friends and goodwill built up, but he also had his own issues outside the ring including an embarrasing for WWE conviction for guns and roid posession, he was also close friends with "persona non grata" Randy Savage, arguably that was countered by his friendship with Taker initially but add to that his role in the famed Bollywood film with Brian Lee stealing his gimmick (he and taker really DID fall out big time) and Taker probably wasn't much for helping Crush any further.

Clark was always the better of the two, but there wasn't much in it. While he and Kanyon's gimmicks in the "Blood Runs Cold" angle in WCW were cheesy, I always felt WWE missed a trick with something similar for both Kanyon and Clark... perhaps if they had teamed under masks or paint it might have worked better than bringing a failed WCW team back.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

I was pleased when Kronik appeared in the WWE, I was hoping that Adams and Clark would return to the company as I enjoyed their work as a team in WCW and I was hopeful that a feud with Undertaker and Kane would be good.

While they did look pretty sloppy in the 2 matches they had, I was still surprised when I found out they'd been released so quickly. Like Buff Bagwell, it seems like it was more of an attitude thing than anything else, with Kronik believing they were bigger stars than they were and didn't have to go to the developmental companies to "shake off the ring rust" or simply to improve.

While they may have thought it was "beneath them", the fact is they had (re)joined a new company, at that point the only game in town and should have done what was asked of them, rather than immediately refusing to co-operate. Did they really think Vince McMahon was going to put up with 2 low-to-mid card guys point blank refusing to do what he asked, when there were many other unsigned WCW talents who'd love to have been give Kronik's opportunity?

It sounds like it wasn't the 2 sloppy matches that caused Kronik to get the boot, as they WERE given the chance to go to HWA or OVW (or wherever), but it was rather their refusal to do so that meant Vince had no choice.

 

[Wrestlingaholic]

It was my understanding that only one of them flat out refused the 'demotion' and walked, the other stayed for a short while until curtailed by injury.

The fact is that both men were poor workers and had only one period of their career that was any good: Adams was best when he turned heel in 1993, aligned with Mr Fuji and had a decent last man standing prototype match at Wrestlemania X with Randy Savage. Of course, he had the odd watchable match here and there (he was part of my favourite ever tag match, Demolition v the Hart Foundation at Summerslam 1990), but overall was a flop: a huge reason why Demolition sank so quickly was Crush's replacing of Ax (whatever the reason) and his runs as Kona Crush and in the Nation of Domination barely elicit footnotes.

As for Clarke, albeit saddled with a crap gimmick and a useless manager (Harvey Wippleman), he didn't exactly set the world on fire as Adam Bomb (no pun intended) and the only real highlight of his career was when he re-debuted as Wrath in WCW c.1998 without the mask, and was given the Goldberg treatment of dominating short squash matches and winning with the impressive Meltdown. Once the inevitable collision happened on an episode of Nitro, Goldberg as champion won and Wrath soon faded away.

KroiK never did it for me at all and their match at Unforgiven was one of the worst ppv matches WWE had presented in an otherwise brilliant year, and WWE were quick enough to realise that, with the talent they already had in their tag division, they didn't need KroniK, so to me they were perfectly right in requesting the Brians head to HWA; they simply weren't good enough in my opinion.

 

[Goldie]

It was my understanding that only one of them flat out refused the 'demotion' and walked, the other stayed for a short while until curtailed by injury.

I think it was Adams who walked as soon as officials asked them to train in OVW. Obviously a slap in the fact considering both guys had been pros for many mean years. Adams was never really over in his career, yet seemed to get chance after chance in both WWE and WCW. Maybe he had grown accustomed to the opportunities he had been given previously and this demotion was deemed an insult.

Clark complied for a while... but later quit OVW- probably realising that his chances of making it in the WWE were zero, after this demotion of sorts.

I doubt the duo would have lasted in the WWE- taking their limited ring work aside... neither were great talkers (a necessity for wrestlers to get over at the time) and likely regarded as bland.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

Other way round... Clark/Adam Bomb/Wrath walked...and you could see his point a little, he was good enough to be Adam Bomb for them and not be asked to go to developmental. But Adams/Crush went down for a while got hurt but it wasn't working anyway, he had too much heat by that point with guys like Taker for it to be anything other than a release. Playing "Crush" and getting "killed" in that Bollywood film with Lee ripping off Taker's gimmick finished Taker and Lee as friends and probably Crush too. Sounds a little thing but WWE were making big inroads in India at the time and many thought Lee was the real Undertaker, damaging Calloway's brand there. Taker rarely has heat with guys but when he does, it's nuclear and hard to come back from.

 

[Papa Pillman]

One nice thing I will say about their short WWE run:

They didn't have Mark Madden making bad marijuana puns and innuendos throughout the entirety of their matches, that was a plus.

 

[rbv13]

Wanted to point out a reoccurring error being posted. I believe only one poster has gotten it right. The development territory at the time was the Heartland Wrestling Association. Not a major detail but a correction.

 

[Bockwinkel's Class]

One nice thing I will say about their short WWE run:

They didn't have Mark Madden making bad marijuana puns and innuendos throughout the entirety of their matches, that was a plus.

You mean you don't want Madden to burn one? "OMMAGAWD THEY CAN'T BURN TWO CAN THEY?"

But yeah, you're right: It DID get annoying after a while. But then again, Mark Madden got annoying like ten seconds after he went on air.....

 

[TDFG]

The WWE had a damn good Tag-Division at that stage and I think Kronik were just something the same as what was already there but not as good in the ring.