Throughout 1998, the WWFs roster had expanded, but there just wasnt enough room on TV to showcase them all in decent angles. With the rise in popularity of North Carolinas Toughman contests, and with UFC rising in notoriety and making a name for itself, some bright spark at Titan Towers decided to book a shoot fighting tournament on their worked wrestling promotion the Brawl For All with a cash prize for the winner of $100,000. This handily coincided with the arrival at WWF of Jim Ross little project, Dr. Death Steve Williams, an old friend whod been a standout of the NWA in the eighties before leaving for Japan, where he was revered as one of the greatest and most feared foreign wrestlers ever to set foot on their soil. The story goes that Vince McMahon saw dollar signs: he needed a strong challenger for his newly minted babyface goldmine Stone Cold Steve Austin, and Williams was to be it. So, in one of the most bizarre business decisions in pro wrestling history, Williams was booked to win a shoot. To this day, no one can properly explain the thinking behind it. The Brawl For All tournament ran for two months, and the crowd uniformly crapped on it from a great height every time, with boos and shouts of we want wrestling becoming the norm so the concept wasnt even over. What made matters worse was the dark horse in the running. Mid card lifer Mike Bart Gunn Polchlopek was a legitimate shooter: a huge, strong man, tough as nails, with significant skill as a boxer. His first victory was against Bob Holly, and then he faced Dr Death himself in the quarterfinals. Williams and Gunn were more or less even in the first round, but Gunn was clearly on top in the second. Despite that, the points at the beginning of round three showed Williams streets ahead the office were rigging the points so that their boy would go on to the next round. No one expected what happened next: Gunn took the feared Dr. Death down several times and finally knocked him out, dislocating his jaw in the process. The WWFs own pick, the one with all the promo videos hyping his hard man status, didnt even get to the semifinals. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xsqkrz_brawl-for-it-all-fight-6_sport Not only were booking plans in tatters, but Bob Holly claims to have overheard Williams tell the trainers immediately after his quarterfinal loss that hed already been paid the hundred grand prize money for winning the shoot tournament. Also suffering a torn hamstring in the fight, Williams would miss months of action and the massive heel push he was scheduled for. His US reputation was in tatters, and he was released shortly after he returned from injury. Bart Gunn went on to win the tournament, but creative had nothing at all for him: he wasnt supposed to be that good, or to get over. He was released soon after losing to professional TKO machine Eric Butterbean Esch in about 30 seconds at Wrestlemania XV in another piece of nonsensical booking apparently Esch was willing to work the match, run it long and exciting, and even to lose to Gunn, but officials insisted on a shoot. How the WWF booking team expected to properly control the outcome of a shoot fight is baffling, even taking into account worked scoring. Making the whole idea even sillier, the Brawl For All tournament featured mainly low and mid card wrestlers competing for a purse that would probably represent about two years earnings for them after tax and road expenses. Its a gimmick that seems destined to have big, desperate men genuinely trying to injure each other to win (precisely the opposite of what professional wrestling is supposed to be about), so of course it actually resulted in several injuries.
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
