Steve Williams was a well-respected wrestler in Japan. He was considered an incredibly tough man, a true badass. He wrestled against All Japan Pro Wrestlings top stars, including Kenta Kobashi, Mitsuharu Misawa, Toshiaki Kawada, and Akira Taue (collectively known as the Four Heavenly Kings), among others. So during the Attitude Era, fellow Oklahoman Jim Ross thought that Steve would be a great addition to the WWF roster, and even pushed for him to become a top contender for the WWF Champion, Stone Cold Steve Austin. However, Dr. Death became a victim of poor circumstance, because his push was over before it even started. Someone in WWF management made the questionable decision of creating the Brawl For All Tournament, a shoot fighting competition. You had trained wrestlers fighting for real in an environment with few rules, with some of the competitors being true no holds barred fighters. What ended up happening was that Williams got knocked out of the competition (literally) by Bart Gunn, and his push was gone. He was supposed to win the entire tournament and go up against Stone Cold, but never got the chance. There were allegedly two reasons why this happened. The first is that Dr. Death wasnt as strong as the WWF Superstars thought; in the first round of the Brawl For All Tournament, Williams was up against Pierre Ouellet, and Williams was getting winded from the whole thing, so the referees decided to declare Williams the winner by points, much to the confusion (and disdain) of both fans and the other Superstars. They didnt think that Steve was as tough as he claimed to be if he couldnt out-fight a jobber. The second reason wasnt even Williams fault; it was Jim Ross. Ross, who was a heel at the time, was lobbying for his fellow Oklahoman to be pushed as far as possible, going so far as to praise Williams whenever and wherever possible. According to Hardcore Holly, this aggravated the other WWF Superstars a lot. So when it was revealed that Dr. Death was paid upfront for the tournament after being injured, the rest of the WWF locker room resented Steve more than ever before. Imagine if Dr. Death had been introduced in a more respectable way, i.e. as a monster heel who simply dominated his opponents with suplexes and hard strikes. He couldve made it to the top of the WWE ladder, if only he didnt get involved in Brawl For all. Ultimately, all of this led to Steve leaving the WWF, feeling bitter towards his longtime friend Jim Ross. He worked briefly for WCW and dabbled in Mixed Martial Arts. Sadly, tragedy struck in 2009 as Dr. Death passed away from throat cancer on December 29th of that year, at age 49. Thanks for reading. Be sure to leave a comment and be sure to check out WhatCulture's WWE section for other fascinating wrestling-related articles.
Alexander Podgorski is a writer for WhatCulture that has been a fan of professional wrestling since he was 8 years old. He loves all kinds of wrestling, from WWE and sports entertainment, to puroresu in Japan.
He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Queen's University in Political Studies and French, and a Master's Degree in Public Administration. He speaks English, French, Polish, a bit of German, and knows some odd words and phrases in half a dozen other languages.
