5 WWE Hard Man Reputations That Were Completely Exposed

3. Steve Williams

Steve Williams was one of the most feared and respected men in the industry before his reputation fell apart (along with his body) in the catastrophic Brawl for All tournament. An All-American football player and a four time All-American amateur wrestler, he was as legit as they came. It made him the perfect wrestler for All Japan Pro-Wrestling, who favoured a high-impact strong style approach to wrestling and also WCW, who set themselves apart from WWE in the 1980s with their sport-oriented style of wrestling. He was presented as a no-nonsense, barrel-chested badass and would often be used by the office to 'sort out' unruly wrestlers in the ring by stretching them or clobbering them upside the head. A favourite of Jim Ross, he was signed to the WWE for the aforementioned Brawl for All tournament, were WWE stars were pitted against each other in legitimate contests on Raw. JR pretty much guaranteed that Williams would win the thing and Vince McMahon wanted to build him up as a challenger for top star Steve Austin. Oh, how it all went wrong. Nobody counted on Bart Gunn being as good as he was. After beating Pierre Carl Oulette in the first round, he was soundly beaten by the forming Smoking Gunn in the semi-finals. Worse still, he suffered a multitude of injuries and spent months on the sidelines recuperating. Williams was undoubtedly one of wrestling's tough guys but 1998 he was older and more broken down than in his glory days. Bart Gunn exposed him (and JR) and was given a WrestleMania match with pro boxer Butterbean as a reward. He was knocked out by the super-heavyweight in thirty five seconds.