6 Promising Wrestling Talents RUINED By Backstage Politics
4. Monty Brown
Wrestlers of a certain profile or with a certain persona only really get one crack at the big time. Fans simplified the death of WCW in many ways, one of which was the defeat of Goldberg by Kevin Nash at Starrcade 1998. A few questions on that:
Was Goldberg going to remain undefeated forever? How would that have worked, narratively, in year two or three? Wasn’t it best to beat the guy when fans thought he was invincible, to elicit the maximum emotion?
Who was Goldberg really going to lose to? One of the fashionable cruiserweights? Or Chris Jericho, even though A) Goldberg wouldn’t work with him, much less job to him and B) Jericho, one of few actual rising stars, had made it clear he wanted to jump?
Goldberg was a sensation who lacked the range and thus the longevity to draw over the long-term.
He was significantly cooler than the Ultimate Warrior: another wrestler who enjoyed massive success and a World title before his lack of staying power was exposed. Some don’t get the World title - AEW’s Wardlow being a great example. TNA’s Monty Brown falls under that category.
The point, though, is that you absolutely might as well make the fans happy, and hope that they literally buy into the idea of a short reign, rather than squander the hot hand. You can always slow-build a wrestler with more depth in the meantime. You only really get one shot with a Goldberg, a Warrior, a Monty Brown - and politics undid the latter permanently after the events of Final Resolution 2005.
Monty Brown was closer to Goldberg than the Warrior, in that he was a superb one-dimensional wrestler, and his pounce, while nowhere near as iconic as the spear, was an innovative way of making the fans lose their minds. Brown was as much of a sensation as it was possible to be in TNA, but because he apparently was not “ready”, Jeff Jarrett beat him - the same Jeff Jarrett who had the power to do as he pleased.
Brown fell out of love with the business thereafter, packing it in after a poor WWE stint in 2007.