Thanks to Bill Simmons great blog Grantland, we have this article about the lamest payoffs for WWF/WWE storylines and a couple from NWA/WCW...please read because I remember them all and you will too.
While reading this I found these 2 great videos from the ill fated Brawl For All series of real (unscripted) boxing/wrestling matches....long before UFC and MMA was a household name. This was a tournament with some of the so called "tough guys" of the WWF in boxing gloves but also trying to wrestle. In reality it was a Jim Ross idea to help get Steve "Dr. Death" Williams over as a legit tough guy fighter. Now Dr. Death was a legit tough guy wrestler and football player but he was way out of his league with the gloves on, it took away his strength of grappling holds. This left him to try and box and his match with, who was thought to be a patsy setup, Bart Gunn took a turn for the worse for Dr. Death and hilarity for all watching at home. A knockout of Dr Death and a knee injury took him out of action for several months and left him with a battered reputation. To me the highlight was Good Ol JR trying to spin the whole thing as Dr Death had been knocked down before and would be back but you can hear in his voice he was not pleased to see his friend knocked the F out on national tv and then have Jerry Lawler really rubbing it in while showing the replays.
Well this was not the end of the shame of Brawl For All...Bart Gunn won the tournament and set up a match at
Wrestlemania 15 with Butterbean, the professional boxer known more for his girth and look than actual fighting ability. Well Butterbean took offense to the way he was portrayed as a big lug who as more a sideshow freak than fighter. Poor Bart Gunn. Butterbean with a chip on his shoulder and a brick in his right hand, spun Bart's head around like Linda Blair in "The Excorcist" and once and for all put the Brawl For All to rest in the graveyard of ideas that should have worked but real life got in the way.
