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00:01In 1998, the World Wrestling Federation enlisted 16 wrestlers in a radical experiment.
00:08An unscripted, legitimate, prize-fighting tournament.
00:12Let them fight for real, man. Put on gloves. Let them go out there.
00:16Let's legitimately see who the toughest guy is.
00:22The brawl for all was probably the worst idea in the professional wrestling business.
00:28Wrestlers risked their bodies, and their careers, for a chance in the spotlight.
00:33For some, it would all come crashing down in the brawl for all.
00:37A lot of people did get hurt. I was fucked up.
00:42It was looking kind of sad. The guys were gassing, blowing up, and the crowd wasn't really getting with it.
00:50They got hurt. They got embarrassed. And they got their careers shortened.
00:56It was a train wreck. Come on. Watch it. Just watch. You'll see.
01:10By the late 90s, wrestling had become a global phenomenon.
01:14Two companies were competing for dominance in a TV ratings war,
01:18as every Monday night, millions would tune in to watch WWF or WCW.
01:24The battle was fought through an escalation of bold and provocative new ideas.
01:29Some still resonate today. Others are long forgotten.
01:33On this episode, we reveal the inside story of what's been called wrestling's worst idea ever.
01:42This is Vince Russo here for the brand. We will talk about anything today but professional wrestling.
01:49Why? Because I hate wrestling, bro. I don't want to talk about wrestling.
01:52I'll talk about your mother, your grandmother, your grandfather.
01:55My name is Vince Russo. I was a head writer at WWF Magazine.
02:01Around the time when I started writing the magazine, like 95, 96, the product was horrible.
02:07There were characters at the time that were so bad.
02:11T.L. Hopper, The Goon, Mantar.
02:14What is this? It looks like a half man, half beast.
02:18I'm like, there's no way he's getting his head in the ring.
02:21And sure enough, he cannot get in the ring.
02:24Times were changing. And the WWE kept going backwards.
02:29With the internet, the secret was out of the bag.
02:32People know this is fake.
02:34What they really want to know is what kind of really goes on behind the scenes.
02:39That's where everything was moving.
02:43There's a lot of people that try to say it doesn't matter whether people know that it's rigged.
02:48I don't like to use the word fake.
02:49It does matter.
02:50Why don't you like to use the word fake?
02:52Because there's nothing fake about it.
02:54It may be predetermined. It may even be choreographed.
02:57It can be manipulated.
02:58But there's nothing fake about guys breaking their bodies down.
03:01I'm Jim Cornette. I've been a promoter, a matchmaker, a manager, a trainer.
03:06Everything in wrestling for the last 40 years.
03:10When I started working for the WWF at the time, Vince's inner circle, they were lifers.
03:16They had been in the wrestling business forever.
03:18And I felt that they were looking at the wrestling business from within.
03:22I came as a fan.
03:25Vince McMahon is somebody that is never going to be fully understood.
03:29He's a genius and a demon.
03:31Vince McMahon has no other hobbies.
03:33I doubt very seriously if he's gone to the grocery store or been to a movie in over 40 years.
03:39But Vince McMahon has always been the WWF.
03:42I got a call from Vince's assistant and she said, Vince wants to see you up here immediately.
03:48So I literally think I am going up to his office to be fired.
03:53Then as I walk in his office, all the minions, Bruce Prichard, Jim Ross, Pat Patterson, Jim Cornette.
04:01And Vince has got the RAW magazine in his hand and he slams it down on the table and he
04:08says, this is what our television show needs to be.
04:12And from that point on, I became involved in the writing of the show.
04:17Vince Russo brings an outsider's perspective to the secretive world of matchmaking.
04:22And he isn't afraid to push his own vision of what wrestling could be.
04:25At first, I was like, okay, he's a goof.
04:28He's never been involved in wrestling.
04:29He doesn't know how this stuff works.
04:31We can try to explain it to him.
04:33And within a few months, I realized he didn't want to learn.
04:37He wanted to do wrestling the way he wanted to do it, which was the Jerry Springer Show.
04:43The Jerry Springer Show was the hottest thing on TV.
04:46We literally would sit there and write Monday Night RAW with the Springer Show playing in the background.
04:53This approach would become the Attitude Era.
04:57You had angles where guys were stealing each other's wives or, you know, one guy stole the other guy's dog
05:04and cooked it and fed it to him.
05:05Back then, man, you had fraternities on college campuses gathering every Monday night to watch RAW across the country.
05:14So, number one, you don't want to insult their intelligence because they'll never watch it again.
05:19And number two, you don't want to mamby-pamby it.
05:22That's what I was all about during the Attitude Era was what was going to make a casual television viewer
05:29watch this product if they weren't a wrestling fan.
05:33To maintain their edge, WWF needs a constant stream of original ideas, something audiences have never seen before.
05:41Look, here's the deal, man. He's got to bring something to the old man. He's looking for an idea. What's
05:46the next big thing? I don't know. How about this? Okay.
05:49Hey, I'm Jim Ross. Got into wrestling in 1974. So, my career has lasted for many generations as a broadcaster,
05:58as administrator, and executive vice president.
06:01The idea came from Vince Russo. So, get inside his head. Hell, I don't know.
06:04The idea from the Brawl for All was really simple. Okay? I was not a big fan of JBL. John
06:13Layfield. I was from New York. John was, you know, from Texas.
06:17I thought he had a big mouth. I thought he was full of himself. I thought he was a bully.
06:22We were backstage at a show one day, and John Layfield made the comment that if this were real, I
06:31would beat everybody's ass in the locker room.
06:34So, now I'm sitting there, and I'm saying, you braggadocious, bully bastard.
06:41I know of at least ten guys in this locker room. I'll kick your ass.
06:45I went to Vince McMahon, and I proposed the idea of a brawl for All.
06:49And he goes, what do you mean? I said, Vince, we're becoming more and more and more and more real.
06:54Let them fight for real, man. Put on gloves. Let them go out there. Let them fight.
06:59Let's legitimately see who the toughest guy is.
07:03Vince gave the idea his blessing, and we went on with the Brawl for All.
07:11The top stars have nothing to gain risking their reputation in an unpredictable fight.
07:15The challenge is to find 16 competitors with nothing to lose.
07:22I got stabbed with the bottle, the wine bottle.
07:24I was in a bar fight, and they broke a bottle and stuck it in.
07:27When they stuck it in, they went in and up, punctured the lung, lung collapse,
07:31shredded the diaphragm and lacerated the liver.
07:34Everybody knows me as Bart Gunn here in the States, part of the smoking guns.
07:39Cowboy gimmick. We rode horses out. That was pretty cool.
07:42Hey there, I'm Bart, and I'm Billy.
07:47For whatever reason, everybody that comes in as a tag team, eventually they get split up.
07:53When Billy and I were split up, my career kind of, I don't want to say fizzled.
07:59I guess it's good to say it fizzled out.
08:02Just, I had a hard time adjusting to it, though. It was a little difficult.
08:08When I first approached, it was Bruce.
08:10He says, hey, we're going to do this brawl for all, kind of a tough man contest.
08:14I go, how are you going to do that?
08:16I said, no, I said, don't want to do it. I thought it was a stupid idea.
08:19And then Kevin Kelly, he said, this here would be great for your career.
08:23He says, you're kind of stuck right there at the middle, and you go through this,
08:26and they said, you have a great run with Austin, because that's the winner of the tournament.
08:29He's going to get a run with Steve Austin.
08:31At the time, he was the hottest thing going.
08:33And then, of course, you work with the top, top guy, you get top, top A.
08:36And I thought about it, thought about it, and that's when I decided that I would go ahead and do
08:40it.
08:42The WWF approaches their toughest, most underutilized wrestlers with the lure of cash prizes and main event status.
08:50Well, there are a lot of tough guys in the locker room.
08:53I think when I looked at this thing, I'm like, Godfather, like, was probably the toughest guy.
09:01Big 6'7", 6'8", guy, worked in bars and been a bouncer.
09:06My real name is Charles Wright.
09:08I wrestled for many years in the WWF as everything from Papa Shango to Kama,
09:15joined the Nation of Domination with The Rock and that whole group.
09:19And then became my favorite person ever, the Godfather.
09:24Selling white girls on TV, talking about getting high, and selling pussy.
09:29I'm in the Nation of Domination now.
09:31They're building up Mark Henry.
09:33The Rocks take it over.
09:35So now, I'm like, I got to make a change.
09:37They're not doing nothing with me.
09:39Bruce Pritchard had called me and said, hey, we're doing this thing.
09:43You get, I think, $10,000 if you fight and so much more if you win and you're wearing gloves.
09:48And I'm like, hell yeah, I'll do it.
09:50Well, that's the type of stuff I do anyway.
09:51So I was in right from the beginning.
09:54Darren Drostoff was one of my favorite recruits of all time.
09:57Came out of the University of Maryland.
09:58He just wanted to compete.
10:00They brought me in as a football player to see if I could learn the sport.
10:04We saw footage of him puking on an NFL game.
10:07I threw up all the time.
10:09If I was throwing up at that time, if I could grab ahold of you, you'd get one in the
10:12face.
10:13I brought him to the WWE offices to have a meeting with Vince McMahon.
10:16Vince loves that kind of humor.
10:18If you're a writer and you can come up with a skit that involves puking, taking a dump,
10:22peeing, he'll probably buy it.
10:25He's gonna puke!
10:26He's gotta puke!
10:28He's gotta, yeah, he's gotta puke!
10:30Whatever it takes, you know, the way I thought, we'll do it this way, I'll come in as puke,
10:34right?
10:34You know, I got my foot in the door or whatever, and you know, I just went from there.
10:39Russo's idea is gaining traction, but not everyone in the WWF is convinced it'll work.
10:45I first heard about the Brawl for All, I believe, at one of the TV tapings when they were mentioning
10:51it was gonna be starting in the next few weeks.
10:53And as I grasped what they were talking about, I got more and more concerned about it.
10:59You don't know that it's not gonna work until you try it.
11:01I didn't kill the idea in my mind's eye when I first heard it.
11:04There was no precedent for it.
11:06And you're taking guys out of their element and putting them into their imaginary element
11:09of what they pretend they know, and that's barfighting.
11:12When some of them hadn't been in a barfight, now the wrestlers are living out their fantasies.
11:16And the result is chaos.
11:23With the unusual concept of combining professional wrestling and real fighting,
11:28the architects of the Brawl for All make final preparations.
11:32They went around to all the talent and asked who wanted to participate.
11:36The story was, and I didn't see this hat, but the story was that the pairings were chosen
11:41at random by drawing names out of a hat.
11:44What we did, and we did it in my office, had Savio Vega.
11:48We had a brown paper bag.
11:50I wrote everyone's name down on a piece of paper, threw it in the bag,
11:53and Savio drew the names.
11:55And the first name drawn was the first name on the bracket, and so on and so forth.
12:00So that's how the brackets were made.
12:01As the brackets are set, these 16 men become the official competitors
12:05in wrestling's first ever legitimate prize fighting tournament.
12:10You knew Steve Blackman was like the real deal.
12:13Then you had a guy like Mark Merrow, who was a legitimate gold gloves champion.
12:19Mark Cannonberry, 6'5", 300, punches like a bull.
12:23John Layfield Bradshaw, he's a big old rough and tough Texan.
12:28Baracus was a bodybuilder. He didn't have the mobility.
12:31Baracus had about as much business in the brawl for all as I would.
12:35Savio Vega always had like a little bit of a belly, but could take care of himself.
12:40Hogg would have no problem pulling a guy's eyeball out and eating it or biting his nose off his face.
12:45Mark Gunn was hardworking, dependable, loyal. You could rely on him.
12:49Draws was a no fear kind of guy.
12:52Bob Holly was a badass on a street level.
12:55Carl Ouellette, big time talented kid.
12:57Godfather, he beat up people like for a living.
13:01Dan Severn was a UFC hall of famer, a super fight champion, a triple crown winner.
13:05Ron Harris walked into bars for one reason, and that was the fight.
13:09Too Cold Scorpio had decided he would try and break out of the flash funk, ha-ha gimmick.
13:16The one man that stands out is recent WWF acquisition, Steve Williams, also known to fans as Dr. Death.
13:25He was like a little brother. We brought him out of college, gave him his first job.
13:30Introducing first in the red corner, from the University of Oklahoma, Steve Dr. Death Williams.
13:37He was a homegrown, sentimental favorite.
13:40I think he was four-time All-American football, and I believe he was a four-time All-American wrestler,
13:45too.
13:45Toughest guy in the business.
13:47Does this face look like he's ever been scared?
13:49Jim Ross's boy, there's a lot of heat for that, saying that, but he's Jim Ross's boy.
13:54You hear about the stories of Japan, he's just beat the Japanese up, drop them on their head.
14:01The reason we're bringing Dr. Death into WWE was to eventually have a run with Stone Cold.
14:06So we thought, if this works out, and Doc can pull his way through this tournament, we might have him
14:12ready to have a program with Austin.
14:15These guys, for years and years, go out there, and they have a choreographed fight.
14:22You know at some point in the locker room, like, these conversations really had to come up.
14:28Like, how bad an ass is Steve Blackman?
14:30Now it was real. Now a lot of these questions were going to be answered.
14:37Scheduled over a two-month period, The Brawl for All premieres June 29, 1998, on Monday Night Raw.
14:44Each match consists of three one-minute rounds, with five points awarded for each landed punch and each takedown.
14:51The last man standing will receive a $75,000 cash prize.
14:57We are watching The Brawl for All for the first time in over 20 years.
15:01Look, look, look, look, look, look at this. Yeah, look, look. See?
15:06Oh, this is great, man, catching up. God, I was 28 years old, and I'm 50 now, so...
15:12Maybe two, three, four hours before the match, getting ready to fight a UFC fighter.
15:19Well, me, I was outside with some of the girls smoking cannabis.
15:24And that just goes to show you, one, that I was always smoking cannabis, that's not the big deal.
15:29Is I had no fear.
15:31Anybody who knows anything can tell right off the bat, these guys do not know how to box.
15:35And it's just sloppy.
15:36You've gotten away from all your moves and all your setups.
15:40It has nothing to do with wrestling.
15:42Jim Ross had to try to explain to the fans why these guys may be great wrestlers,
15:47but they look like two drunks in a bar right now.
15:49It's not just the fans who are frustrated.
15:52The chaos of the fights makes them difficult for anyone to follow.
15:56I was so confused whenever I got signed up, and the rules kept evolving, and a takedown is legal.
16:01I don't know if that's a takedown or a knockdown or...
16:04Is that a takedown?
16:05That should be a takedown right there.
16:07You think?
16:08You've got a referee that's never refereed boxing or a competitive fight.
16:12You've got judges that have never judged any type of competitive fight.
16:16When you've got stupidity on this grand biblical scale, anything is possible.
16:21I mean, again, I gotta be honest with you.
16:23As a pure television viewer, I'm totally entertained by this.
16:30Dan Severn narrowly defeats the Godfather in the first round,
16:34but senses his reputation as a decorated fighter is at risk if he continues on.
16:39He decides to drop out of the tournament altogether, which sends the Godfather into round two.
16:46Nobody knew what was going on.
16:47And that's when guys started saying, let's just punch each other.
16:51Make it exciting, just throw punches.
16:54Somebody gets knocked out, they get knocked out.
16:56At the time I was wrestling with Bob Holly.
16:58We were a tag team, we were actually the Midnight Express.
17:00But my first bout and his, they put us against each other.
17:05You know, I just thought that was really a shitty way of doing it.
17:08So yeah, we drew them all out of the hat.
17:10It's just the way it came out.
17:12No, I'm not buying that one.
17:15As the reality of the situation takes hold, brotherhood and professional relationships are put aside.
17:22My friend, my partner, we're going to go out and whack each other.
17:25Started kind of weird because we traveled together, shared the rooms.
17:30You know, we always ate together, go train together.
17:32So, well, I got to hit him or he's going to hit me.
17:34Oh, that leather smacking.
17:36I didn't go easy on him.
17:37I wanted to win.
17:38Here is your winner, Boat Nation Sport.
17:41Do you recall what it was like afterwards?
17:43Yeah, well, actually we had to get in the car because we stayed in the same room that night.
17:47It was a little quiet, a little awkward.
17:50I think we might have even had a match or something the next day together, you know, as a tag
17:54team.
17:56Vince McMahon can't keep his finger out of anything.
17:58So even something that's supposed to be a legitimate shoot, he probably said to himself, as long as they're really
18:03fighting, we can play with the matchmaking all we want.
18:07People have talked about, they've had the Dr. Death theory, that this was skewed to Dr. Death, put him in
18:13there with a one-eyed guy.
18:14No, it wasn't.
18:16Carl Ouellette had sight in one eye.
18:19Should have been to Brawler at all?
18:20Hell no.
18:20What are we thinking?
18:21He's blind in one eye.
18:24I don't remember who the first injury was.
18:26It was the first of several.
18:27It was one after the other.
18:29I tore my bicep and, I mean, tore in quads and torn ACLs.
18:33It was like it was jinx.
18:35Vince could have pulled the plug on this any time he wanted to, but he chose not to.
18:41It didn't take but one week of TV to convince me that this thing has shit the bed.
18:47I dreaded having another night of Brawl for All matches, because you never knew who was going to get hurt
18:52tonight.
18:52Because it seems to be inevitable.
18:54And enough is enough.
18:56The Brawl for All tournament is already on the rocks.
18:59But through the chaos, an unlikely hero is set to emerge.
19:09When I was in the ninth grade, I weighed 89 pounds.
19:12I was the shortest kid in class.
19:14So I got picked on constantly.
19:17They slap you in the head, they push you, they trip you, knock your books out of your hands.
19:21Then I got older, grew up, got a little bigger, and then I kind of went back and everybody that
19:27kind of picked on me, I went back and paid up a visit.
19:29Let them know what it was like.
19:32After an awkward victory over his tag team partner in the first round of the Brawl for All, Bart Gunn
19:38awaits his next opponent.
19:40Well, what happened was, Bruce calls me up.
19:42He says, oh, Bart, just going to let you know, you're going to be fighting Dr. Death.
19:46I go, really?
19:48He says, yeah.
19:48I said, oh, so you changed the brackets around.
19:50And I go, well, Bruce, why don't you guys leave it like it is and save us for the end?
19:55I said, you know, I'd be more than happy to work with you guys, because everybody knows you guys want
19:59him to win.
19:59He goes, no, no, we got all the faith in the world in Dr. Death.
20:02That tells me right there it was designed for him.
20:04Absolutely.
20:05I already knew that, because any time they actually advertised the Brawl for All, they talked about Steve.
20:10I said, okay.
20:11I said, well, let me ask you this.
20:13Am I going to get heat with you guys when I beat him?
20:16He goes, oh, no, no, no.
20:17We got all the confidence in the world in him.
20:19Now, Bruce at that time had known Doc for a long time, just like we all had, and I think
20:24kind of giggled.
20:25He said, sure, yeah.
20:27Knock out Dr. Death.
20:28When they said that, it kind of made me feel like now they're already putting him with me now.
20:31Maybe they don't have any confidence in me, and I'm just a nobody.
20:35Well, why wouldn't you have confidence in Dr. Death?
20:37Is that a sin?
20:38He was a fucking four-time All-American in wrestling in Division I.
20:42They don't give that stuff away.
20:44As soon as I walked in the door, Pat Patterson, he walked right up to me.
20:47He says, oh, so you're going to knock out Dr. Death, are you?
20:51And at that time, I was just furious.
20:53It just pulled my blood, because they snagged at me all day long.
20:56They said, oh, yeah, you're going to knock him out.
20:58You're going to knock him out.
20:58I go get something to eat, or anywhere in the hall, somebody would have something smart-ass to say.
21:04They're all back there.
21:05They got their little clans and yakking.
21:08So just kept it all bottled up all day long.
21:11When that match came on, it was standing room only at those monitors.
21:15It became very, very, very real.
21:19As both men head to the ring, Dr. Death is the overwhelming favorite.
21:23At that time, I was so furious because of what everybody in the office was saying.
21:28And I was more tunnel vision.
21:30I wasn't seeing it any other way.
21:31I was going to go out and beat him.
21:33Stood there toe-to-toe.
21:34It's a stick in my mind.
21:36Okay.
21:36This is it.
21:37This is what I'm going to have to do.
21:39The stakes are high in this matchup, in the brawl for all.
21:42He took me down.
21:44I was kind of surprised at that.
21:46But then at some point, Bart switched up his game plan and took Doc down.
21:51Uh-oh.
21:54He was like halfway out of the ropes, and he's like, damn, brother.
21:57And then I just said, sorry.
21:59What do you want me to do with the shoot?
22:00It's not like we're out there working.
22:02Then at some point, Doc tore his hamstring.
22:05Yeah, I think I can get him down.
22:06Now this could be, that's a takedown.
22:08And now suddenly, Dr. Death Steve Williams has become a 300-pound one-legged man
22:12in an ass-kicking contest where you need to be mobile.
22:16You know, right there at the end, you know, I caught him a couple times.
22:19He was staggering.
22:20And I thought, man, he's fixing to go down.
22:23And then it happened.
22:24Boom, boom, boom.
22:26The big left hand by Bart Gern caught the doctor.
22:30And down goes Doc.
22:31He's out cold, you know, and I was like, oh, shit.
22:35And my heart sunk, and I got a bad feeling in my stomach
22:39because I knew here went Dr. Death's WWF career.
22:43Dr. Death's injuries are so severe, he's forced to undergo a lengthy rehabilitation.
22:48But the damage to his reputation proves far worse.
22:52Within a year, he'd be out of the WWF entirely.
22:56There comes Russo walking down the hallway.
22:58I said, are you happy?
22:59You just cost the company $5 million in one night.
23:03And he looked at me and, what are you talking about?
23:05I said, you idiot.
23:06Dr. Death Steve Williams just got beat on live television in front of everybody.
23:11What difference is how Bart Gunn's gonna be a star now?
23:14I said, I wanna kill you!
23:16I would like to just squeeze you until your britches are full and your eyeballs pop out.
23:21Dr. Death, I'm sure we could have done a lot with him.
23:24But it's not like he was coming in at his peak or his prime or on his way up.
23:28It's probably fair to say his best years in wrestling were behind him.
23:32But no doubt about it, you know, that injury definitely cut his career short.
23:38Kind of quiet when I went back.
23:40Management didn't say anything to me.
23:42I had all the heat on me then.
23:44So I just knocked out JR's boy.
23:47This whole Dr. Death element in the brawl for all has been so grossly overthought
23:51that it has embarrassed me about some of my peers and some of my friends actually believe there's another story.
23:58There's this covert action that's going on.
24:00We'll never really know the answer.
24:02Come on.
24:04Grow up.
24:06I didn't really see anybody from the office after that.
24:09So it was kind of like, you know, you guys were picking at me and, you know, I did what
24:13I was going to do.
24:14Bart secures his place in the semifinals where the Godfather awaits.
24:19In the other match, Draws takes on Bradshaw.
24:25Fucking bag of the air, you cocksucker.
24:28That's Bradshaw for you. Dirty bastard.
24:31Did Bradshaw know that you had built it around him?
24:35Oh, yeah.
24:36Absolutely.
24:37Well, I'm sure I reminded him a couple of times.
24:39Should have gotten a freaking points for a takedown there.
24:43That was a takedown under any rules, screwy or not.
24:46That was a takedown.
24:47How would you call this one, JR?
24:48Who do you think?
24:49Well, it's close.
24:49Very close in my book.
24:51I'm on Draws' side here.
24:53Here's your winner, Bradshaw.
24:56There it is.
24:56Boo.
24:57I cried bullshit.
24:59Now I'm going to be bitter for the next couple of days.
25:02You guys are going to be bitter.
25:03I won't fight.
25:04Right now.
25:04I got tears in my eyes.
25:05I'm, like, fired up like shit.
25:08It ended how it ended.
25:09Had me wondering, of course.
25:11I don't know if the people upstairs, if they wanted me to fight Bart at the time.
25:15And I still think that it was, you know, that I won the fight.
25:19But Bradshaw didn't go around bragging because he knew.
25:23I so badly wanted Bradshaw to get his ass kicked.
25:26That's all I cared about.
25:27Because he was so cocky.
25:29He was so confident when he made the remark.
25:32He couldn't back out of it now.
25:34Because I would be the first one to say, wait a minute.
25:36Whoa.
25:36I just wanted to see him get his clock clean.
25:39I'm being honest.
25:40With only one fight left before the final, it's up to Bart Gunn, or The Godfather, to keep Bradshaw from
25:47having the last word.
25:55Working at this club right here in the 90s.
25:58And I was the manager from 5 o'clock in the morning to 1 in the afternoon.
26:02And I hated pimps.
26:04And I would say, if there is any pimps behind this bar, they better not be here in the next
26:10five minutes.
26:11Because I will knock you off your bar stool.
26:13And I swear to you, I would walk behind the bar.
26:16Pimp was sitting there just cracking as hard as I could.
26:19And they'd start running.
26:21But yeah, man.
26:21I used to be able to knock people out by slapping them in their face.
26:26The Godfather's second round victory over Too Cold Scorpio advances him to the final four.
26:31He's just two wins away from claiming the $75,000 prize.
26:36Standing in his way is tournament underdog Bart Gunn.
26:40Well, this is going to be a tough fight.
26:42This big.
26:43Then I'm watching him like shadow boxing stuff.
26:46And I go, wow, he's got boxing skills too.
26:49I went into that fight way overconfident.
26:52I've been smoking all day.
26:53Yeah, but I smoke all day all the time.
26:56Just before I fought Bart, he says, I'm going to knock you out.
26:59And I'm like, yeah, okay, good luck.
27:03Do you remember anything of what you were thinking before going into that match?
27:06Hit him.
27:06Don't let him take me down.
27:08Stone cold face.
27:09Okay.
27:10Psyched myself up.
27:11Come out throwing leathers.
27:12And here we go.
27:13This is going to be a slugfest, JR.
27:15You know, we were punching.
27:16I think he kind of caught me once pretty good.
27:19I was like, wow, that kind of stung a little bit.
27:22And somewhere in there, he hit me with something that knocked me to the ground.
27:26And I remember going back to the corner saying, I don't have my legs.
27:31I don't have my legs.
27:32I don't have my legs.
27:34Every single person was at the monitor.
27:37And nobody could believe it.
27:39Bart looking for the left.
27:40Oh!
27:41But it's a right hand!
27:42It's a right hand!
27:43It's a right hand!
27:45And the Godfather is down!
27:47He is out!
27:48Oh!
27:49His head hit the ropes or come real close to it.
27:51Kind of went out of the ring and kind of hang in there.
27:54It's like, wow, I hope he's okay.
27:56I mean, the reputation of the Godfather and, you know,
28:00Bart being under the radar, I mean, unbelievable.
28:06My wife was really upset because she was counting on that money.
28:09She was not happy about it.
28:11She blamed it on me smoking.
28:13And I'm like, eh.
28:14I didn't give Bart the amount of respect that I should have.
28:18This is a few days after that fight.
28:22I was fucked up.
28:24And I couldn't walk.
28:25I had to get in a wheelchair.
28:26My leg got infected.
28:28I got this cut out.
28:30Oh!
28:30Woo!
28:31Maybe that was the stupidest idea in wrestling right there.
28:35Because a lot of people did get hurt.
28:37The injuries were a big, big deal.
28:39Here's what it meant.
28:40It meant taking guys off the line.
28:41They were sitting at home.
28:42They couldn't work.
28:43They couldn't earn.
28:44And that cost the company money because they weren't able to be productive.
28:47It wasn't a good thing.
28:48It wasn't a good thing.
28:49How morally and intellectually bankrupt and irresponsible do you have to be to create a situation where your stars get
28:57legitimately injured just to get even with a wrestler who was bragging about how tough he was in the locker
29:03room?
29:03He can't be feeling good about getting in the ring with Bart, man. There's no way.
29:08At that point, that was like the finals. There's only one more left and that was Bradshaw.
29:13After a rollercoaster two months of combat, the Brawl for All final is set.
29:18A one-time long shot against the man who inspired it all.
29:23Both men have trained very diligently for this contest.
29:27Come out. Just a couple punches. Caught him.
29:30There he goes! Unbelievable! Golly!
29:35It's like, wow, it's over.
29:37Then he got back up. I was like, whew.
29:39You okay? Let's go.
29:41Well, this may not last much longer.
29:43Oh, there it is! Oh, my God!
29:47That's it!
29:48That's it!
29:48Oh!
29:49There you go!
29:50There's your winner!
29:52Four!
29:52Goal!
29:53Take a look at a guy that has just made a name for himself in this business and earned it!
29:59Oh, my good night.
30:02Man, he even had the jittery legs. Did you see the jumpy legs?
30:06It just, just, the, the, the smelling salt ain't doing nothing to him.
30:10When Bradshaw got knocked out, it was scary because his eyes obviously weren't there and he twitched a little bit.
30:16And you could tell he wasn't home even a while afterwards.
30:20When I saw Bradshaw get knocked out, I could not hold back those emotions. Like, I'm sorry.
30:25This whole tournament was because of him and his mouth and there he was laying on the canvas unconscious.
30:33Bro, what, what, you know the old saying, don't, don't, never, never ask for, what, what, what, how's that go?
30:39You get what you ask for or, you, you know what I mean.
30:42He didn't understand even then what he had done to this day. The fucking moron doesn't understand what he's done.
30:49I believe he sabotaged the talent, the integrity of the business, got people legitimately hurt and killed a future superstar
30:58and doesn't realize he did anything wrong.
31:00There in a nutshell, you have the skid mark on the underwear of life that is Vince Russo.
31:08I'm 57 years old. Jim Cornette is my age. When is this ever going to stop?
31:16Cornette believed in the stake of the business. Russo more of the sizzle of the business.
31:21And therein they have a tremendous controversy and conflict. They'll never be on the same page in my lifetime.
31:28Jim Cornette leaves a message on my answering machine threatening to kill me, threatening to kill my entire family.
31:38I said, I'd just like to tell you, you no good piece of shit, you motherfucker.
31:43What a piece of shit you are and how you narrowly escaped getting put in a fucking hospital by me
31:47with a goddamn baseball bat for all you've done to me and my friends and the careers you've ruined and
31:52the shitty wrestling that you produced.
31:53I just wanted to make sure that you knew that from my own lips.
31:56And I'm just like, bro, this is wrestling. Like, are you serious? Like, you're gonna kill me over professional wrestling.
32:05Why is he doing this to me? Just over wrestling? Just over wrestling?
32:09That's what it's always been because he just, I can't believe that he would do this to me just over
32:14wrestling.
32:15And wrestling has been the most important thing in my life.
32:22With a disastrous brawl for all finally over, Bart Gunn has proven to be the toughest guy in the locker
32:28room, and he was ready to jumpstart his career. But he was in for a brutal awakening.
32:41Well, these here are the gloves that they gave me for winning the brawl for all.
32:45It is my privilege and honor to present you with these golden boxing gloves.
32:50What was your reaction to winning this whole thing?
32:53It was great. I said, man, I'm finally gonna get a great push.
32:56Jim Ross comes up and talks to me. He says, hey, to be honest, we didn't think anybody could take
33:01Steve off his feet.
33:02He goes, I guess we should have did our homework on you a little better.
33:04And I said, well, probably so. And, you know, I tried to work with you guys, and he's like, well,
33:10I just want you to know there's no hard feelings.
33:11And I think as soon as he said that, I thought, wow, I do got some heat.
33:16After his victory in the brawl for all, Bart Gunn is awaiting his big career push.
33:22The WWF are now faced with the problem of what to do with a wrestler they didn't expect to win.
33:29It was always the plan that whoever would win the brawl for all would get a big promotional push.
33:33When it was Bart, the win kind of came out of those sails. I'm not knocking Bart Gunn, great athlete,
33:39good wrestler, good guy.
33:41But the way he had been presented for the previous five years was at a level here, not here.
33:47Examine the facts. Nobody got over. Not one son of a bitch that fought in that brawl for all got
33:54over. End of story.
33:57They send me home. Now they don't know what to do with me.
34:00Vince Russo called me up and he said, Bart, we don't really know what type of a storyline gimmick to
34:06put you in.
34:06I kind of sat home for a long time, not doing anything.
34:10The longer I sat at home, the more frustrating it was.
34:14They let him twist in the wind for a little while and then, of course, Vince McMahon got the idea
34:18because it's a gimmick.
34:19Butterbean. Let him fight Butterbean at WrestleMania.
34:25Well, my understanding is when Bart knocked out Dr. Death, Vince got pissed.
34:30So they called me in for his punishment.
34:33Butterbean's an overachiever. You know, he's got that bald head and he's very white.
34:36He looks like some sort of appliance. But boy, does he hit. Oh, my God.
34:41Eric Esch, a.k.a. Butterbean, is a 300-pound professional prize fighter with more than 50 wins under his
34:49belt.
34:50What he lacks in technique, he more than makes up for with raw hitting power.
34:56So at some point, it was suggested Butterbean and Bart have a boxing match because Butterbean was a great personality,
35:04great for wrestling.
35:05I think it was presented to me and, you know, it's like, you know, I don't, you know, sure, I
35:11guess.
35:11You know, because I was sitting at home. I was tired of sitting at home.
35:13And they said, hey, we're going to send you to a boxing school, you know, and they start teaching me
35:17how to box.
35:18The crossover match serves as both the promotional push Bart has been waiting for and a chance for the WWF
35:26to cash in on Butterbean's mainstream popularity.
35:29The man that will face Butterbean, Bart Gunn.
35:33Well, JR, you know, I'm not training just to beat him. I'm training to knock him out.
35:38Me, Butterbean, and Gilbert, we were chilling. I think me and Gil were smoking.
35:42Butterbean wasn't smoking. And we were talking about it.
35:45Butterbean, he told me, he said this, I've already told Vince.
35:48He goes, you guys are tough guys. I give you that, okay? But you're not professional fighters.
35:54I will beat that kid in seconds. It's two different sports. He has no chance against me.
36:00You know, Vince kind of smiled at me when I went to the ring. He knew that it was over
36:04for Bart.
36:05He knew that I was going to knock him out and he wanted me to knock him out.
36:09Walking to the WrestleMania was kind of like no experience I've ever had up to that point.
36:13This place was huge.
36:14On March 28th, 1999, the WWF resurrects the brawl for all concept on their largest stage, WrestleMania 15.
36:24A talented amateur can't stand up next to a professional in any field.
36:28So there was no reason to believe that even though Bart was a great looking athlete and Butterbean was a
36:34big fat round baked potato with arms and legs,
36:36Butterbean was a trained and experienced professional boxer.
36:41I didn't feel the same as I felt with the other fights because I'm different now. I'm a boxer now
36:46and I got this other persona.
36:49Here we go, round one, pro for all. Butterbean and Bart Gunn.
36:53I remember being in the crowd. Something was off. This wasn't the guy that I saw knock out the Godfather
37:00and the guy that I saw knock out Bradshaw.
37:02This wasn't one of those fights.
37:05Now I'm out there as a green boxer trying, okay, hold my hands like this, hold my feet like this.
37:10When Bart tried to box, I said, this is it. I got him now. So I just went in, charged
37:14him, just give him a couple good shots, put him to the mat.
37:16And then when I went to the corner, I'm like, man, I hope he don't get up because it's going
37:19to be bad if he does because he's wobbling.
37:23When Vinny let the fight go on, I'm going, oh, Vinny, you don't need to do that. He's out of
37:26it.
37:26So I just give him one last good right hand.
37:28Oh, that's the right hand. Bucks, it's over. Goodbye, it's over. Butter.
37:32His head actually turned around backwards.
37:35Yeah, you know when I got home, my kids come home from school and they were a little upset.
37:38They go, Dad, my friend told me you killed a guy on TV. You killed Bart Gunn.
37:43I said, he's not dead. He just looked like it.
37:46I'll be honest, he would have had a 50-50 chance if he would have went out and brawled like
37:50he did with the other guys.
37:52But with me, he actually tried to box, which was stupid.
37:55Very disappointed. Very, very mad at myself.
37:58You know, just wasn't happy at all.
38:02After WrestleMania, I knew I was done. There wasn't a future left there for me at all.
38:06It's the end. That was the end there for me in the States.
38:16Wow. A lot of old stuff here.
38:20You said you hadn't watched the Butterbean fight. Can you talk about why that was the case?
38:25I don't know if I'm with that on air, but...
38:32I just never watched it. I was mad at myself that I made some mistakes, but it always stuck in
38:38the back of my mind.
38:39And then I saw, when I was in Japan, Butterbean. I saw he was over there. He's doing MMA.
38:44I thought, wow, this is interesting, because I always wanted to get a second chance.
38:48And then I said, you know, I want to do MMA.
38:50And I got a fight with Wesley Cabbage, and Butterbean fought him.
38:56Butterbean beat him, like, in the second or third round.
38:59Went over there in my very first MMA fight and stopped it the first round.
39:03So I said, yeah, I beat this guy, Pricker, and Butterbean beat him.
39:06One night, like, on a Tuesday night, he said, hey, we got you a match with Butterbean.
39:09So, really great. He said, yeah, we want you to come fight Friday.
39:13It's like in four days. I said, no, no, no, no, no.
39:15So I've learned from my mistakes.
39:16He says, if you're going to set up a match with me and Butterbean, I want 12 weeks to train
39:19for it.
39:20So that didn't happen.
39:22Could have turned out the same thing. He could have beat me again.
39:24But I would have got to do it a little bit better my way.
39:27It may sound crazy to a lot of people, but that's just kind of the way I'm driven.
39:31And then kind of time passed, and then said some things happened in my life.
39:35And after that, I was kind of done with the whole fighting thing, and then I didn't do any more.
39:40I miss being at the curtain and going through the curtain and out and performing.
39:44You know, you got the excitement in the crowd, the adrenaline rush.
39:47Me going to work every day, there's not an adrenaline rush there anymore.
39:51But I enjoy sleeping in my bed every night, you know, sitting there with my dinner at the house.
39:55You get tired of eating out, you know, all your meals, you know, seven days a week.
40:03So...
40:05Draws' career in the WWF would continue for another year until a tragic accident changed his life forever.
40:13Do you mind if I ask you a few questions about your injury?
40:16No problem, man.
40:17Prior to it happening, what was your plan for the wrestling business?
40:20You know, I really had no clue.
40:22And the funny part is I was actually going to win that match.
40:26You know, I didn't get a lot of wins.
40:28Draws' was wrestling D'Lo Brown one night, and D'Lo was very smooth, accomplished wrestler.
40:33We were just going to do a powerbomb.
40:36And he had powerbombed me before.
40:38When he picked me up, I don't know if I slipped or what.
40:42I have this, these memories are seared in my brain perfectly.
40:47Which stinks.
40:49Pulled him up, and we didn't go.
40:52And we just fell forward.
40:54But I remember going back down.
40:55I'm like, this isn't right.
40:56I couldn't get my hands down, really.
40:58And I just remember hearing crack, crack.
41:00And I just went, oh, fuck, I just broke my neck.
41:03I said, stop messing with me.
41:05You okay?
41:06I can't move.
41:10One of the cardinal rules is you're supposed to leave the ring the same way you went into it.
41:14And I remember crying next to him, telling him I was sorry.
41:16I'm sorry.
41:17I'm sorry.
41:17It should never happen.
41:18Draws' going, it's okay, dog.
41:20It's okay.
41:20It's okay.
41:20It's okay.
41:21Nothing we could have done would have changed.
41:24You know, it just happens.
41:25So, but he's a good guy, man.
41:28I still wish him the best last time I saw him.
41:30Neither of us, we've talked about it.
41:32We don't know what happened.
41:34Neither of us blame the other.
41:36It's one of those unfortunate accidents that happened.
41:39Bottom line is I'm here.
41:41Still alive.
41:42I'm still kicking.
41:42Well, not kicking, really.
41:44I can't kick, but I still get to go out.
41:47I hunt.
41:47You know, I do all the things that I can do.
41:50It's just, you know, you learn to do things differently.
41:53Draws' still paralyzed to this day.
41:55It's been more than 20 years.
41:57Things happen, you know, in this business.
42:00And it's not ballet.
42:01And that's why it especially angers me when people diminish it.
42:08One move.
42:09He's been in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
42:11So don't tell me that wrestling is a bunch of bullshit.
42:14Just some of the ways that people that have gotten into it treat it is bullshit.
42:21I feel bad.
42:22How come?
42:23Because I don't want to see anybody get hit like that, man.
42:26Oh, my God.
42:28Especially now with just all the stuff we know about head trauma and everything, man.
42:34Oh, man.
42:39Oof.
42:41I really should have been thinking, man, these guys are out of their element with what we
42:46know about concussions today.
42:47Just knowing all that today, which we didn't know back then, no way.
42:52No way would I ever propose it again.
42:55I think the Brawl for All should be remembered for what it was.
42:57A cluster.
42:58It sucked.
43:00There's no reason to embrace it.
43:03It was simply a bad idea that featured a lot of guys looking to get a rub in a new
43:08event.
43:08That's what it was developed to do.
43:10Create some new stars, new rubs, new opportunities, and just didn't do it.
43:17The Brawl for All remains the only prize-fighting tournament to be put on by the WWE.
43:22What could have been a career-defining moment for its champion instead became a stark reminder
43:28of how wrestling's winners are always chosen in the boardroom.
43:32Bruce has said that the Brawl for All is the, quote, absolute worst idea in the history of the business.
43:38I agree with that, but they're the ones that put it on.
43:44So, explain that one.
43:47I think they should learn from their mistakes and probably should never do it again.
43:52Should just kind of let it disappear.
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