| Ah, the Brawl for All.
Jim Ross is responsible for cooking this bad boy up. JR had
the idea of pushing a bunch of midcard, heatless wrestlers by putting
them into a legitimate Toughman competition--they'd don boxing gloves
and earn points for knockouts and takedowns.
Two problems:
-
Wrestling fans don't want to watch boxing matches
-
Boxing fans don't want to watch bad boxing matches
So, really, this idea appealed to no one and was an immediate ratings failure.
The WWF went ahead with it anyway, of course. The first round or two or so were
shoots--not scripted--which is why everyone was shocked when Bart Gunn
beat the tournament favorite, "Dr. Death" Steve Williams, in the second
round. Most of the matches after that are believed to have been
worked (fixed) to push Gunn after his early surprise victory. At
one point in the second round you can see Marc Mero, a former Golden Gloves winner, have
serious words with the referee after some suspect calls designed to give
his opponent (Bradshaw) the nod--apparently they didn't tell the wrestlers involved
they'd be fixing the later matches.
Also, about half the competitors in the Brawl for All competition suffered
legitimate injuries and put some of them out of commission for months.
To culminate the whole Bad Idea (tm), Bart Gunn faced legitimate Toughman
Butterbean at Wrestlemania XV. The WWF offered to fix the match,
but Gunn insisted on a legitimate fight.
Butterbean KOd Gunn out of his boots in under 30 seconds.
First Round
Marc Mero d. Steve Blackman
Bradshaw d. Mark Cantebury
Savio Vega d. Brakus
Darren Drozdov d. Hawk
Bart Gunn d. Bob Holly
Steve Williams d. Pierre
2 Cold Scorpio d. 8-Ball
Dan Severn d. Godfather (But Severn got injured so the Godfather
took his place in the 2nd round)
Second Round
Bradshaw d. Marc Mero
Darren Drozdov d. Savio Vega
Bart Gunn d. Steve Williams
Godfather d. 2 Cold Scorpio
Third Round
Bradshaw d. Darren Drozdov
Bart Gunn d. Godfather
Final Round
Bart Gunn d. Bradshaw
| 
