RIP - Bad News "Brown"

[$heriff Tom]

RIP "Bad News." 63 is too young, but in wrestling its a long life. May not be able to blame the business for this one. Ironically, I just watched the opening Battle Royal of Mania 5 two nights ago, when Bad News tricked Hitman Hart, and cheap-shot him with that savate kick to win the day.

May he rest in peace! Drink a beer for the Bad man, and share your memories here.


Allan Coage, aka Badnews Allen, passed away at 5:30 a.m. this morning in Calgary at the age of 63 from a heart attack. We have no further details. Allan Coage was an Olympic bronze medal winner in judo, started wrestling in Japan and was a legendary heel in Stampede Wrestling in the early 80s. He worked later in WWE as Badnews Brown. He was a tremendous promo and very outspoken about his career and was often voted among the best guests in the history of our radio show.

wrestlingobserver

HERE IS A VERY GOOD STORY ON HIS PASSING.

slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Wrestling/2007/03/06/3704792.html

[thecaptain15]

Too bad indeed but your right he lived long in wrestling years..Interesting article and even more interesting is that Jake the Snake is still alive...

RIP Bad News...

[MSBNYY]

That's some bad news.

[4dogg]

RIP to the master of the ghetto blaster....wonder if he is gonna be waked at the apollo like james brown

[MSBNYY]

This has GOT to help the all dead card.

[$heriff Tom]

Not really. Most of Bad News' high-profile stuff was against Brett and Randy Savage, who are obviously still with us. As to your picture, Bad News and Owen never wrestled one another in the WWF. Bad News was long gone before Owen debuted. The only time they crossed path was in Stampede Wrestling, and I dont own any of their battles.

Back to business, and away from Balls' cracks - I was just remembering when Bad News grabbed Jack Tunney by the wrists and twisted him to the ground while guesting on the Brother Love show, accusing Tunney of "accepting favors from Elizabeth" to protect the Macho Man.

[grover]

Remember the cage of rats from the projects? LOL!

[drock2006]

RIP..and condolences to the Harlem Sewer rats

[$heriff Tom]

They were rolling with the "Bad News" is a loner thing for a while, where he could not get along with anyone. I remember an instance where he teamed with another sullen product of the streets, the vaunted Brooklyn Brawler, and turned on him after the match, and laid a beating on him.

He also walked out on a Survivor Series match, leaving his partners to fend for themselves, unless I miss my guess.

From all accounts he was a Hell of a talker and was underused in the WWF. Although the fact he had some title shots against Savage in what I considered a violent feud for the time was a notch in the belt.

[MSBNYY]

Actually, I think he walked out on his Survivor Series team two years in a row. I can't believe he was 63.

[$heriff Tom]

Yeah, I did a double-take at that, but after a few seconds it made sense. He was over 40 during that WWF run. And a forgotten Olympian.

[sancho231]

wow, kinda forgott about Bad news.just one of those guys i dont remember much of, what i d o remember the double cross with bret on WM V and his match VS Piper at VI.
what was the Ghetto blaster anyway? was that the Ezinguri?

[$heriff Tom]

Yeah, pretty much. The old spinning kick to the back of the head. For a pot-bellied older grappler like himself, back in 87 it was impressive enough.

[$heriff Tom]

Scarfed this interview off the Kayfabe Memories site, it was an interview from 2001 with Bad News Brown, which appeared in a publication called Ring Around The Northwest.

Its long, but worth a read.

RATNW: Talk a little about your judo accomplishments.
Bad News: I’m a 5th degree Black Belt in Judo. I won the AAU Nationals Heavyweight Championship 6 times, 2 gold medals in 2 different Pan American Games, 1967 and 1975. Also a gold medal at the Pan American Championship in 1968. My bronze Olympic medal in 1976. I was the 1st African American to win an Olympic Judo medal and the 2nd American to win an Olympic medal in judo. I competed in 107 different Judo Tournaments over 14 years.

RATNW: You won a bronze medal in the 76 Olympics. Any stories from the Olympics.
Bad News: I was lucky to even get there. The judo officials hated me and tried to keep me from going. After my Sensei Yone threatened a lawsuit against them they reluctantly let me go to the Olympic trials where their chosen favorites got their asses kicked which made the officials despise me even more and I had the last laugh by brining home a medal.
Montreal’s Veilladrome was built so poorly that it rained as much in that 90 million dollar building as it did outside. If I would have brought an umbrella and rain boots I would have the gold instead of the bronze.

RATNW: Talk a little how you made the transitition from Judo to Pro Wrestling and who were some of the people responsible.
Bad News: My sensei Yone, along with Antonio Inoki and Mr. Y amamoto were the ones responsible for me becoming Bad News Allen/Brown. The switch was easy, the wrestling training was much easier than my judo training.

RATNW: At that point you were around 35. Did anyone hesitate to train you or discourage you because of your age. That is a little late to just be getting started in wrestling.
Bad News: One of the reasons they sent me to Japan to train because unlike the west they (Japan) aren’t hung up about age or race, as long as I could train hard without whining and do it well they were pleased.

RATNW: Talk a little about your first match and who was it against and your memories of it.
Bad News: My first match as a Judo match against Sakaguchi in Tokyo, where 23,000 people attended, it was a good feelinjg to be there.

RATNW: Do you feel your Judo Competition helped you get ready for wrestling and if so why?
Bad News: No, not at all. It did not prepare me for the dishonest promoters I’ve met over the years of my career.

RATNW: It appears your first territory in the US was the WWWF in 78/79. As I look back on the results. It looks like you were beating the likes of Johnny Rodz, Baron Scicluna, SD Jones, Dom DeNucci, but never got any matches higher up, even though in my results I didn’t find any losses for you. Talk about that first territory and your impressions.
Bad News: Japan sent me there to learn the American Style. I was as green as grass and did not expect the promoter to give me any sort of push. The guys I beat were all jobbers and me beating them was only to keep the Japan office happy. That territory had some of the worst workers in the USA. Vince McMahon Sr wanted all the guys to be over 6 feet tall and the majority of them were ******* workers (as I was too at that time).

RATNW: If I remember Fred Blassie was your manager at this time. Did he help you learn the ropes.
Bad News: I like being with Freddie, I had a lot of fun with him. He was the one who advised me to get a catch phrase that when doing interviews would make me stand out from others. Freddie’s was “Pencil necked geeks” so that’s when I came up with Beer Bellied Sharecroppers.

RATNW: After that you went to LA for the latter part of 79. LA either had a lot of talent or it was the shits. It looked like you worked a lot with the Guerreros. Talk a little about this territory. Who was booking at the time and any stories or memories.
Bad News: I forget who the original booker was but shortly before I left it was Chavo Guerrero. They had a lot of good talent there but the entire show was built around the Guerrero Brothers. Their only interest was putting themselves over and not pushing any of the talent that was available. We didn’t make much money but we were home every night, our longest trip was 4 hours on Saturdays, LA is where I met Leroy Brown and George Wells who was a tremendous talent and never got a push.

RATNW: You spent much of the 80’s in Calagary but what made you first decide to go there especially when you hear the stories of the bad winters and long trips. Plus even though it has always had very good workers it is a smaller territory as far as the bigger cities.
Bad News: Dynamite Kid was responsible for getting me booked in Calgary. (I knew him from Japan). I met my beautiful wife here and I wound up making this my home. Stu treated me well and some of the best workers came through here.

RATNW: I have always thought that Calgary has had very good workers and above all stood Dynamite Kid. Talk a little about him and any stories.
Bad News: He is the best worker of all time. Many have tried to copy his style, Davey Boy Smith, Bret Hart, Chris Benoit. Only Chris has been successful in coming close to Dynamite. Dynamite was a hell of a ribber and we had a lot of laughs, those stories apart from what is on my web site will be in my book.

RATNW: Can you tell the name of the book and how far along you are and if you have a publisher?
Bad News: I have a long way to go to completion. It is title, “ I have the scrapbook, I’m in it for the bank book.” Yes, I have a publisher.

RATNW: You feuded with Dynamite, talk about that feud. I am sure there was a size difference but the fans recognized how tough Dynamite was. Was the size difference a issue at all? I know he had also feuded with Killer Khan who is even bigger then you.
Bad News: Dynamite had so much fire and wrestling ability which made the people believe in him and with his size came sympathy from the fans who wanted to kill anyone who hurt their hero. If ever I was in a bar fight he would certainly be one of four people in the wrestling business who I would trust to watch my back.

RATNW: Everyone has heard lots of Stu Hart stories…Can you add any and what was your impression of him.
Bad News: I love Stu as a promoter and as a person. (I hated most of his kids). Before I ever met Stu I had seen different people impersonate him and no when I met h im and spoke to him I started laughing to myself because the majority of the impersonators were 100 percent on. Once while he and I were walking through the Vancouver airport he told me to wait a minute because he had to do something. He walked over to the phone (I thought he was going to make a call) and he ripped the yellow pages off and stuck them in his briefcase and then came back and said, “lets go”. I said, “Wait a minute Stu, what do you need with Vancouvers yellow pages?”
His answer was, “You never know”.

RATNW: What about Ed Whalen, who story has it seemed like he had his own agenda instead of getting the story line across. Any stories concerning Stampede TV.
Bad News: I think Edwina Whalen (as we referred to hinm) was the biggest backside of a jack ass that I’ve ever met. He always tried to put himself over. He was only concerned about making himself look good. He had way too much power and I think it hurt Stu’s business.

RATNW: I imagine at times, traveling was treacherous in the Calgary area. Any traveling stories?
Bad News: We left for Regina (8 hour drive from Calgary) when it was 80 degrees Fahrenheit, after we wrestled we turned around to come back home, we made a rest stop in Brooks, Alberta (2 hours ouside of Calgary). I called my beautiful wife to let her know I’d be home in 2 hours and she told me to be careful because they had a storm. I was thinking rain. 20 miles away from Brooks we ran into one of the biggest snow storms that I’ve ever seem. We had no coats, hats or gloves (it was the end of May) and we are in one of Stu’s rickety old vans, we couldn’t get any gas because the snow was so heavy that it knocked down the power lines so it took us 27 hours to get home. My wife tried to get to us to bring blankets and warm clothes but the roads were closed and they weren’t allowing anyone to travel on them. Just one of many adventures here.

RATNW: You worked a few shows in Hawaii for Lia Maivia. Talk a little about that. Did you see The Rock at any of the matches.
Bad News: I worked for Lia and was one of the fortunate ones who got paid (because Japan paid me). If I didn’t know better I’d swear she was related to the Hart kids who think everyone but themselves should work for free.
Dwayne (The Rock) was always at the matches, he was so tall and thin I thought he’d become a basketball player. I never imagined he’d turn out to be the hottest wrestler today. He was and still is a nice kid.

RATNW: You worked in Austrailia for a period of time, can you speak to that and who were you working for down there?
Bad News: I never wrestled in Austrailia, I just lived there for a few years.

RATNW: How did you come to live in Austrailia? What area did you live in? What made you leave? While you were there did you notice any wrestling going on in Austrailia?
Bad News: I went to visit and fell in love with the country. I lived in Sydney and came to Calgary to work for Stampede Wrestling and met by beautiful wife and wound up staying here. I went to a match once that was ina casino and it wasn’t very good.

RATNW: You also worked in South Africa. How many tours did you have there and who did you work for? Any stories you recall.
Bad News: I worked for Nerish, 2 tours. The fans there (East Indian) had to be the craziest fans of all the places I’ve ever worked. When you wrestle against an East Indian wrestler you are taking your life in your hands, the fans believe so much that they will try and kill you.

RATNW: Lets talk a little about African American Wrestlers and their place in the history of wrestling. Through the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s nearly all the African American Wrestlers were babyfaces. The only true heels I can think of that were on top were Ernie Ladd & Abdullah The Butcher. Why do you think there were not any more heels during that time period.
Bad News: The promoters were scared thinking that the African American heels would cause riots amongst the whites as the whites were the majority of fans.

RATNW: When you came onto the scene, it was just the start of an era where it seemed like it was OK to have African American heels. By the mid 80’s there were more like Ray Candy, Butch Reed, Harlem Heat, Kamala, Ron Simmons. It was very rare that wrestling had seen such an articulate African American. You were really breaking new ground. Did you feel resistance from the promoters for you to be in that role?
Bad News: Yes, Vince wanted to turn me into a babyface and give me a Stepin’ Fetchit gimmick which I refused to do. He was determined to degrade African Americans like he did with Saphire.

RATNW: Also traditionally babyface African Americans were given silly gimmicks like JYD, Rufus Jones, Koko B. Ware, Ormand Malumba. Tom Burke wrote a very good article on African Americans in Ring Wresting in 1975. Talk a little about how you feel wrestling treated African Americans in general.
Bad News: In general the promoters would never put you in a position where you could make a lot of money and they always want the white man to be the hero. It was their way of saying the white man is superior to everyone else. Talk a look at movies, no matter what minority role in the movie, the white man always comes out on top.
Vince McMahon accidently created the biggest star ever with The Rock. I’m sure it was never his intent to have The Rock go over as big as he has.

RATNW: In late 86 and early 87 you were in Florida. I have results from 86 but not 87. Do you remember how long you stayed? What kind of shape was the territory and any special memories of stories.
Bad News: I went in December of 1986 and was there for 6 months. The territory wasn’t in good shape. While there I rented a VCR so I could tape my matches and send them home to my wife. When I brought the VCR back to my room I put a tape in the machine and an army of cockroaches came marching out of it. I had to take it outside and spray it down. There had to have been a nest in there because I’ve never seen so many coming out of such a small place. That’s when I started calling fans spineless cockroaches.

RATNW: Was this the time that Brody worked with Lex Lugar and Brody wouldn’t sell anything by him. If so, do you remember that?
Bad News: Yes and I remember it well. Luger thought he knew everything about the business (he had only been wrestling for 8 months at that time) and wouldn’t take any advice from any of the veterans. He was to have a cage match with Brody. Instead of showing Brody the respect he deserved and asking him what they should do in the match, Luger went to Brody and told him that they were going to do this and that and the other thing. Brody just smiled and said “OK”. During that match Brody kicked Lugers ass all over the ring. Luger was screaming like a girl and crying like a baby to be let out of the cage, finally the referee let him out and Luger took off and refused to do the rest of the run with Brody. I did it in Lugers place and Brody and I had some great matches.

RATNW: I’m going to throw out some names and if you would give me your thoughts.
Tom Magee.
Bad News: Good, athletic, who never acclimated himself into the business.

RATNW: David Schultz
Bad News: Good talker, ******* worker and an asshole as a human being.

RATNW: Jake Roberts
Bad News: Great worker, talker, ring psychologist, all around nice guy, weak constitution.

RATNW: Davey Boy Smith
Bad News: Jethro Bodine (Beverly Hillbillies)

RATNW: Roddy Piper
Bad News: Racist Pig

RATNW: Mongolian Stomper Archie Gouldie
Bad News: Nice guy, good worker

RATNW: Bret Hart
Bad News: Cry Baby who believed his own hype. He never realized that this is a work andn he was the promoters champ, not the world champ, he’s just a big time mark.

RATNW: You went to the WWF in 1988, in a SLAM article you mention that you were never really happy there. Can you elaborate on the problems.
Bad News: I was tired of being lied to by Vince and his lackeys whho wouldn’t know the truth if they fell over it. They got me in there with a lie and never stopped the malarky the entire time I was there. I was to take the belt from Hogan they said, that never happened.

RATNW: Talk a little about Vince and how much did you actually deal with him?
Bad News: He pretty much stayed away from me and sent twinkle toes Pat Patterson to do his dirty deeds. At one of our face to face blowouts (Vince and I) I told him what a lying snake he was and I did a lot of yelling. Chief Jay Strongbow told me later that if someone would have opened the door to the room Vince and I were in, about 30 wrestlers would have fell in.

RATNW: White you were with the WWF you have mentioned it was not a good time for you. Was there anything about that time that was positive.
Bad News: Yes I got a lot of TV exposure. I was well known in Japan but not in the US until I went to the WWF.

RATNW: In the SLAM Website article, many people gave their thoughts on your career and many said that you were one of the best heels ever. What do you think makes a good heel and what do you think made you a good heel.
Bad News: To be a good heel you have to look believable and so does your work in the ring. I think what made me a good heel was mostly my looks. A lot of people were intimidated by me, also my work looked brutal and I gave the fans exactly what they expected.

RATNW: You have traveled to many different places to wrestle, including Japan, Italy, South Africa. If you could choose anywhere to live from the places you have been where would you choose and why?
Bad News: Austrailia, it’s a beautiful country. The people are laid back, it’s cheap to live there and I loved it.

RATNW: Is there anywhere that you wished you had wrestled that you didn’t?
Bad News: Two places, Russia and Cuba

RATNW: What would you consider your proudest moment in wrestling?
Bad News: Wrestling The Dynamite Kid

RATNW: Do you watch wrestling today and what are your thoughts.
Bad News: Not to much. It’s not wrestling anymore. It’s all soap opera. Vince is to busy putting himself and his family over. There isn’t any room for good matches that feature anyone else.

RATNW: What injuries have you had in your career?
Bad News: My knees had to be replaced which caused my retirement from wrestling. I had 2 concussions courtesy of Bret Hart and a number of times, stitches due to crazy fans.

RATNW: What are your hobbies?
Bad News: Photography

RATNW: What do you enjoy taking pictures of and have you ever taken photos of wrestling?
Bad News: I enjoy taking pictures of my wife the most and I have taken some of wrestling.

RATNW: How are you spending your time now?
Bad News: Working for Don Callis for TV in Winnipeg and helping produce Martial Arts Wrestling in Calgary.

RATNW: Would you still like to be involved in wrestling and if so what capacity?
Bad News: Promoter

RATNW: Do you collect any wrestling memorabilia at all.
Bad News:; No I Don’t

RATNW: Any final stories that you would like to share.
Bad News: Please read my upcoming book.

[4dogg]

LOL @ 'twinkle toes pat patterson"

[$heriff Tom]

Another interesting reference was Piper as a racist. Thats actually no secret, those stories are all over the place.

[4dogg]

didnt piper go half black face when he grappled bad news?

[$heriff Tom]

Yeah, he did. Half black body, actually. No one is actually sure exactly what he was trying to accomplish there. He was talking some mumbo jumbo about bringing the races together or something, but in that way of Pipers where he rambles and makes no sense. Apparently that whole deal really pissed Brown, and others, off.

[4dogg]

a couple of guys from my neighborhood went black face for our annual labor day parade and wound up losing their city jobs

[MSBNYY]

Someone played a prank on Piper during that match. Stole the stuff that removes the black paint, so Piper had to go through the airport the next day with the paint still on. He was washing that crap off for several weeks.