Former WWE wrestler Brian "Crush" Adams dies

[Mr Badguy]

From WWE.com

World Wrestling Entertainment has learned that Brian Adams, also known to our fans as Crush, has been found dead today. More details are unknown; stay tuned to WWE.com as they become available.

Crush (right) teamed with Ax & Smash as a member of Demolition in the early 1990s.

=======================================

Wow.

Another one.

[Antman]

Vince Mcmhaon is the fuckin grim reaper. His ass should be investigated, indicted and convicted. But that will never happen.

[ROTHisGOD]

Not Vince's fault,Bryan Adams career was DEAD way before his physical body was

[Dan]

Not Another One.

[Full Bug]

"Crush" Brian Adams dead at 43


Brian Adams, who worked as Demolition Crush and was half of the KroniK tag team, has been found dead. He was 43.

A Tampa Police Department report obtained by TMZ.com indicated that Adams "was found by his wife unconscious in bed not breathing." She called 911, but medical personel were unable to revive him. He was pronounced dead at the scene. No reason for his death was noted in the report.

Adams was a boxer in the U.S. Air Force, stationed in Japan, when Antonio Inoki discovered him and talked him into going into professional wrestling. When his time in the service was up, he trained in the New Japan dojo for a year. He was one of two gaijin, or foreigners, to make it through the New Japan dojo in the 1980s. The other was Chris Benoit.

In the United States, Adams debuted in the Pacific Northwest in 1986, which was one of the few remaining territories left. He was named The American Ninja under a mask, and teamed with "The Grappler" Len Denton as The Wrecking Crew for a time. The duo held the Pacific Northwest Tag Team titles, feuding with Steve Doll and Rex King. Later in 1990, Adams was Pacific Northwest heavyweight champ. He lost the title to Scott Norton.

In 2006, Norton talked about Adams. "I always had a certain amount of respect for him, because he always thought everything through," Norton said. "He'd make the smallest decision, and he's sitting there, you ask him a question, and give him about two minutes. He'd think about every scenario, how this could go good, how it could go bad, Then he'd answer you. But he'd use his head. A lot of guys don't do that."


In the WWF in 1990, Adams was thrust into the Demolition tag team with Axe (Bill Eadie) and Smash (Barry Darsow). The three shared the tag team titles in the summer of 1990, using the "Freebird Rule" where any pairing could defend the belts. The WWF wanted ultimately to phase Axe out of the team, but when they lost the tag titles, the team lost steam and was disbanded a short-time later.

When the team dissolved, Crush returned to Oregon for a stint, but would return as a "surfer-type" singles babyface in the WWF. A native of Hawaii, it wasn't a stretch. He had a memorable run with Doink the Clown (Matt Borne) and former tag partner Darsow who was then known as The Repo Man.

Adams would run into legal problems in personal life including a short jail term for gun possession in 1995. When he returned to the WWF, Vince McMahon gave him a new persona, playing off his real life problems. A heel Crush was introduced in 1996 complete with a faux tattoo on his face and a biker-style gimmick.

After leaving the WWF in 1997, Adams resurfaced in WCW and joined the New World Order faction. He was never more than a mid-card wrestlers for the promotion, including a one-time appearance as the Kiss Demon (before the role was given to Dale Torborg), until the tag team KroniK was formed when Adams was paired with Bryan Clark. The duo would hold WCW's tag team titles on two occasions.

The titles were a compliment to their abilities, said Clark in a 2005 interview with New Path Productions. "It meant a lot to us. I wish we'd have gotten the push we deserved instead of being held back so that we could have remained champions."

In an interview with the same website, Adams talked about Clark. "Bryan is a great partner, we're a soul team. We knew what each other's next move was without a word between us. That's a real tag team."



Adams as half of KroniK
KroniK was brought into the WWF after the purchase of WCW, a part of the Alliance storyline. The team would feud with The Undertaker and Kane.

That was the last prominent U.S. run for Adams. He and Clark would have one strong run for All Japan, including winning the AJPW Unified World Tag Team Championship over Keiji Mutoh and Taiyo Kea in July 2002. The two would vacant the titles in October 2002, when Adams left the promotion to pursue a boxing career.

Adams would never see his first boxing match, as he suffered a shoulder injury while training for a bout with Rick Zufal in November 2002. He tried to return to wrestling but injured his back in January 2003, ending his career.

In recent years he had worked as a bodyguard to Randy "Macho Man" Savage.
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And another one bites the dust, we need a sticky thread for monthly dead wrestlers.....

[1978]

wow, another wrestler bites the dust.. It's a damn shame..

ANTMAN, why should Vinnny Mac be investigated? Its not his fault that Adams died nor is it his fault that benoit killed his family and then killed himself.. And is it his fault that so many wrestlers have died young? I think not..

[DeadMan1984]

At this point it really doesn't faze me anymore. It's like another month, another wrestling death. Oh well life goes on.

[Dan]

Originally posted by DeadMan1984
At this point it really doesn't faze me anymore. It's like another month, another wrestling death. Oh well life goes on.

But It's Still Sad.

[DLRISVH7884]

Let's rank another one up to Steroids!

We need someone to look in the WWE and find out whats going on!, are these wrestlers choosing to take Steroids or is Vince making them take it.

Either way there needs to be a policy to stop it.

These wrestlers may think it's helping their career and making them look good, but their going to be fuck in the long run and as they grew older.

[Switch84]

Rest in peace to my fellow Airman, but other than that, SNORE.....

[Antman]

Originally posted by 1978
wow, another wrestler bites the dust.. It's a damn shame..

ANTMAN, why should Vinnny Mac be investigated? Its not his fault that Adams died nor is it his fault that benoit killed his family and then killed himself.. And is it his fault that so many wrestlers have died young? I think not..

My point is almost every wrestler runs through the WWE at some point. It has been said on numerous occasions by many wrestlers that you need to be "skin over brick" to make it in the WWE. Vince McMahon has been accused of using steroids himself and has admitted so. Steroids kill plain and simple. If the WWE had a real drug policy (steroids, coke, etc) and enforced it and offered counselling for violators, don't you think there wouldn't be so many dead wrestlers under the age of 50? True McMahon isn't directly responsible, but it's his organization and it has many unwritten rules, one is steroids will help your career. Only for so long though. I actually know a few people who work for the WWE, one of whom was trying to make it as a wrestler, and the shit that I have been told that goes on is for lack of a better term , horrendous. Congress is going after MLB, but they should start looking more closely at wrestling.

[Mr Badguy]

There is an arguement on both sides.

Yes, steroids are dangerous.

However, noone is holding a gun to anyones head to take them.

Wrestling is a career that you`ve got to want to do because, contrary to what you read or believe, it`s NOT fake to the guys in the ring.

You try going to work everyday to get a chair shot to your head or a 300lb guy jumping on you.

It`s a tragedy but shit like this is always going to happen.

[DLRISVH7884]

Originally posted by Mr Badguy
noone is holding a gun to anyones head to take them.

I think Vince might be making these wrestlers to take Steroieds, by telling them to take them otherwise they might not have a job in the WWE and they will fail.

[Mr Badguy]

Originally posted by DLRISVH7884
I think Vince might be making these wrestlers to take Steroieds, by telling them to take them otherwise they might not have a job in the WWE and they will fail.

I suppose, but then again, if you manage to get noticed by WWE then chances are you`re juiced up already.

[DLRISVH7884]

It's kind of interesting how Vince doesn't have tougher drug testing, since it's easy to cheat on the drug test. Cris Benroit did it.

[Smokey McPot]

Why immediately blame steroids for every death?

Benoit was also on Xanax and a bunch of painkillers

Mr. Perfect died from coke

The British Bulldog was a known crack user

Brian Pillman died from painkillers

From the baseball scene, Ken Camaniti was very much a drug abuser

That is of course just a handful from the huge pile of deaths. But the point is is that wrestlers have a tradition of doing so much more than roids. They are very heavy into painkillers and a lot of them use all types of drugs for recreational use. If its just roids that are killing them, then where's the news of all the bodybuilders dropping dead? Football players? Baseball players? Track athletes?

I'm sure steroids does it's damage. But if that was the sole cause of all these deaths, then you'd be hearing about it from a whole lot more sports. Wrestling has a much bigger problem than roids

[DLRISVH7884]

steroids are not blamed for all wrestler's deaths, but it's helped out with alot of it, you know the Bulldog, Pillman and Perfect wore all on roids even though it wasn't the main cause of death.

lots of wreslters have admit they use to or are using roids.

[Full Bug]

Some interesting comments from Jim Ross......

J.R.’s Commentary
We have been hit with more negatively vented comments the past couple of days than I am going to suggest the webmaster post regarding the suspensions of several wrestlers regarding violations of the WWE’s Wellness Policy.

Some of these comments borderline on the insane ramblings of uninformed, albeit passionate people, who now have a new cause du jour to rally around. I must also point out that some of the comments were succinctly written, well thought out and heartfelt. Those might see “the light of day” but the voluminous, seemingly never ending ones will not.

The WWE’s Wellness Policy is real. It is also evolving and improving. Changes to this program needed to be made and are being initiated. The long term health of all WWE Superstars should be, and I feel, is the top priority of the company. It certainly is from my personal perspective. Talent and Television are what makes the WWE what it is today and one without the other is a recipe for less then desired success. Being a former head of talent, I have always, perhaps egocentrically, said that talent was the key to the WWE because that’s what the company is selling; talented, athletic, charismatic performers who draw fans into the talents’ personas by encouraging the fans to emotionally invest. Without talented and highly skilled men and women, what do the TV folks put on the tube? Again, that’s an old, talent guy talking.

Talent being the key to a wrestling company has been true since I was a kid and started watching wrestling on TV in the 1960s. It was the classic good vs. evil scenario with clearly defined reasons as to why “good” was battling “evil” inside a wrestling ring. I was hooked on the product as a small kid and have been ever since. Strong, personal issues between charismatic wrestlers/characters that came to life on our black and white TV screen when I was in elementary school are still memories that I cherish.

Times continue to evolve in all phases of our lives and even though many of us fondly remember and like to talk about the “good old days” and “how wrestling used to be” those days are largely history. That’s not to say most of us won’t still enjoy pro wrestling but it definitely won’t be our grandfather’s wrestling program. But neither is the NFL or Major League Baseball, etc for instance. Their game, the rules, the equipment, the fields, the TV production, etc has changed drastically since I was a kid even though I am a self professed dinosaur. But I still LOVE all levels of football and enjoy MLB’s playoffs and the World Series, for example.

The WWE has suspended several of its superstars this past week for the right reasons.

Some “fans” and many wrestling pundits/critics will say, “well, it’s about time”, or some might say, “it’s only because Congress is looking over the WWE’s shoulder”, and a few, I stress a few, might even say, “Good job, WWE.” You select any response you choose. That’s your right, but most likely the responses will be less than positive because that’s the type of society we seem to live in today. Good news doesn’t travel as fast as bad news nor is it as ratings worthy or as topical. Cable news shows rarely lead off their broadcasts with “good news” and there is a reason for that. It’s called ratings. Controversy does create cash.

I applaud the WWE for taking such a strong stance in suspending many of its Superstars for violation of policy. The WWE cut the wrestlers a break by not making their names public but will do so after November 1 to anyone who is in violation of the Wellness Program. Even though it would have not been totally fair, I would have been tempted to make these recent offenders’ names public on this go round. Most likely or at least in my personal opinion no one violated the Wellness Program inadvertently and everyone knew the ramifications. It will be interesting to see how many “fess up” to their indiscretions and admit their wrong doing and learn from this experience. How many will pass the buck and rationalize that what they did was somewhat, no matter how vaguely, the right thing to do under their particular and specific situations?

Not getting paid for 30 days and being largely forgotten on TV isn’t a good thing for any performer or wrestler. Adding the public embarrassment of the world knowing of the indiscretion will also be challenging and embarrassing for individuals to handle as it relates to their families, including their children, business associates, fans and themselves. Some of these wrestlers could easily lose six figures of income for their lack of judgment. That would definitely get my attention. And if it didn’t, I would suggest I did not belong in the organization. Period.

I don’t know how any of us are going to change the past and the tragedies that have occurred to another generation of wrestlers. I sure wish I could. We can’t bring back our many friends and peers who have left us too early. But we can do something about the future. Things can and must change going forward. And I believe they will.

As mortal beings we can only affect the present and the future to any degree. The past is history and history is to be studied and learned from.

I am saddened and disappointed in those that have been suspended. I hope they learn from their mistakes and can return to the roster and become positive role models to their teammates and to the fans. That opportunity exists. In the meantime, the absence of the offenders from the locker room will provide an extraordinary opportunity to those superstars who haven’t cheated and are still on the active roster. In all candor, I would say fans of the product are in for some interesting TV fare over the next several weeks. New faces in new scenarios isn’t a bad thing.

Opportunity knocks and I can’t wait to see who steps up.

As usual, I am not asking anyone to agree with my personal opinions. This space is my space to express myself and to provide a platform for the visitors of our site to do likewise much more often than not. If you are angered that your comment was not posted, then I apologize. However, there are plenty of forums that will encourage and solicit all the angst one might want to contribute.

I have been honest with you on this commentary and if that isn’t good enough, then so be it. No one asked me to write this nor did any one approve or disapprove it before it was posted in case some of the “Oliver Stone’s” out there might be thinking otherwise.

We will return to our regularly scheduled programming after I return from Columbus, Ohio. Until then your comments and feedback, as always, are encouraged and appreciated, as is your business.

Have a wonderful holiday weekend.
BOOMER SOONER!
J.R.