The WWE during the “Attitude Era” was a time of rapid growth and change for the company. A lot of new wrestlers were added to the roster, as well as a legion of new fans. This rapid expansion led to a lot of new fans who were unfamiliar with many of the new wrestlers on the roster and not a lot of extra TV time to introduce them all.
One of the new hires that WWE management was highest on was “Dr. Death” Steve Williams. Williams was a star in the old NWA and WCW, as well as very successful in Japan, but new fans were mostly unfamiliar with him. WWE needed a way to make fans interested in Williams, along with several other wrestlers who they were not utilizing at the moment.
During this time period, WWE was gaining new fans all the time. However, they were also competing with not only rival WCW for fans, but with promotions specializing in mixed martial arts and “tough man” contests. As several of the wrestlers who were not being utilized were legitimately tough men, especially Steve Williams, WWE came up with a concept called “Brawl For All.”
Brawl For All was a tournament where WWE wrestlers took part in shoot fights. Unlike other WWE contests, the fights during this tournament would be real. The outcomes would not be scripted. WWE wrestlers would fight for real and whoever won, won.
The “plan” was for Steve Williams to destroy his competition, getting heat as a legitimate tough guy and this getting the fans interested in him. From there, he would get a big push and become a star once again. Unfortunately for Steve Williams, things did not go according to plan.
The first major problem was with the Brawl For All Matches themselves. The wrestlers involved were not professional fighters at heart, they were entertainers. As a result, the matches were slow paced, as the fighters didn’t want to get injured. They also didn’t have the high spots and exciting finishes of scripted matches. Add in a complicated points system that most fans didn’t understand and you have a recipe for poor TV. During the first week of matches, fans in attendance could be heard chanting “We want wrestling!” during the Brawl for All matches.
Another thing that worked against the shoot style fights was the fact that in a real fight, anything can happen. Steve Williams was a heavy favorite to win the tournament and WWE was counting on him coming out on top. However, once the fights started, Williams was eliminated by KO in the second fight by Bart Gunn. Williams didn’t last long in WWE after this, as the tough guy mystique he was being pushed with vanished with the upset.
Bart Gunn went on to win the entire tournament, which actually didn’t do much for his career. He had one more Brawl For All match at that years Wrestlemania against Butterbean, who KOed Bart in 30 seconds. After that, he was gone from the WWE soon after, as was the brawl for All concept.
The Brawl For All was a bold experiment by WWE, but it was ultimately a flawed concept. By promoting the fights as “real,” it just made all the other wrestling matches seem illegitimate. The matches, being unscripted, were slow paced and unexciting. Instead of making fans interested in the wrestlers involved, it made them bored. Guys who were being pushed as legitimately tough who got Knocked Out lost all of their heat with the crowd.
Oddly enough, while the Brawl For All was a failed experiment that did nothing for the careers of anyone in WWE, it actually launched Bart Guns’ career in Japan. In Japan, Steve Williams was revered for his toughness and his great matches. When bart Gun knocked him out, he gained instant credibility in Japan and had a place to work when WWE let him go.
By any measure, the Brawl For All was a failure. However, it does stand out as one example of a time when WWE was willing to make a bold gamble. it didn’t pay off, but one would wish they were more willing to try new, innovative concepts today.