Sunday, February 8, 2009

In and Out the Wrestling Ring with BigBoyFloyd


Long before Stone Cold Steve Austin was the "foul mouth, finger flipping, beer drinking, whoop a mofo's azz just because he wanted to" wrestling superstar of the late 90's, there was a similair wrestler in Bad News Allen. The only major difference in the ring between both men is that Allen was a brother.

Born Allen Coage in 1943, this cat was a legitamite tough guy. Before he became a wrestler he won the 1976 bronze medal in judo. Another example of his toughness outside of the ring is a confrontation involving the 7 foot Andre the Giant, who had made a racist comment on a tour bus for New Japan Pro Wrestling. Coage overheard it and made the driver stop the bus, walking off and yelling at the Giant to get off and fight him one on one. In one of the few times anyone can remember him backing down from someone, André did not move from his seat and later apologized for the remark.

Allen Coage is probably best remembered as Bad News Brown in the WWF in the late 80's and early 90's. While the roster was mostly filled with ultra-virtuous babyfaces, (good guys) and cowardly and monster heels, (bad guys) Bad News was something entirely different; a tough loner who stood on his own and fought to his last breath. While other heels had hitherto largely displayed some form of affinity to one another, Bad News was reclusive; as such, he respected nobody - not even the other heels - as he showed when abandoning his teams at the Survivor of 1988 and 1989!

Coage eventually left the WWF after Summerslam 1990 due to, as he claimed, Vince McMahon's failure to live up to his promises, as McMahon had originally promised to make him the company's first black champion. Coage would retire from wrestling around 1998 and passed away at the age of 63 in 2007.

Got most of this info from his wikipedia page, click here.

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