BRUISER BRODY: "I'll never find out!"- once when asked what it felt like to lose, as quoted in The Pictorial History of Wrestling: The Good The Bad and The Ugly by Bert Randolph Sugar and George Napolitano.
Dave Meltzer: "Bruiser Brody is another one. He was in some of the great matches of all time, but he was also in some of the worst matches of all time when he was in the mood."- commenting on the AWA World Heavyweight Champion Nick Bockwinkel (w/Bobby "The Brain" Heenan)-Bruiser Brody match on Volume 1: Busted Open! of the Wrestling Gold DVD series.
Charlie Brown From Outta Town: Red River Jack, after losing a Loser Leaves Town match in Texas. Would appear as himself with a second RRJ when one was needed to "prove" Brody and Jack weren't the same person. The second RRJ was played by the late Rick Davidson of the Los Angeles-based Davidson Brothers. Rick Davidson. NOTMark "The Undertaker" Calaway. William "Percy Pringle"/"Paul Bearer" Moody, who worked with both Brody and Calaway, confirmed that it was not Calaway under the second mask.
The Dragon: In the Sheik's (Sheik Adnan Al-Kaissie) Army in the AWA. Also, after Stan Hansen won the Mid-South Wrestling North American Heavyweight Title on May 2, 1977, cut a promo on "Cowboy" Bill Watts, the promoter and top star of Mid-South, about how it was his job to beat up Watts so that Hansen wouldn't have to worry about associating with "filth" like Watts.
Everyone Went To School Together: He, Stan Hansen and the Funk brothers (Terry and Dory Jr.) all attended West Texas State University around the same time.
Expy: The most blatant was John Nord, who patterned his Barbarian and Berzerker gimmicks directly on Brody, taking the Berzerker gimmick into full-on Viking territory. "The Barbaric Berzerker" Jimmy Jacobs drew on both, right down to the furry boots and "HUSS!" chant.
Wrestlers such as Hacksaw Jim Duggan, the Barbarian (Sionne Vailahi), Cactus Jack, "Mean" Mark Callous and Vader (who started out in the AWA in the 1980s as "The Baby Bull" Leon White and had some matches with Brody) all definitely drew a lot from Brody.
Foreign Wrestling Heel: In Japan. Also worked with one, Sheik Adnan Al-Kaissie from Iraq, as a member of the Sheik's Army in the AWA.
Garbage Wrestler: Considered the greatest brawler in wrestling history, so much so that, after his death, Dave Meltzer of The Wrestling Observer Newsletter renamed the "Best Brawler" Award, which Brody had won seven times, The Bruiser Brody Memorial Award. Brody's death predated the debuts of Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling in Japan (1989) and of ECW in the U.S. (1992), however the wrestlers and fans of those promotions all point to Brody as being, along with Abdullah the Butcher and the Original Sheik, as one of the founding fathers of Hardcore wrestling.
That said, Brody was also great with Wrestling Psychology and had a strong grounding in technical wrestling, which enabled him to have great matches with Terry Funk and Ric Flair in the territory days, thus subverting this trope.
No Sell: Brody was notoriously selective with who he would sell for, but it added greatly to his tough guy character. It was noted in the book Brody: The Triumph And Tragedy Of Wrestling's Rebel that it took a huge effort just to make Brody go to one knee, but anyone who managed it would instantly get over. When Brody did sell though, it was an amazing sight.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Had a notorious reputation among promoters for being hard to work with and refusing to job, and would in fact walk out if he didn't like a situation.
Part of this was due to his secure spot in All Japan Pro Wrestling and not wanting word of a job he had done to get back to AJPW's boss, Giant Baba.
You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry: Sometimes, rather than walk out if he didn't like a situation, he would do what he could to wreck it instead. Infamously refused to cooperate with a young Lex Luger in a cage match in Florida in 1987, scaring Luger enough for him to climb out of the cage and run away. Bill Alfonso, the referee for the match, has said that the lesson was that you don't tell a veteran how to work a match.
, which later became part of All Japan's Triple Crown Heavyweight Title
0 reviews