WWE Superstars you didn't know were Olympic athletes

An Olympian
Courtesy: WWE

By Kevin Hunsperger

@kevinhunsperger & @my123cents on Twitter
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Angle at the 96 games

Many times people hear professional wrestling and automatically think FAKE and discount the men and women who work hard to train and perform year round. Some Superstars come from very decorated amateur sports backgrounds. We all know Mark Henry, Kurt Angle, Ken Patera and the newly drafted Chad Gable competed in the Olympics. But here are a few more that I (and maybe even you) didn't know were part of the games. By the way, Angle is the gold medalist to have wrestled in WWE.

Allen Coage aka Bad News Brown

Bad News Brown competed in judo in the 1976 games. He represented the USA and won the bronze medal that year. Brown went on to a great career in the squared circle, spending much of his time in Japan and Stampede in Canada. I best remember him in WWF in the late 80s, winning the WrestleMania IV battle royal and feuding with Bret Hart. He had a series of matches against WWF champion Randy Savage and battled Hulk Hogan too. Other big feuds including "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, Jake "The Snake" Roberts and "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan. Brown retired in 1999 and died in 2007.  

Danny Hodge

Danny Hodge wrestled at the 1952 Olympics, finishing fifth and four years later won the silver medal. Technically Hodge never competed in WWE, but has been on a couple of episodes of Monday Night Raw in the past. His professional career was over before I started watching wrestling, but from the stories I've heard from others, Hodge was truly a great in the business.

Mad Dog on the Olympic list
Courtesy: WWE

Mad Dog Vachon also wrestled in the Olympics. In 1948 he represented Canada in the games. He won his first round match in less than a minute, but later lost to the eventual bronze medal winner. Vachon went on to become part of the infamous Vachon family in wrestling and is the uncle of Luna Vachon. He  retired a few years after I started watching wrestling, but I remember him being part of the AWA at that time. We were on hand for his Hall of Fame induction speech in 2010. Mad Dog died a few years later at the age of 84.

Doing research for this piece busted a wrestling myth I long believed. The Iron Sheik apparently never competed in the Olympics. Good luck to all our Olympic athletes. Maybe one day we'll see some of the men and women competing right now in the squared circle too.

Black History Month: Bad News Brown

Bad News Brown

By Kevin Hunsperger
@kevinhunsperger on Twitter

My first memories of Bad News Brown are actually when he was Bad News Allen and wrestling in Stampede for Stu Hart.  I had never actually seen him wrestle, but I read about him in magazines like "The Wrestler" and "Pro Wrestling Illustrated."

Then in early 1988 he entered the WWF.  Same bad ass look, but with a new last name.  Allen became Brown.  I'm not exactly sure why, but he had a real mean streak.   One of his first appearances (it may have been his debut) he won the battle royal at Wrestlemania.  He and Bret Hart teamed up to eliminate the Junkyard Dog, then Brown turned on Hart and nailed him with his finisher, "The Ghetto Blaster" and tossed him out of the ring.  With the victory came a giant trophy that Hart smashed into bits, thus setting up a feud with Brown.  Bad News went over in the battles they had, which was sorta surprising to me considering what Bret came to accomplish in his career.

Like I mentioned, Brown was billed as a tough guy and a loner, never being able to get along with his Survivor Series teams.  If memory serves me correctly, he walked out on both his teams in 1988 and 89.

Brown vs. Piper

Besides the time against Bret Hart, other notable feuds Bad News Brown had included a brief battle with Randy Savage for the WWF title.  Brown and Hogan also had some heated contests.  At Wrestlemania 5, Brown and Hacksaw Duggan had a fight for the ages.  They battled to a double DQ, and at the end of the match, Duggan ended up with a big snot rocket in his beard.  Jesse Ventura nearly puked doing the commentary.

But for me, one of the most memorable moments of his career came at Wrestlemania 6.  He and Roddy Piper were feuding after things got out of hand between the two at the 1990 Royal Rumble.  Brown believed Piper was a racist in the storyline and to prove that color didn't matter to him, Piper wrestled with half his body painted black.  It was a site to behold, and only fueled the fire for Bad News.  The two wrestled to a double count out.

Later that summer Brown engaged in a feud with Jake "the Snake" Roberts, promising to bring his sewer rats out to take care of Jake's snake Damien.  I don't remember there ever actually being a rat, maybe just a picture, but I could be wrong on that account.  Shortly after their match at SummerSlam, Brown left the company.  He stayed on the indy scene for a while before retiring in 1999.

Sadly, Brown died in 2007 of a heart attack.  He was 63 years old.  While he didn't gain the gold in the WWF, he did get a lot of notoriety playing the role of Bad News Brown, and the man behind the character, Alllen Coage was an accomplished Judo star.  He won the bronze medal for the U.S. Olympic team in 1976.  More than 30 years later, he's the only American heavyweight to have won a medal in Judo. (That's according to Wikipedia)

Going for the Gold...Again

Kurt Angle vs. RVD at a WWECW house show 2006

By Kevin Hunsperger

Kurt Angle is going for the gold...again.  The Olympic gold medalist has announced plans to train to wrestle again for Team USA in 2012.

That's quite an undertaking.  I don't know much about Olympic wrestling, but I would image that most of these athletes are in their 20's.  Kurt Angle will be 43 by the time the games roll around.  But seeing his intensity (integrity and intelligence) from his Olympic run 15 years ago, I have no doubt that if anyone can make the cut, it's Kurt.

As he prepares to take on this task and start training, he's announced that he will scale back his involvement in TNA.  That makes perfectly good sense from the standpoint of training.  Angle is obviously taking this serious and wants to focus on the Olympics.  In his words (from an interview with Talksport in England) Angle said he will "make odd television and pay-per-view appearances with TNA while he trains.

I'm not sure if they'll somehow use an angle (no pun intended) to get him off TV, or will TNA capitalize on this and use the Olympics as part of a legitimate program for the show.  I think if Kurt makes the team, this will be a big win for he and TNA, especially if they're going to capitalize on the whole "wrestling matters" theme that they're trying to put over right now.

The training will be hard, but like I said, if anyone in the business right now could make it happen, it's Kurt Angle.  I wish him the best of luck as he reaches for this goal.

2012 will be here before you know it, so I'm curious how soon he'll start this leave.  I'm supposed to attend my first TNA show next week, and I'm hoping Angle is a part of the event.  He's advertised right now.