Bryan Clark and Brian Adams

[Judy Bagwell]

what are your guys generals thoughts on the runs they both had? if you had to include one of them (at the peak of their powers) on a roster which would you include?

as a tag team were they less than the sum of their parts or greater? was that match against Kane and Undertaker as horrible as history paints it?

[DMJ]

At their respective peaks, I'd take Bryan Clarke.

 

To me, Crush was pretty awful in every setting/situation, excluding maybe the Doink feud because, well, it was fun to see Doink outsmart him and make him look like a total joke.

 

Clarke, though, has the Blood Runs Cold feud, which, as I've rewatched it recently, was actually a pretty cool, unique midcard storyline for a little while there. Now, Clarke is certainly being carried in those tag matches against Glacier and Ernest Miller by Mortis (Kanyon), who fills nearly every match I've seen with at least two or three nifty, innovative spots, but that's two or three more nifty spots than I've ever seen Crush be in the ring for.

 

I'd also say, based on pure look, Clarke had the more impressive physique, though, I'm just as ready to admit that, move for move, Crush was probably the better worker based on what I assume was having better training and more experience. Still, that almost makes Crush work because he's a guy who had multiple chances to work with all-time greats and seemed to get less interesting as time went on. Clarke may have sucked his whole career, but it's not like he ever had extended opportunities to learn the craft beneath Bill Eadie, Barry Darsow, and Randy Savage among others. In other words, Crush was a prospect who became a bust, while Clarke was just a career lower card guy that didn't exceed expectations because expectations were low from the start.

[The Thread Killer]

All I know is they were responsible for not one, but two of the worst Pay Per View matches in history.

 

First at Unforgiven 2001 against Taker and Kane, and then at Wrestle-1 in January 2003 against Muta and Goldberg. The second match was extra painful because it was so damn long. Like 18 minutes, and it seemed like an hour.

 

I was watching that Wrestle-1 Main Event with a friend I've known for over 30 years, and we've watched a ton of wrestling in that time, and after we both agreed that may have been the worst match we'd ever seen...and that covers a lot of ground.

[C.S.]

I'd take Adams. Unlike Clarke, Crush was fairly over and had decent undercard runs on both the face and heel side. In contrast, were either Adam Bomb or Wrath even remotely over? No, not really.

 

Plus, when Adams showed up in WCW, a friend's kid brother went nuts. This was during the Nitro era when much bigger names were showing up every week. Fun little memory.

[NotJayTabb]

Kronik were so bad, never understood how their name (a "witty" WCW reference to drugs) matched up with the team.

 

That said, I watched Great American Bash 2000 the other day, and Kronik vs the Mamalukes was actually ok. No resting and it looked like Vito and Clarke weren't afraid to work snug with each other.

[JaymeFuture]

I'll take Brian Clarke just based on the fact that Crush was pushed and pushed in different incarnations for years and he always fell short of the mark. Every time. His 1998 overexposure in WCW was appalling, the fact he didn't want to sell for Flair or lose to Goldberg is laughable in itself, but when paired up for Kronik, Adams is far and away the weaker link of the team.

 

God, the match with Kane and Taker is horrible, and Adams' individual performance is all time bad. His "head into the post" on the outside might be the laziest thing of the year.

 

To the contrary, when Wrath got his one big push in WCW in 1998 beating people with the Meltdown, he did get over and start getting reactions that made you think that not only was it working, but they could have done more with the crowd interest. And I've literally never felt that about Crush.

[Luchaundead]

I'd take Adams. Unlike Clarke, Crush was fairly over and had decent undercard runs on both the face and heel side. In contrast, were either Adam Bomb or Wrath even remotely over? No, not really.

 

Plus, when Adams showed up in WCW, a friend's kid brother went nuts. This was during the Nitro era when much bigger names were showing up every week. Fun little memory.

 

Wrath was getting hecka over squashing jobbers on B and C shows with the occasional Nitro appearance until Goldberg showed up and was running essentially the same gimmick but much more effectively.

 

With that said I would pick Clarke for sure he had a better look over all and worked way more believably as a big man and in the caparison of these two that's really all they had going for them. I also find Clarke way more fluid in ring and can't think of anything in a match that Adams did better you could argue that Adams was a better talker but still he's not selling tickets with his promo so I go Clarke all the way with James Vandenberg managing. My biggest problem though is how much I would hate to have to live in a world where we were actually forced to live wherein there is one without the other we are all so fortunate that his is just a thought experiment and not reality.

[funkdoc]

i secretly kinda like Bryan Clarke for whatever reason

 

his match with Mabel from one of the early IYHs (maybe even the first one?) is one of my favorite quick squash matches ever, especially given who was in it. for whatever reason, Clarke decided to completely work his *ass* off for those 2 minutes. seriously, check it out!

[PhilTLL]

Kronik were so bad, never understood how their name (a "witty" WCW reference to drugs) matched up with the team.

 

 

 

Because--hold on to your hat--both guys enjoyed the illegal smile in real life, and they got paired at the beginning of the 2nd, even SHEWT-IER Vince Russo era in WCW.

 

Clarke, by the way. He tried a lot harder at just about everything.

[El-P]

From what I get from shoot interviews, Adams was a cool and very funny guy in real life. While Clarke came off as an asshole with an unwarranted ego.

 

In the ring though, Clarke wins hands down. I always wished he was pushed more than he was, I was a fan of Adam Bomb for fuck's sake. He had some really fun stuff in WCW when he was teaming with Kanyon. Then he got over again in 1998 when they gave him a streak on Nitro, only to have Nash squash him on the route to kill Goldberg. Kronik was an awful team though, they looked like two giant clowns on steroids.

[Grimmas]

i secretly kinda like Bryan Clarke for whatever reason

 

Me too. Like Adam Bomb and Wrath a lot. He had a cool aura and squashed people.

[TonyPulis'Cap]

Having just gone through the whole of the WWF in 1997, Crush is so sloppy and boring in every single match. Despite being in the ring with someone of the talents of Dustin Rhodes, the King of the Ring 97 match between Crush and Goldust still makes me wake up in a cold sweat at how dreadful it is.

 

I remember when Kronik first became a team in WCW in 2000 and thinking that at first they looked 'OK' and they were kind of getting over as ass kicking babyfaces against the likes of the Mamalukes and Palumbo and Stasiak, but then they became this crappy rip off of the APA where they would get hired to be hitmen or something that for some reason included a skit of them in a sauna at one point (have tried to blank out that memory). They were also part of an awful 5 minute PPV main event against Goldberg when it was clear WCW had basically thrown in the towel.

 

And having seen it within the last couple of years, yes, that Unforgiven match against Taker and Kane is every bit as bad as its reputation.