Former WWE Star Steve Blackman Recount Pitch And Reaction To Infamous Brawl For All Tournament

Former WWE wrestler Steve Blackman has looked back on what is regarded as one of the stupidest ideas of The Attitude Era, the Brawl For All Tournament.

The 1998 tournament, which was said to come from the mind of Vince Russo, saw 16 wrestlers face off in legitimate fighting rounds to prove who was the toughest member of the roster. However, the Brawl For All quickly went off the rails as multiple stars suffered injuries in their first-round matches and Dan Severn withdrew after his fight as he felt that he had nothing left to prove. Additionally, the fans quickly let their feelings be known with “boring” chants ringing through arenas as the boxing matches took place on the pro wrestling show.

The Brawl For All was won by Bart Gunn, who knocked out Bradshaw in the final round. Along with a cash prize, Gunn went on to WrestleMania to face legitimate boxer Butterbean in a contest, which saw Butterbean demolish Gunn in 35 seconds, leading to Gunn’s termination shortly afterwards.

With his martial arts background and being nicknamed The Lethal Weapon, Blackman was considered one of the favourites going into the tournament. However, the Hardcore Champion became one of many who were injured while the tournament continued.

Steve Blackman Says WWE Brawl For All Tournament Was “Horrible” For The Business

Speaking with Chris Van Vliet, Blackman first spoke about how he was pitched the infamous concept:

“[Rolls eyes] All right. I’m at home on one of my days off, the office calls me and they go, ‘We’re having this Brawl For All and it’s a real fight. You wear boxing gloves and you can do whatever you want.’ I thought it was just somebody in the office ribbing me, because you got to remember those wrestlers do nothing but rib each other. So I’m like, ‘Yeah, sure we are.’ Then, I think it was Bruce Pritchard, he’s like, ‘Steve, we’re having a Brawl For All, and you can do whatever.’ I said, ‘Let me get this straight, we’re gonna have a Brawl For All. I can kick, shoot, punch, knee, elbow…’ And they’re like, yep. I said, ‘What’s the prize?’ And they said, Well, you get an extra five grand a week and then the prize at the end, whatever it was. I said, ‘Well, I don’t believe you, but go ahead and sign me up.’ I didn’t believe him. I thought the whole thing was a rib, one of the guys playing a joke. So we get to the next TV, I haven’t trained for this in a while, and I never forget. We get there, and they’re like, you’re fighting Mero tonight in the Brawl For All. I’m like, this thing’s real?! Okay.”

Continuing, Blackman spoke about wanting to throw kicks in the fight due to his martial arts expertise, which Vince McMahon quickly shot down, adding that the fans

“So we go out in the ring, and there were 16 of us in it, we’re going over the different things we could do. I said, ‘Well, he told me I’m allowed to kick when he called me.’ When we were out in the ring, Vince is like, ‘What kind of kick do you mean?’ And I should have thought faster. I stood there, and you know how in the MMA, most of us do fast, hard shin kicks. I flew with one and Vince was like, ‘No, no. ‘And Bradshaw’s like, ‘There’s no way we’re taking those.’ I’m thinking, why didn’t I just do a slow side kick or front kick or something just slower? I went out there and flew with it because I was warmed up. I’m like, Oh! So now they insisted no kicking, because I’m the only one out of 16 that wants to kick. Well, there’s no knees, there were no elbows, there’s no head butts. It’s a boxing match with takedowns.

So they put me against Marc [Mero], who in boxing was probably the best in there. I think he won New York Golden Gloves five years. So, great. So we go out there and they said, ‘What are you gonna do?’ I said, ‘I’m gonna take him down every 10 seconds.’ Well, if you counted, I took him down 13 times in three minutes. I shot a jab. I threw a jab. Shot through a jab. Shot the third or fourth time I threw the jab, I faked the shot, and it came over top with a bomb. He was pretty quick. He ended up dropping his chin just a hair because I caught him here, and his feet staggered, or I finally caught him on the chin a couple of inches lower, I dropped him. But it was funny, because those gloves were massive, brand new. It was like wearing mittens like this to box with. I’m like, Who came up with this idea? Then three of the guys got hurt, and it just was horrible for the business. The people didn’t even know what the hell was going on. I keep taking him down. People in the crowd are like, what is this?”

Concluding, Blackman also noted that he thought he was going to win the tournament, but was hit with injury while training for the next round:

“I did think that. And then after I fought Marc, I’m like, Okay, let me go home and train now, and let’s get moving here. So one of my friends at home was about 6 foot 3, 300 pounds, amateur wrestler his whole life. So I started working, we started training, and he waist locked me, and just as he waist locked me, I wasn’t expecting him to sit so fast, he sat on the side of my leg and tore the cartilage in my leg. I’m like, Oh, my God, this can’t be happening. We were just starting to do warm-ups. I was going to throw, he’d throw, I’d throw, and he just sat on the side of my leg. I couldn’t believe it. I had to get my leg worked on then, and I couldn’t finish the thing. And I was livid, because I wanted to get out there at that point. And so that’s what happened there.”