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Brad Armstrong: Don?t Forget This Wrestling Hero!

Posted: Mar 8th 2016 By: normanwrites.com

In the most thankless of businesses, one man deserves thanks. From a fandom group known for having pretty short memories, he should never be forgotten. After never receiving anywhere near the credit he should have during his career, during his life, it?s time to finally give it to him.
Perhaps the most underrated man in wrestling history, Brad Armstrong gave so much to the business. It's time to say thanks.

Perhaps the most underrated man in wrestling history, Brad Armstrong gave so much to the business. It?s time to say thanks.

His name was Brad Armstrong. Not quite the typical moniker in sports entertainment, dominated by men and women who create and often change their names to perform, sometimes even letting their character names bleed over into their personal lives (OK, so Armstrong?s real name was Robert James, but that falls quite short of people like Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, and others so deep in character we can?t tell the persona from the person!).

Very few make it anywhere in wrestling, and that?s not only because the WWE is pretty much the only major game in town anymore. Even when WCW, ECW, the AWA, and any other major federation was running high, one?s odds in making in big in the business are right down there next to Powerball.

For years, he waited. In one federation after another, he did all he could to make it big. Many people who made it farther didn?t give nearly as much as Armstrong did. But time and again, by one promoter and territory after another, he was passed over. Time and again, he?d get this close to the top level?and fall back, or be pulled back. So many others hit it bigger and went higher (including Armstrong?s own brother), while he was only left watching, knowing ? although not complaining ? that most of them were no more, and probably far less, talented and deserving than himself.

But Brad Armstrong never quit. Never stopped trying. Kept going when so many others would have given up far sooner (I know I sure as hell would have). And it?s too late for fans to say thanks to him directly. It?s too late to let him know how much he meant. But a person like him, the exact type that make pro wrestling the beautiful thing he saw it has, deserves to be remembered forever ? and we can take steps to ensure he will be.

When you?re young, wrestling?s pretty easy to understand. There?s two guys, or sometimes two teams, tossing each other around the ring. One is a good guy, the one who high-fives the fans and thanks them over the PA system. The other?s a bad guy, the person who does countless interviews telling you how great he is and how the world had better keep reminding him of it.

The good guy wins, you cheer. The bad guy wins, usually from outside interference and foreign object usage, you boo and yell at him. But you sure as hell hoped never to meet the bad guys ? like Andre the Giant, with the mile-deep voice and wide-eyed, sinister grin straight into the camera, an image that tormented you long after the show went off.

At that age, like in the glory days of wrestling in the 80s and 90s, when tidal waves of money were rolling into the then-World Wrestling Federation, most fans, like me, were lucky enough not to know much about what happens backstage in the sports entertainment business. Things like politics. Things like the travel schedule wrestlers face, which has become ludicrously difficult since pay-per-view events became monthly back in the late 1990s. The injuries these people suffer, and the steps they?re forced to take to overcome them ? it?s a tough fact to realize that they?re not the invulnerable supermen (and women) that we see them as when we?re young. Those measures, usually from the medicinal sense (legal and safe or otherwise) are a big reason why so many, far too many, in the business don?t last long ? at work or even life itself

There?s no off-season. No union. No healthcare. Many of them have trouble even getting insurance. The pay?s not all that ? mainly because there?s hardly anywhere big to work anymore ? and those in the big leagues are on the road nine or ten months out of the year.

Many, probably even most of us, on the outside, can?t quite fathom why anyone would want to be a part of this business, let alone stay there. But that?s not the question we?re here to discuss. We?re here to pay tribute to one who did, and hope that others will as well, because there are still many out there that give everything of themselves and so much more to wrestling; they believe that it?s a beautiful thing.

Their reasons for feeling this way? Well, that?s up to them. Their dream, their justification, their business.

For many, it?s a very tough business. Wrestling jargon calls these guys the ?jobbers,? or the ?pre-lim? fellows. They?re the ones who introduce the newcomers, the ones the bosses hope will be their next hit. These are the guys that fly around the ring just by being touched, the ones that let the new guys do all their big moves, to get especially brutal and show off how hard they can work, often to seduce, or intimidate, audiences into wanting to (pay to) see them again, in a tougher match. Then the jobbers just usually fade away, until the next new name comes to town.

Brad Armstrong should have never been at that level, or at least stayed there. His dues were paid early, with interest rates in the stratosphere. He should have been pushed to the moon.

For a time, it appeared he might be. One of the top stars from the south in the NWA (the organization that would morph into WCW) in the early 80s, Armstrong scored a Rookie of the Year honor from fans. For the first half of the 80s, Armstrong moved up and all over the NWA. He ever took on Flair, the perennial federation champ of the time, and the rest of the legendary stable of the Four Horsemen. Many thought he might one day, one day very soon, sit on Flair?s throne. Everyone hoped Armstrong would stay at or near the top for quite some time.

Everyone was disappointed. Armstrong bounced around the business for a few years, waiting, hoping for a push that always seemed one day, one week, on TV taping away. One ludicrous gimmick after another (Candyman? Badstreet? Arachnaman?) failed for him, as Armstrong kept laying down for anyone management asked him to lose to.

Then, in the summer of 1992, things nearly fell back into place. During a routine TV match that everyone expected to be a squash, Armstrong suddenly slammed down Scotty Flamingo (you now know him as Raven, but you?d never in a million years connect the two), and pinned him. The crowd exploded, shocked that a title change had taken place outside of a pay-per-view. Armstrong had always gotten his share of respect for the fans ? as the new Light Heavyweight champ, it appeared he?d finally gotten it from management as well.

Once again, it wasn?t to be. Armstrong hurt his knee soon after, and had to forfeit the title. Trying so hard for so long, he wouldn?t get to enjoy the rewards. It was back to jobbing to one newcomer after another in one federation after another, for years.

By the time Armstrong made it back to WCW in 1996, his brother Brian was at the top of the nearby WWF (soon WWE), as Road Dogg (?Oh, you didn?t know?! Your ass better caaaaaaaaallll somebody!? whatever the hell that meant), part of the New Age Outlaws and eventually Degeneration-X, wrestling?s main stable for years.

Why the WWF (or E) and Armstrong never got together is unknown to most. But back in WCW, he was still getting treated like property, losing again and again in one horrible persona after another, even parodying his own brother as Buzzkill, a gimmick that lasted less time than you?ve been reading this.

It?s tough to think of another wrestler who got mistreated (if not mistreated, at least ?under-treated?) by so many, and still stuck around. Letting others toss him around the rings every night, coming out and leaving to a response that got smaller and smaller as fans caught on that he wasn?t getting pushed, no exposure, no mention, constantly being taken for granted?who would put up with it?

Armstrong did. It?s one of the main reasons we owe it to him, and to ourselves, never to forget him. He took ?team player? to a new level. He sacrificed so much time and health for so many, many of whom probably never said thanks, and never quit, never complained, never put up the egotistical front that far too many of wrestling?s big names have hidden behind. He gave more than he should have, and asked for nothing in return.

And far too often, that?s exactly what he received. But it shouldn?t stay that way.

Over the past decade, the WWE?s been paying tribute to those who, according to them, have done enough to be forever remembered by the business. For a few years back in the 90s, the company held some ceremonies to welcome its top stars of the past into the Hall of Fame.

The practice disappeared for a while, but it came back in 2004, and it?s one of wrestling?s biggest annual deals, next to Wrestlemania, which the Hall of Fame precedes. Over a hundred people from wrestling?s past have been made a part of history.

Induction qualifications are unclear ? what were they going to do, form a committee of a few dozen wrestling historians and have them vote on it? ? but it?s tough to say that any past inductees don?t deserve to be there. Flair, Hogan, Harley Race, Bobby ?The Brain? Heenan, Bret Hart, Steve Austin, and many others.

In 2011, Armstrong and his brother helped induct their dad Bob, one of the backbones of early wrestling in the south (and, yes, the Hall does have a special wing for ?celebrities? that have dabbled in the business, and the fact that it holds such questionable folk as Pete Rose, Mike Tyson, and?.Donald Trump ? yes, he was at Wrestlemania once! ? doesn?t really help its credibility!).

This year?s class includes longtime icon Sting, and Badstreet?s old partners, the Fabulous Freebirds. But there?s always room for at least one more.

Too many inductees didn?t live to see themselves enshrined. Eddie Guerrero was hastily added after his sudden passing in 2005. Former champs Yokozuna and Curt Hennig also died far too soon, and not just for the Hall. My all-time favorite mat man, the Junkyard Dog, was inducted in 2004, six years after his tragic death in a car wreck.

The business of wrestling missed too many chances with Brad Armstrong. He could have carried some companies. Could have been the main face of others. We say could have, because we?ll never know. And Brad Armstrong is dead now, and it?s too late for wrestling to tell him thanks, to his face.

Nothing in wrestling is ever easy. Going somewhere, staying there, making it big, it?s the epitome of difficult. It?s hardly possible at all. But we have one chance, one simple way, to give this underrated man what he?s deserved for so long. One way to do everything we can to help those that never got to see him, and those in generations to follow, appreciate all he did. He was a rarity in wrestling, because he did and gave so much more than most. Rarities like him deserve rare honors. Special honors.

Let?s give him what he always deserved. Let?s put him in the class he earned so long ago. In a special way, let?s keep alive a memory that wrestling should never forget.

Brad Armstrong: Hall of Fame, Class of 2016.

Please make it happen.