Continuing my week to week favorite wrestler blog, next on the list is Crush!  So far my favorite wrestlers have gone as follows: Brian Pillman, Lex Luger, Ultimate Warrior and now I am to Crush.  It was 1992 and 1993 when I was in the fifth grade and I thought Crush was the coolest wrestler on the roster.  He was incredibly strong, had a sweet mullet, had colors that no one else was wearing and his entrance music was awesome.  I thought it was so cool that he was billed from Kona Coast, Hawaii.  I was so enamored with Crush, that I insisted that I be referred to as Crush.  My fifth grade teacher allowed me to be called Crush in her class room, and I along with a lot of my classmates thought it was cool that I was being called Crush.  It allowed me to come out of my shell a little bit, as I was a shy awkward kid with glasses and pretty much the only kid that liked pro wrestling.  Being referred to by a wrestlers name would happen to me again in my High School years, which I will get to next week when I talk about my fifth favorite wrestler.

Crush was a lower mid card wrestler at best at the time, but I was really a big fan of the guy.  He had a few opportunities at the intercontinental title, but was unsuccessful.  His greatest rivalry was with Doink the Clown, which kind of tells you how well he did as a baby face.  He originally started as a third member of Demolition, with Ax and Smash.  When Demolition left or retired, that is when he became the Orange, yellow and purple wearing Crush.  About a year of this character and a lackluster run, WWE decided to turn him heel.  He was much better and more successful as a heel, but I didn’t like the character.  Which means he was good at his job.  Crush as a heel, went on to have a great feud with Randy Savage.  That was probably the most successful he would be in his career.

It was probably 1996-97 and WWE at the time was big on factions.  They had The Nation of Domination, Los Boricuas and the Disciples of Apocalypse, a biker gang which he was a part of.  The three factions battled for the better part of a year, before Crush left the WWE in late 1997.  Some have speculated he left in protest to the Montreal screw-job.

In 1998, now going by his real name Brian Adams, he jump to WCW and joined the nWo.  He was a staple in the nWo faction for a good year, but was not used in any high card matches.  I believe he wrestled Goldberg for the World championship once, but obviously didn’t win and the match was forgettable.  After his nWo stint he was The Demon and I think Kronik, but truthfully I wasn’t really watching WCW at that time.

My fondest memories of Crush will always be the Kona Crush character.  After that I really didn’t follow his career much, but for that year when I was in the fifth grade, Crush was all I talked about.

Unfortunately Crush passed away in August of 2007 from an accidental drug overdose.  He was only fourty-three years old at the time, but his wrestling career was over.  He had moved on to boxing, but never really had much of a career at it.  He left the wrestling business quietly and you didn’t hear much from him after WCW was purchased by WWE.

Although he was number four on my favorite wrestler list, he had the shortest tenure as one of my favorite wrestlers.  After he turned heel and after his feud with Randy Savage, I took a couple of years break from watching wrestling, and focused on sports.  I became a big fan of the NFL and the San Francisco 49ers.  That took over my fandom for a couple years until probably 1996, when I started watching wrestling again.  That’s when I took notice of a wrestler who became my fifth and all time favorite.  A lot to talk about with this next wrestler and I will dive into that next week.

Quick read today, but I wanted to get to Crush.  An important figure in my wrestling fandom and my childhood.  Have a great weekend and as always thanks for checking out gohomepwb.com.