Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
Back in the 1980’s, the World Wrestling Federation was “kayfabe” governed by one man. The official title was president of the WWF. That man was none other than Jack Tunney. Sure, there other WWF Presidents before and after Tunney…but none had the impact that he had from his run that started in 1984 and ended in 1995.
President Tunney was basically used as a figure head authority figure, making decisions…some controversial…to dupe fans from knowing lead broadcaster Vince McMahon was really the man pulling the WWF’s strings. Tunney, for the most part, stayed away from anything physical or confrontational with the wrestlers. There was, however, one exception and it happened on November 29th, 1988.
The show was WWF Superstars and the setting was the weekly Brother Love talk show segment. Brother Love scheduled WWF President Tunney to be his special guest on the show. After being introduced, Brother Love confronted Tunney on why he as president allows wrestlers to bully and intimidate him on his own show. When Love demanded Tunney take action…Tunney simply said “no.” That led Bad News Brown to interrupt and walk on stage.
Bad News began wondering why he wasn’t the number one contender for then WWF champion ‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage’s world title. Brown accused Tunney of being on the Macho Man’s payroll by saying that Tunney lived in a mansion, had a yacht and drove a Rolls Royce. President Tunney denied the allegations. That ticked off Brown, who then said this probably wasn’t even about Savage, but Savage’s manager Miss Elizabeth.
Bad News wondered aloud if Miss Elizabeth was “doing favors” for President Tunney. This made Tunney snap and started poking Brown’s chest saying things like “How Dare You?!” and “I am the President of the WWF” etc…
Bad News Brown then snapped and grabbed Tunney by his tie and proceeded to choke the him with it. This of course was one of the only times Jack Tunney got physical in his WWF run. The entire purpose of the segment was to elevate Bad News Brown as a main event challenger for Randy Savage’s WWF title. According to Brown, Vince McMahon had promised to make him the first ever black world champion…something that Brown had truly craved. Unfortunately, that never occurred for Bad News and he eventually quit the company.
Getting back to the segment, it really was effective to make Bad News Brown look like a real tough, badass (which he was in real life) and position him as a top challenger for the WWF title.