Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
Vince McMahon and the WWF/WWE have a well known history of bringing in wrestlers that perhaps they shouldn’t have. Sometimes it’s a wrestler they are giving a second chance to, sometimes it’s a wrestler with a bad reputation and other times it’s simply wrestler with name value. Some pan out and some do not. Nobody can really say that Vince won’t try things for the betterment of his business. A perfect case in point, is the WWF’s signing of the tag team known as ‘Kronik.’
Both Brian Adams and Bryan Clark were no strangers to a WWF ring. They both individually wrestled for the company as Crush and Adam Bomb respectively. Adams and Clark didn’t exactly have the best relationship with the WWF and seemingly both left on bad terms.
The duo would both get signed to WCW contracts and eventually were paired up as a monster heel tag team known simply as Kronik. Adams and Clark went on to capture the WCW world tag team titles on two occasions. When WCW folded in the Spring of 2001, Kronik’s contract was not picked up by the WWF. This despite WWF’s desperate attempt to sign as many notable WCW stars to deals to do an invasion storyline. That in itself was a telling sign that WWF’s top brass did not want to deal with Kronik in any way, even though Adams and Clark did have name value.
That all changed in September of 2001, when the WWF signed Kronik to contracts. According to Bryan Clark, he was dead set against re-signing with the WWF and wanted him and Brian Adams to go to Japan and work. Adams on the other hand, seeing as there was no longer a WCW or ECW to fall back on, wanted one last shot at the bright lights of a major US promotion. Adams was good friends with the Undertaker, who helped broker the deal to bring in Kronik despite the protest of some.
Kronik was immediately thrust into a major angle against the Undetaker and his “brother” Kane. As the storyline went, Stevie Richards blamed the Brothers of Destruction for dismantling the RTC (Right to Censor) faction. In a measure of revenge, Richards brought in Kronik who attacked the Undertaker by putting him through a table. That incident, would set up a match against the Brothers of Destruction at the WWF pay per view: Unforgiven.
The main problem with that was Brian Adams and Bryan Clark were out of wrestling for several months after WCW folded. Their was a considerable amount of ring rust on them. Add to that, Bryan Clark claims he was in a serious car accident a month prior to being signed by WWE and injured his back. By the time Unforgiven rolled around in late September, Clark was still not 100% healthy. Clark claimed that the WWF only had them wrestle a couple of house show matches and not much else to get ready for this big match up.
When the match at Unforgiven finally happened, Kronik were really in no shape to have a decent match. It was almost as if some within the WWF set them up to fail. The match which was heavily hyped was considered by many as one of the worst matches in 2001 and perhaps one of the worst matches in WWF history. It was very slow and a bunch of missed spots. Kronik didn’t look at all like the team they once were in WCW.
The end result was the Brothers of Destruction surprisingly defeating Kronik in a little over 10 minutes. After the disaster which was this match, the head of talent relations Jim Ross called a meeting with Adams and Clark. JR offered to keep the team employed, but they had to be sent down to developmental. Bryan Clark felt as if the request was a slap to his face and refused. Clark was ultimately fired from the company. Brian Adams, however, agreed to the demotion and was assigned to the Heartland Wrestling Association based in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Adams would remain with the HWA for a few months, before leaving himself and reuniting with Bryan Clark in All Japan Wrestling. The team would go on to win the All Japan tag team titles during their final run before both retiring. Kronik’s WWF stay in total, lasted a mere two weeks.
