Brian "Crush" Adams passes away
Brian Adams, also known to our fans as Crush, has been found dead today.
Adams was a boxer in the U.S. Air Force, stationed in Japan, when Antonio Inoki discovered him and talked me into going into professional wrestling. When his time in the service was up, he trained in the New Japan dojo for a year.
In the United States, Adams debuted in the Pacific Northwest in 1986, which was one of the few remaining territories left. He was named The American Ninja under a mask, and teamed with "The Grappler" Len Denton as The Wrecking Crew for a time. The duo held the Pacific Northwest Tag Team titles, feuding with Steve Doll and Rex King. Later in 1990, Adams was Pacific Northwest heavyweight champ. He lost the title to Scott Norton.
In 2006, Norton talked about Adams. "I always had a certain amount of respect for him, because he always thought everything through," Norton said. "He'd make the smallest decision, and he's sitting there, you ask him a question, and give him about two minutes. He'd think about every scenario, how this could go good, how it could go bad, Then he'd answer you. But he'd use his head. A lot of guys don't do that."
In the WWF in 1990, Adams was thrust into the Demolition tag team with Axe (Bill Eadie) and Smash (Barry Darsow). When the team dissolved, Crush returned to Oregon for a stint, then had a run as a "surfer-type" singles babyface in the WWF.
After leaving the WWF in 1997, Adams resurfaced in WCW and joined the New World Order faction. He was never more than a mid-card wrestlers for the promotion, until the tag team KroniK was formed when Adams was paired with Bryan Clark. The duo would hold WCW's tag team titles on two occasions.
The titles were a compliment to their abilities, said Clark in a 2005 interview with New Path Productions. "It meant a lot to us. I wish we'd have gotten the push we deserved instead of being held back so that we could have remained champions."
In an interview with the same website, Adams talked about Clark. "Bryan is a great partner, we're a soul team. We knew what each other's next move was without a word between us. That's a real tag team."
KroniK was brought into the WWF after the purchase of WCW, a part of the Alliance storyline. The team would feud with Undertaker and Kane.
That was the last prominent run for Clark. He bounced around the Japanese and American scene, and injured his back in January 2003. He had been working as a bodyguard to Randy "Macho Man" Savage.
