Allan Coage is the only American heavyweight to ever win an Olympic medal for Judo. He did so by capturing the bronze in the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, after almost 20 years of training. After his great accomplishment, Coage began a different kind of training. Under the tutelage of Antonio Inoki, Coage embarked on a career in professional wrestling. Today, you probably know him better as either Bad News Brown or Bad News Allen.
Coage made his name in Stu Hart’s Stampede Wrestling. There, he wrestled as Bad News Allen for nearly eight years, competing in matches with future worldwide superstars such as Bret Hart and the Dynamite Kid. During his time with Stampede, Coage relocated to Calgary, which became the city he’d reside in the rest of his life.
In 1988, Coage made the jump to the World Wrestling Federation, changing his name from Bad News Allen to Bad News Brown in the process. The Bad News Brown character was revolutionary. Up until Brown, faces and heels had been cut from distinct molds – the faces were all wholesome and pure, while the heels were scheming and villainous. Bad News Brown, however, established himself as a tough guy. He was a true loner not to taken lightly, an equal opportunity badass who was willing to fight with faces and heels alike. Some significant feuds involved main eventing against the likes of “Macho Man” Randy Savage and Jake “The Snake” Roberts, as well as a very memorable encounter with Roddy Piper at WrestleMania VI. He even challenged Hulk Hogan for the WWF Championship on a handful of ocassions before his departure from the comapny.
Outside of the ring, Bad News Brown was one of wrestling’s legitimate tough guys, one of the few men Andre the Giant is ever said to have backed down from. Following his release from the WWE in 1990, Coage continued to wrestle on the independent circuit for almost a decade before retiring in 1999. On March 6, 2007, Allan Coage died of a heart attack in his adopted hometown of Calgary. He was 63 years old.
