From my wrestling board
From today's Calgary Herald (written by the author of Pain and Passion)
OBITUARY
Wrestler Allen good at being bad
Stampede veteran remembered as fierce ring villain
HEATH MCCOY CALGARY HERALD
Out of all the monster heels that terrorized Stu Hart’s Calgarybased Stampede Wrestling over the years, Bad News Allen may have been the most feared.
At one point his reign of terror sparked a riot on the Calgary Stampede grounds, causing announcer Ed Whalen to quit the show. All in a night’s work.
Today though Bad News fans around the world are feeling sadness instead of fear, knowing that the professional wrestling villain has passed away.
Bad News, whose real name was Allen Coage, died early Tuesday morning at Foothills Hospital where the 63-year-old was taken after complaining of chest pains. The cause of death was heart failure.
Allen’s wife, Helen Coage, says that even though her husband had for the past six years been taking medication for an enlarged heart, his sudden death surprised family and friends.
“He never smoked, never drank alcohol, never did any drugs whatsoever,” she says. “He was the cleanest living guy. No poisons would pass his lips. He never even got sick.”
Coage, who was born in Harlem, N.Y., first gained international recognition as a martial artist. He won a bronze medal in Judo at the 1976 Montreal Olympics before breaking into the wrestling business in Japan in the late 1970s.
When promoter Stu Hart brought Bad News to Calgary in 1982, he was billed as a vicious Harlem street fighter, described in one Herald account as looking like “Mr. T’s bigger, meaner, brother.” He quickly became notorious for his brutal matches and the catchphrase insult he had for Calgary wrestling fans, dubbing them “beerbelly sharecroppers.”
His violent, often bloody over-thetop style — Allen was known to use forks, fire extinguishers, and even a fire-axe on his enemies — got the wrestler and Hart in trouble with the Calgary Boxing and Wrestling Commission. One infamous match in particular, on Dec. 2, 1983 at the Victoria Pavilion, on the Stampede grounds, when Bad News supposedly crippled the son of Archie “The Stomper” Gouldie, was the source of civic scandal.
Allen’s act, part of the make-believe world of professional wrestling, was so convincing that he provoked a genuine riot at the Pavilion.
“People just went nuts,” said Stu’s son, Bruce Hart, years later. “It became an Orson Welles War of the Worlds type thing.”
The Calgary Boxing and Wrestling Commission suspended Bad News and levied huge fines against both he and Stu Hart. It also suspended Hart’s promoting licence for the remainder of the year. Ed Whalen, the wrestling show’s beloved announcer, quit on the air, disgusted by the violence.
“When he did his interviews everybody was fearful of him,” says Spencer Tapley, who worked for Stampede Wrestling as Mark “The Shark” DiCarlo. “Even Ed Whalen couldn’t figure out when News was (being serious) with him or (playing his part). It was very funny . . . But for Stampede Wrestling, next to Archie “The Stomper,” I think he was the all-time number one heel in the promotion.”
Another former wrestler, Gama Singh, remembered Bad News as one of the most legitimately tough men to ever set foot in the ring. “He was one of the very few guys you didn’t want to cross,” Singh said. “You tip-toed around him and tried to keep him as happy as possible.”
Allen reached the big time in the late ’80s when he wrestled for Vince McMahon’s WWF, where, newly christened as Bad News Brown, he fought such stars as Hulk Hogan, “Rowdy” Roddy Piper and Jake “The Snake” Roberts. In the latter feud, a humorous storyline was played out in which Bad News was deathly afraid of the pet python, Damien, that Roberts would bring to the ring.
At one point, Bad News appeared on the Arsenio Hall Show where, as per his character, he ranted and bullied the talk show host with the flat-top afro, comparing Arsenio’s head to a picnic table. Hall got his revenge when he brought a live snake onto the set, causing Bad News to flee in supposed terror.
“Vince McMahon wanted Arsenio to use a rubber snake,” Allen’s wife Helen remembers. “I said ‘I’m sorry, you’re not going to run from a rubber snake.’ Allen said: ‘This is show business. It doesn’t mean anything.’ But when we met Arsenio he said ‘No way am I letting you be afraid of a rubber snake. I got a real one.’”
Bad News left the WWFin 1990 over a dispute with McMahon. Eventually his sporting injuries caught up with him and he retired in 1998 undergoing surgery to have his knees replaced. He became a security guard, but continued to teach judo and wrestling to youngsters. Allen earlier this year had his hip replaced, an operation his wife believes put a strain on his weak heart.
“I knew the other side of him,” Helen says. “He was a sweet, kind, teddy bear. . . . The complete opposite of what Bad News Allen was in the ring. . . . But he never wanted the public to know that side of him.”
Allen’s funeral is scheduled for 1 p.m. on March 13 at Leyden’s Funeral Home.
), and only the second American to win a medal for the USA team. To this day, Mister Coage is still the only American Heavyweight ever to win an Olympic medal in Judo. In addition to Olympic Bronze, he was also a two-time Gold Medal winner at the Pan American games. He earned the rank of Grand Champion in 1970, and was inducted into the Judo Hall of Fame in 1990.
