Brian Lee is a personal favorite of mine from 90s wrestling. He was 6’7, almost 290lbs, and could put on a respectable promo. Basically, he was The Undertaker if the Undertaker stopped developing as a wrestler at a certain point. You might know him better as The Underfaker from SummerSlam 1994 or Chainz during the Attitude Era as part of DOA.
The Career of “Prime Time”
This guy always had some potential to be better throughout the 90s. His growth was slow because of the route he took in the business—also his demons and blown opportunities. Like his cousins The Undertaker and the Harris Brothers, he rolled through Memphis and WCW early on.
Unlike The Undertaker but much like the Harris Brothers, he would appear for Smoky Mountain Wrestling and ECW. Also, unlike the Harris Brothers, he would find a regular spot in both promotions with SMW being his home promotion.
Lee was a guy who was a magnet for chances in wrestling. He got a shot in WWE as The Underfaker and was supposed to stay with the company a while after SummerSlam 1994, he was released. Three years later, Lee was brought back to be a part of the Disciples of Apocalypse biker faction.
After leaving in 1998, his chances dried up until 2002 when he joined TNA. That lasted until 2003. After that, Lee just drifted the indies. There were no more shots at the national spotlight for him.
Salvaging Brian Lee
This is a very particular case like John Kronus. The key to salvaging Brian Lee was catching him pretty early and figuring out what gimmick to run with him. He could talk and in his youth from 1992 to 1996, he improved rapidly and also kind of aged into a menacing look.
Before that, he was a big dude with something of a babyface. As a matter of fact, that’s how he arrived in Smoky Mountain Wrestling: a big old, generic babyface. If WCW picked him up in 1990 or 1991 when he did matches for them and paired him with Dustin Rhodes, they would’ve had something.
I’d say that Brian Lee could’ve been salvaged into a star if he had stayed with ECW and the “Bulldozer” gimmick was pushed. As it happened, once he left for WWE, Bam Bam Bigelow took his spot on the roster and he ended up in a non-descript biker trio with his cousins in the Disciple of Apocalypse.
Which is odd because the gimmick wasn’t going to work for all of them in one group but the biker gimmick worked a while for Lee in ECW and he should’ve taken it elsewhere. Also odd is that gimmick worked for The Undertaker.
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