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It's a great pity that most people's memories of Crush will be - in somewhat kayfabed form as "The Man Who Ruined Demolition." In many respects he was the fall guy - bolted on mid-way through Ax and Smash's final _title_ reign. It was he who took the losing final pinfall from the Hart Foundation at Summerslam '90 that ended The Demolition Era of three tag _title_ reigns inclduing the longest in the WWF tag _title_'s history - thus at least sparing the blushes of Ax and Smash themselves. Come to that it was also he who lost Demolition the earlier equalising fall by DQ for manhandling the referee. And it was he and Smash who, after Survivor Series '90, had to steer the sinking ship as Demolition was reduced to glorified jobber status over the winter of '90/'91, leading many fans to feel that Crush/Smash was besmirching the name of the old Ax/Smash pairing.
In fairness, Crush achieved a considerable amount as Demolition's third man. Most of all, he managed to turn Ax and Smash, two beloved babyfaces and former "cool heels" into a credible pair of crumb heels who the fans grew to actually hate - and this with only three years pro experience. This dark moody sadist suddenly appeared in the summer of 1990 taking Ax's place in the team, cruelly brutalising people like that nice blond pretty boy Shawn Michaels. Fans were reviled by this harsh monster and began to turn off Ax and Smash themselves for having anything to do with him. Although Demolition still had some of the audience cheering for them at Summerslam, the audience loudly sided with the Hart Foundation.
This cleared the way for Demolition, after the _title_ loss, to form alliances with the rest of the heel community - signing up for Curt Hennig's team at Survivor Series, drafting in Macho King Randy Savage for one six man tag when Ax was unavailable, ultimately burying the hatchet with Mr Fuji and bringing him back as manager. Heat for Crush - and reflected heat for Ax and Smash by association - also helped to get the Legion Of Doom over as massively popular WWF babyfaces. Without an evil archenemy for the LOD, WWF fans might not have known what to make of them. What is more remarkable was that said heel archenemies were the very team the LOD had displaced as top babyface team. That was the effect of Crush. He did what Mr Fuji singularly failed to do in 1987-88 -he got fans to hate Demolition.
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Having achieved all this, for his next trick Crush then became a succesful lead babyface for a promotion - with no previous babyface experience. Up until this point he had wrestled only as American Ninja Bryan Adams or else as Demolition Crush - one character a nasty martial arts sadist, the other the rotten man who corrupted Ax and Smash.
With no prior warning, this career heel of three years arrived in Don Owen's PNW - his old home from his American Ninja days - and on his very first night back formed an alliance with ex-Southern Rocker Steve Doll. The two quickly captured the PNW tag team titel and the strong handsome young Crush - still dressed and made up as a Demolition member - became a massive fan favourite in the Northwest US. So much so that he soon became PNW heavyweight champion - along the way putting out of wrestling the promotion's lead heel Rip Oliver. In a matter of monthsm he had gone from villain4life to Superhero of a small pond.
Inevitably this got him picked up by his old bosses as the WWF where he was rebranded with a new orange outfit - although the Crush name stayed. His Summerslam '92 match against ex-partner Repo Man (the former Smash) shows how over he was with the WWF crowd. It is only a pity that his push in the WWF was curtailed as other priorities took over.
A few years later, one again a villain and once again managed by Mr Fuji, he came back and fought Randy Savage at Wrestlemania X in a brutal falls count anywhere match. Still later, even after he got into legal trouble over his gun/pharmaceutical/replica banknote collection, he came back as an even darker character - head of the Disciples Of The Apocalypse biker gang, principles in the mid/late '90s Gang Warz and as such, a major pillar of the WWF Attitude era.
But all of this was very much the post_script_. His two great achievements in the ring were - (1)with little experience he was so over as a WWF heel that he heelified the most beloved babyface tag team in the WWF by very association - and - (2)with ZERO experience he was drafted in as lead babyface superhero of a legendary US regional territory and rose to the challenge admirably, becoming THE face of the promotion and catching Vince's eye again in the process. Remember him for these two things.
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