If you want a 28-year-old hot take, you’ve come to the right place today. Let’s talk about things that happened almost 30 years ago. I don’t know why, but I was thinking about Adam Bomb recently. Maybe it’s because I was looking through what remains of my Hasbro collection and remembered that he was the missing piece. I always wanted it. That thing was badass – one of the absolute coolest Hasbros in existence, and I never had it as a kid. That green card lineup was hard as hell to find. That shit’s like a status symbol to me. Some people, when they come into money, they want to buy a Rolex or a Tesla or something. Me? Give me the Hasbro green cards. Nonetheless, it got me thinking about how that character fizzled out at a time in pro wrestling’s history when all of the silliest stuff was getting over. Adam Bomb went on a quick run with very few ups and a lot of downs – lost in obscurity, known only as a deep cut to longtime wrestling fans. But, it could’ve been so much more.
The green eyes and red tongue, the whole story about him being a survivor of the Three Mile Island accident, the creepy entrance music with the pyro. That was prime 90s wrestling, with a hell of a back story – some phenomenal source material to pull from. Plus, Bryan Clark, the man, was an imposing figure, who was as athletic as they came for a man his size. Now, I’m not going to act like he was a five-star wrestling classic factory, but to be a man of his size, I actually don’t remember him being that bad of a worker either! At the very least, he wasn’t like some big guys the WWE has pushed in its history. He could put on a decent match.
But, the decisions made surrounding Adam Bomb were baffling – first of all, they put him with Johnny Polo as his manager, who was as goofy as all get out, walking out smiling and waving his arms around like an obnoxious sumbitch. They gave him the old undefeated run against a bunch of jobbers, and then they moved him on to being managed by Harvey Wippelman. It’s easy to be critical in hindsight, especially at a time when managers aren’t really a thing in wrestling anymore, but why does a character like this even need a manager? If he does, why don’t you put someone new out there who is in some scientist gimmick? Make it look like this big motherfucker escaped out of a lab somewhere. After pushing Bomb against nobodies for months, he gets rolled up by Marty Jannetty at Survivor Series ’93 in his pay-per-view debut. Then, Earthquake squashes him in 35 seconds at WrestleMania X. He would go on to turn babyface, and then the WWE books him against jobbers, if they’re even using him at all. They just kept getting cold feet with this dude.
Say what you will about Jim Cornette, but I thought he had a poignant take on why Adam Bomb didn’t work in the WWE all those years ago.
“He would’ve been huge in the 80s.” The timing did seem a little weird – on the back end of the cartoonish era of wrestling, but too soon for the Attitude Era, Adam Bomb took the screen at the height of WWE just throwing shit gimmicks at the wall to see what would stick. Maybe he was pushed a little too soon, too – maybe he was too green to trust with a massive push. I also get the whole ‘not connecting’ thing that Bruce Prichard talked about (though I will take issue with Conrad calling his outfit silly – that outfit fucking ruled). It’s easy for me to say, “well, it’s hard for the audience to care if you’re not doing anything interesting with him” without being there. But, who knows? Maybe they really were trying with Clark and people just didn’t care. But, the gimmick? Nah, man – the gimmick was there…they just approached it all wrong.
I’m not kidding when I say they could’ve done some A+ spooky shit with this character that had supposedly survived a nuclear meltdown. They were so committed to Nailz that people were calling their local authorities to alert them as to his whereabouts. Why couldn’t the WWE have put that same level of commitment into Adam Bomb? They should’ve leaned into the science fiction aspect of it, and had him doing some freakish stuff. Make this dude a mutant because of his size and athleticism. Cut some wild vignettes, and you’re made! He would’ve been a great potential foil for WWE Champion Bret Hart. As a matter of fact, Adam Bomb’s best match in WWE might’ve come against Hart on an episode of Superstars. Nonetheless, you could’ve had this character on par with the Undertaker in terms of the mystique and aura, and instead, you had him throwing foam footballs into the crowd, wrestling jobbers, and getting squashed by Earthquake.
I don’t care what anyone says – this gimmick had legs in the mid 1990s, and Clark was a good enough wrestler to pull it off. Let’s not act like the WWE wasn’t pushing worse workers to the moon back in those days. To me, Kronik is probably the highlight of Clark’s career, but Adam Bomb may have been the coolest. And, it really feels like the WWE dropped the ball with a guy who could’ve been a top level heel by booking him into oblivion. I don’t know why I’m so mad about this in the year 2021, but I’ll stop yelling now.
Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley
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