One Man Gang, Akeem The African Dream, Krusher Broomfield

Its been a while since Ive posted anything. Tonight I had some time so I decided I would throw something together about pro wrestler George Gray. Gray started wrestling in the Northeast Tennessee, Kentucky territories under the ICW promotion when he was only 17. He basically was a jobber with the promotion and wasnt very successful. *During the time he was with the promotion Ronnie Garvin was the Heavyweight champion and his ring moniker was "One Man Gang".

Gray left ICW for the NWA where he would develop the character we would come to know as One Man Gang. He would also go from having long hair and dressing very dully to the mohawk punk rock biker guy thing.
One thing that never changed about Gray was his size. The behemoth was 6'9 and 457 pounds at his largest. An early gimmick of his was the 5000 dollar bodyslam challenge. His manager, Oliver Humperdink the third , would get wrestlers to come out and try to bodyslam them and everytime a babyface would start to get him up over their shoulder that dirty little bastard Humperdink the third would get involved. The gimmick was great ring psychology. Here's a sample:


During his time in the NWA wrestling he also was doing time in the UWF, WCCW, and worked in Japan. His hard work brought him success. He won many titles including NWA's Brass Knuckles and United States Tag Team belts. He became one of only four UWF Heavyweight Champions after Terry Gordy forfeited the title due to an injury. He would lose the title 5 months later to Big Bubba Rogers.

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One Man Gang made his debut in WWF in 1987. Gray was accompanied to the ring by his new manager simply known as Slick.
He mostly did squash matches with the likes of Reno Riggins. You remember that guy right?


The problem with Gray was that he wasnt great with promos. He pretty much relied on a manager to speak for him. I think his lack of "personality" is what screwed him during his time in the WWF. Although his size and presence and talent should have spoke for themselves the WWF's biggest stars were the most absurdly expressive with all the "OOOOOH YEAS" and "WHAT YA GONNA DO'S" of that era Gang was pushed back into the spot of the big guy who gets the super hero's like Hogan and Savage over.


After a short period of wrestling low and mid card matches feuding with Don Moracco, Bam Bam Bigelow and others One Man Gang dropped out of site. During his absence Slick begain hyping a new mystery wrestler. He promised to reveal the new wrestler to Mean Gene Okerlund. Of course the new guy was Gray's new gimmick, Akeem the African Dream. Apparently One Man Gang needed to get back to his African roots. The new gimmick teetered on the line of being racist and just stupid but whats for sure is that it was totally absurd.

Heres a video of the transformation:


During the Akeem phase Gray teamed up with former UWF rival Ray Taylor, now wrestling as Big Boss Man. As the Twin Towers the two giants wreaked havoc on the tag team scene and came close to winning the tag titles a couple of times.Its totally ludicrous that the Towers didnt gain the titles due to the fact that they were so damn dominating but sadly these two former UWF Heavyweight Champions were given stupid gimmicks and used to get over other tag teams and, like before the gimmick change they were stuck getting over Hogan and Savage during their Mega Powers phase. Heres the Twin Towers with Andre Vs. Hacksaw and Demolition.



After the Towers split Akeem fueded with the Bossman until Wrestlemania IV where he lost and soon after left the WWF. In 1991 Gray went to WCW and brought the One Man Gang gimmick back to life during a strange "voodoo ritual" with his new manager Kevin Sullivan. During this time his only fued was with El Gigante.Heres a great video from that period http://en.kendincos.net/video-fjhnjl-el-gigante-vs-one-man-gang.html He lost a Loser Leaves WCW match to Gigante and didnt return until 1995. He joined up with Kevin Sullivan again joining "The Dungeon of Doom". During this short time in the WCW One Man Gang did hold the WCW United States title winning it from Kensuke Sasaki then losing it to Konnan on his way out. Konnan VS. One Man Gang can be seen here: http://en.kendincos.net/video-djdfrn-konan-vs-one-man-gang-u-s-title.html

One Man Gang spent a very short time in ECW wrestling one match with Abdullah the Butcher. After this he spent some time wrestling in indy promotions here and there but has basically been semi-retired since 2000 when he had a heart attack. He now is a prison gaurd in Angola prison in Louisiana. The last match he had in a big promotion was in the Gimmicks Battle Royal at Wrestlemania 17: