Former WWE Tag Team Star ‘Jumping’ Jim Brunzell Explains Current WWE Lawsuit, Says Vince McMahon ‘Does Not Like Him’, Hulk Hogan Returning

As a member of the High Flyers tag team along with Greg Gagne, Jim Brunzell gained popularity for being among the most fluid performers of the dropkick in pro wrestling history. The High Flyers would be one of the most successful tag teams in the American Wrestling Association (AWA), winning the championships on two occasions, with one reign lasting over a year and was stopped only because of an injury suffered by Brunzell.

In the early- to mid-80s, Vince McMahon was looking to further monopolize the wrestling market. As a result, he managed to spearhead a mass exodus from the AWA to his promotion, WWE. Names included in the leave were Hulk Hogan, Bobby Heenan, Jesse Ventura, The Rockers (Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty), and Jim Brunzell.

In WWE, Brunzell would go on to team with Brian Blair and don the name the Killer Bees. While the team gained mild success in WWE, they were unable to gain a tag team championship run during their entire time as a unit. In a recent episode of the Pancakes and Powerslams Show, Brunzell expressed how he believed that the team split and did not gain a tag team title run, despite being one of the most popular teams, due to McMahon simply not liking him.

“To be honest with you, I really think that Vince [McMahon] didn’t like us, because we could work with any team, and we had a great gimmick. We got over, and the fact was he had mentioned that we were going to beat this team, or beat that team, or get the belts, but we never did. So, it was disappointing for us, but at the same time, you just said ‘Well. We’re making good money, this is the only place to be if you’re in pro wrestling, so we just grin and bear it.”

Brunzell also talked about the recent talks regarding potentially bringing Hulk Hogan back to WWE, after being fired for racially condemning comments he made years ago that were caught on tape.

When asked if WWE is trying once again to capitalize on the brand of “Hulkamania” from a merchandising and advertising standpoint, he responded, “That’s the only reason why they would bring him back. Vince thinks, ‘We’ll just bring Hulk Hogan back to make millions of more dollars.’ To me, I know [Hogan] won this lawsuit against that website. Even if he gets a tenth of it, I would curl up in Florida and just say goodbye and live my life. I mean, he’s in his early 60s, [but] I guess it’s hard for him because he’s so used to being in the limelight, and the opportunity would be enticing. But I’d like to see him just venture off into the next phase in his life and say, ‘Hey. This was this, and now I’m going to relax for the rest of my life.'”

Although Brunzell has been retired from the professional wrestling industry for over 15 years, he did make headlines for being one of over 50 other wrestlers who are a part of a class-action lawsuit with the WWE, citing brain damage and the realization of this from the ongoing and developing research of the impact of CTE.

Section 14 of the Introduction within the filing states, “Publicly, the WWE has taken inconsistent and misleading positions about the nature of CTE and its relationship to head trauma in wrestling. The WWE has sought to cast the issue of long-term risks of head trauma in wrestlers as single incidents involving concussions or aberrant in-ring accidents that result in specific head injuries to individual wrestlers.”

However, with increased research of CTE and their partnership of former WWE star Christopher Nowinski’s Concussion Legacy Foundation, they can no longer hold that claim.

Brunzell recalled a particular incident where he was told to work a match despite having a concussion.

“There was a point in the middle eighties, toward the end there, I worked in Salt Lake City, and I was working against the Barbarian. His finish was a high leg kick coming off the ropes, and he comes flying off the ropes and hit me in the chin and I slammed the back of my head on the mat. I was out. They had to help me in the locker room, I just couldn’t get my bearings. So, for two days, I was sort of nauseated and dizzy, and you know what, I told the guy, and the agents said I still had to wrestle every night. Then, I was in [Los Angeles], and this doctor (Ungar, I believe), was examining me. I told him, I don’t feel too good, I took a bump on the back of my head in Salt Lake City three nights ago. He looked at me and said, ‘Jim. You can’t wrestle. You have a third degree concussion.’

“So, I can’t remember who the agent was who said, ‘He has to work tonight, because we have no substitute.’ We went over and I was working with Hercules, Ray Fernandez, and the doctor told him, ‘The only way that I will let Jim wrestle tonight is if you don’t hit him in the head, slam him, or – in any way – kick him in the head.’ We agreed and had a pretty decent match, and he got disqualified. But, the reason why I did that, was because there [was] no thought in head injuries during that early time of the [WWE]. And what this lawsuit is trying to get is money from the WWE to put it in a pool to compensate for these guys that might have early dementia, and it’s the same lawsuit that got the four billion dollars from the NFL.”

The former tag team champion stated in the interview that he does not regret including his name in the lawsuit, as he feels that WWE deserves to compensate these wrestlers who worked there for many years to make WWE an international conglomerate and only have poor health to show for it.

[Featured Image by WWE]