Bryan Clark: Where Is He Now?
Bryan Clark’s career in professional wrestling spanned an impressive 14 years with tenures with AWA, Smokey Mountain Wrestling, WCW, WWF, and All Japan. Standing at 6’6’’ and weighing 290 pounds, Bryan was a physical specimen who was believably imposing while offering a marketable look both under his own name, Adam Bomb and Wrath.
After graduating high school, Clark would join the military and later received a full scholarship at Central Missouri State where he would participate in college football before transitioning to professional wrestling.
The Early Years
During the later years of AWA in 1989, Bryan would debut as The Nightstalker where he would quickly move into the main event scene. Clark has noted not feeling prepared and credits Ox Baker for getting him those early opportunities.
Bryan’s initial tenure with WCW was rather brief, but he did befriend Paul Orndorff, where he was able to travel with Mr. Wonderful and absorb precious nuggets of wisdom.
Bryan would compete in Herb Abrams’ UWF participating in three matches during the Fury Hour Tapings on June 19, 1992.
Paul Orndorff would soon introduce him to Jim Cornette, who operated Smokey Mountain Wrestling and could further teach the young, inexperienced Clark.
The Nightstalker character was further refined by Kevin Sullivan and Bryan has credited Kevin, Jim and Paul with really teaching him about the professional wrestling business.
With Jim Cornette’s relationship with WWF, doors were opened to bring in Bryan Clark, but under a new gimmick.
Joining the WWF
As part of the New Generation which saw the WWF bestow some pretty over-the-top gimmicks to a handful of their talent, Bryan Clark debuted under the gimmick of Adam Bomb. As part of his backstory, Adam grew up in close proximity to the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident site and was a survivor of the disaster. The exclamation point on the gimmick was giving Adam radioactive-inspired gear, goggles, yellow contact lenses, and a green, later red, tongue.
During an interview with Kayfabe Wrestling Radio, Bryan explained who came up with the idea for the gimmick:
“You know, they sent me a couple of ideas and stuff. They had some house shows, I think it was in the Carolinas and they offered me to come work a tryout; Slaughter called me and said ‘Hey, do you want to come up and work a couple of dark matches’ I asked Jim, of course, and he said ‘Yeah, definitely; go do it’ even though really, if I think back I should have stayed in Smokey for another six months, maybe another year, just to get more training. But, anyway, that’s the way they worked it back then; they’d call you up for a tryout and if they liked you they’d hire you. I had one dark match the first night and they hired me on the spot. They said ‘We’ll work on a couple of gimmicks for you and send you some stuff.’ They sent me some photos and some ideas and stuff and of course one of them was the one they offered Stone Cold which was ‘The Ringmaster’ and the other one was ‘Adam Bomb’. And so I thought, ‘Well, I could probably do a little more with Adam Bomb than I could with The Ringmaster’ as I wasn’t a Ringmaster at the time. So that’s the one I went with.”
Despite a highly marketable look and respectable screen time throughout 1993 and early 1994, Adam Bomb seemed to quickly fizzle out after losing to Earthquake at WrestleMania 10 in 35 seconds, which he has noted were due to time restraints with the ladder match going longer.
Apparently, there were even discussions of making Adam Bomb the Intercontinental Champion, but those plans never came to fruition.
In 1995, Bryan would ultimately decide to leave WWF citing frustrations with his direction and the unapproachable management, particularly Vince.
WCW
Fortunately, Bryan Clark had established a relationship with Eric Bischoff during their time together in AWA. With Eric now running the show in WCW, there was interest in signing Bryan since he was now a free agent.
Bryan Clark entered under the name Wrath as part of Blood Runs Cold angle, which was essentially intended to be a live-action faction/angle modelled after Mortal Kombat within the realm of professional wrestling.
As Wrath, he was a martial artist who wore a helmet inspired by Shao Khan. Despite an over-the-top gimmick during the Attitude Era, Bryan was intimidating enough to potentially overcome the character.
As the Blood Runs Cold angle and characters were phased out, Clark’s momentum was at an all-time high, even after an injury that sidelined him.
Wrath went on a winning streak that was setting him on a path of collision with Goldberg, but instead, WCW opted to have his undefeated streak snapped by losing to Kevin Nash.
Further derailing momentum was a torn ACL injury in April of 1999, that left him out of action for a full 12 months.
Upon returning, he assumed the real name Bryan Clark and was teamed with Brian Adams under the name KroniK. Given their size, the two were a perfect pairing and even captured the World Tag Team Championship on two occasions on May 15, 2000, and at Bash at the Beach 2000. Both title reigns only lasted a combined 50 days.
While both of them were injured, WCW was purchased by WWF and given their impressive looks, the two received immediate interest to be inserted into the tag-team picture.
Back to the WWF
Brian Adams (formerly Crush) and Bryan Clark (formerly Adam Bomb) both returned to the WWF during the September 4, 2001 episode of SmackDown! by attacking The Undertaker.
Apparently, it was Adams who pushed for the two to return as Clark was more interested in pursuing Japan.
This eventually led to a critically panned match against The Brothers of Destruction at Unforgiven 2001.
Adams and Clark were seemingly lost throughout as their timing in all aspects was generally poor. To be fair, Kane and Undertaker weren’t performing at their best either.
With several years of experience under the belts, the two came off as quite inexperienced, which led to Clark’s release.
Clark has noted that while the match sucked and the timing issues were a major factor, so were injuries. Bryan suffered a herniated disk and was unable to perform with one side of his body as well as he would have liked to and Kane was also recovering from a staph infection.
In hindsight, Adams and Clark should have been working house show matches prior to such a major opportunity.
KroniK Reunites
Once Adams was released, the two reunited as a tag-team on the independent circuit with notable appearances in World Wrestling All-Stars and All Japan Pro Wrestling.
Brian Adams and Bryan Clark both wrestled their final matches in the Toyko Dome on January 19, 2003, losing to Goldberg and Keiji Mutoh.
Due to injuries sustained throughout their careers, both of them moved on from in-ring completion.
Life After Wrestling
Tragically, Bryan Clark’s former tag-team partner Brian Adams was found dead in his Tampa home on August 13, 2007, after accidentally ingesting a lethal mixture of prescribed medications.
Brian Adams was his best friend in the business and Clark considered their time together as part of KroniK to be the highlight of his career.
Clark has also participated in a number of shoot interviews touching subjects such as his early years in the business, politics both in WWF and WCW, working alongside Brian Adams, being lied to about potential Intenterconetial Championship run and his dislike for The Kliq. He certainly doesn’t pull any punches.
Despite these remarks, Bryan expressed his desire for a proper send-off by participating in the Royal Rumble in 2014. Unfortunately, the call never came.
Clark was also among a handful of wrestlers who sued WWE in a class-action lawsuit claiming that the company did not provide protection against concussions and other head injuries. The case was later dismissed by a federal judge in 2018.
On February 7, 2020, Clark was arrested on drug charges and weapon charges.
Here’s the full report courtesy of AZCentral.com:
The spotlight is back on two former celebrities — a former wrestler known as "Adam Bomb" and a member of a 1960s pop band — as they face charges in a series of crimes, including transporting narcotics.
Emmett Bryan Clark Jr., 55, and Dennis Miccolis, 73, have pleaded not guilty.
Clark, a former wrestler, faces charges of conspiracy, illegal control of enterprise, transporting or selling narcotics, drug possession and possessing a weapon during a drug offense. The alleged acts occurred in January and April 2019.
Miccolis, the original keyboardist for the band The Buckinghams, faces charges of conspiracy, illegal control of enterprise and transporting or selling narcotics in an incident in January 2019.
The Arizona Attorney General's Office is prosecuting the case. A spokeswoman said it could not give further details.
"This is an ongoing matter," Katie O'Connor told The Arizona Republic.
In a news release, Clark’s attorney, Robert Jarvis would go onto say:
"The police report contains alleged facts that have been grossly misconstrued and are incorrect. This includes incorrect allegations relating to medication and its use.
Jarvis further stated the "ludicrous" weapon charge is based on a family heirloom, a Korean War pistol, that was unused and stored at Clark's home.
"The report also contains speculative opinions which are simply false. Mr. Clark has been targeted because of his notoriety and acquaintances."
Ultimately, the case was dismissed as Bryan proved his innocence.
Currently, Bryan still manages to dip his toes into the professional wrestling industry. On, January 28, 2021, shared on Facebook that he spent time the previous evening training some young lions at Arizona Pro Wrestling.
Prior to COVID, he was also still participating in wrestling conventions.
Bryan has recently made his merchandise available through Pro Wrestling Tees.
With such incredible size and a menacing yet marketable look, it’s a shame that Bryan Clark’s run as Adam Bomb was not given more room to grow or at least the ability to transition him into a new character with the pending boom of the Attitude Era.