Monty Brown: TNA's Biggest Missed Opportunity

When setting up a promotion, higher-ups can often find the free agent market to be light on recognisable stars, with big names often already being under contract. Occasionally, however, a promotion may luck out as they uncover a rare, uncut gem from those wrestlers that are available.

That is exactly what happened in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling in 2004, as an unheralded, uniquely-charismatic talent was given the forum to build their name, with seemingly only air and space separating them from stardom. Within just three years, however, they were out of the business entirely, never to return. 

Over a decade on from their last pro wrestling match, ‘The Alpha Male’ Monty Brown remains an unforgettable curiosity in the history of pro wrestling in the 21st century. 

Montaque ‘Monty' Brown was born in Saginaw, Michigan on April 13, 1970. As a teenager, Brown found himself enamoured by the colourful world of professional wrestling. Years later, he admitted that his childhood bedroom walls were adorned with posters of wrestling greats, with one wall in particular dedicated to "The Nature Boy" Ric Flair.

NFL Career Ends In Injury

Though he was naturally athletic, Brown didn't initially pursue wrestling at the appropriate age, instead going down a path that many future wrestlers take: gridiron football. He attended Ferris State in his native Michigan, where he made his presence felt as a hard-hitting linebacker. Ferris State, however, wasn’t exactly the strongest pipeline into the NFL, but Brown made his way into the league regardless, signing with the Buffalo Bills as an undrafted free agent in 1993. 

The 240-plus pound Brown was active for 13 regular games in Buffalo that season, and went on to play in the Super Bowl loss to the Dallas Cowboys. After three seasons in Buffalo as a reserve linebacker and part of the special teams unit, Brown signed with the New England Patriots for the 1996 campaign. There, Brown earned more time as a starter, recording 34 tackles across seven starts. Once more, Brown was part of a Super Bowl team, but unfortunately fell short again, as the Patriots lost to Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers.

Citing a chronic ankle injury, Brown made the 1996 season his last in the NFL, and was retired by age 27. All was not lost, however. Brown has noted that his signing with the Patriots was spurred by his ulterior motive of being close to Stamford, Connecticut, the home of WWE HQ. 

A Short TNA Run

With football now in his past, Brown began pro wrestling, training with Dan Severn and Sabu. Three years on from his final pro football game, Brown had his first pro wrestling match on the Michigan independent wrestling scene. Soon after, he became nicknamed ‘The Alpha Male.’ 

In July of 2002, 32-year-old Brown received his first opportunity to wrestle on a national stage when he appeared on the third-ever weekly pay-per-view from Total Nonstop Action Wrestling. His first match was a veritable squash, as he destroyed local wrestler Anthony Ingram in under 90 seconds, finishing with a power bomb.

Brown had an undeniable presence. He was muscular, had an obvious physical charisma, and, unlike with many other heavyweights on the TNA scene, nobody could call him a WWE cast-off. That said, he appeared to be very green, even in a truncated bout.

In the weeks ahead, Brown only wrestled four more matches for TNA, including a win over "Prime Time" Elix Skipper in a Detroit Street Fight, and a loss to NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion Ron "The Truth" Killings, before departing by the early autumn. Brown later noted his quick exit was due to a lack of a discernible identity for him, especially in a company that itself was trying to establish a firm identity, and constantly shuffled things around.

For the next 18 months, Brown gained further experience on his local indy scene facing the likes of Sabu, Colt Cabana, Chris Hero, and even former WCW booker Kevin Sullivan. 

Back To TNA

On March 10, 2004, Brown was brought back to TNA with another opportunity, and this time he stuck around. Monty kicked off his second run with the promotion by costing Insane Clown Posse and 2 Tuff Tony a six man Dark Carnival match, firmly establishing him as a heel.

By 2004, Brown as The Alpha Male was far more defined. Claiming to hail from the Serengeti, the former pro footballer promised that his opponents were feeble prey, poor souls with the misfortune of treading upon his hunting grounds. This was complete with a rip-off version of Disturbed’s ‘Down With The Sickness’ which only provided a palpable intensity and added even more to Brown’s aura.

What contributed further was Brown’s finisher of the Pounce, which would see the Alpha Male launch himself at a perpendicular angle into a staggering opponent with a huge shoulder tackle, sending them soaring through the air in the process. 

While his ring work had improved and Brown looked like star material between the ropes, it was his promos that resonated most. Nobody in 2004 was cutting promos quite like Monty Brown and nobody really has since.

With his face contorted into a rigid grimace, Brown alternated between violent threats and comic whimsy. He compared his various opponents to different docile animals, while affirming the horrible things that he, The Alpha Male, was going to do to them out on nature's battleground. Then he'd ad-lib with bizarre sound effects, or perhaps menacing remarks toward interviewer Scott Hudson.

You never knew what his promos would consist of, and it's quite possible that even as Brown stepped in front of the interview set, he didn't fully know either as he had the rare ability to deliver promos that simultaneously sounded focused and unfocused. 

Though he was supposed to be a heel, fans found it hard to boo Brown and he quickly grew in popularity as he stacked up wins against the likes of Sabu, Brian James, D-Lo Brown, and Ron Killings. By the time TNA moved to a monthly pay-per-view model with Victory Road in November 2004, Brown was a babyface and looked like more of a star with every passing day, and he picked up big wins over Raven and Abyss. 

At the dawn of 2005, Brown found himself near the apex. For January's Final Resolution pay-per-view, eternal world champion Jeff Jarrett was supposed to defend against 52-year-old Randy Savage. However, Savage pulled out of the event some time earlier, and TNA now had a giant void in their main event.

To remedy this, Brown was placed into a three-way number one contender's match the night of the event against former WCW World Heavyweight champions Kevin Nash and Diamond Dallas Page. The winner would face Jarrett at the end of the evening for the belt.

Brown outlasted the two veterans to earn the shot, and it looked for all the world like TNA was about to make a star. Jarrett was a reliable placeholder, but Brown appeared to be the man for now and for tomorrow. The media appearances, the momentum, the rare energy, the lightning-in-a-bottle mystique - it was all there. But it wasn't to be.

Following a typically overbooked finishing sequence to the world title bout, Jarrett survived the Pounce and finished off Brown with the a guitar shot, followed by three Strokes.

TNA had a long-term plan for 2005 which would see Jeff Jarrett as champion until later in the year, at which point he would drop the belt to AJ Styles, which ended up taking place at May's Hard Justice. The decision not to crown Monty Brown was a huge missed opportunity for TNA, however, and Brown shouldn’t have been booked in the match at all if he wasn’t going to be the wrestler with his arm raised at the end of the night. 

TNA’s booking of the Alpha Male then only worsened. Following a lamely-executed feud with a Terminator-like wrestler named Trytan, Brown suddenly, and inexplicably, turned heel, helping Jarrett retain the gold over DDP that March. Not only could he not beat the lukewarm titleholder, but now he was playing second fiddle to him in storylines as his broad-shouldered sidekick.

In the months ahead, Brown worked as a mid-card heel, teaming with Billy Gunn for a time before breaking off on his own again. Attempts were made to rebuild Brown as a singles heel, and a win over Jeff Hardy that November was a show of good faith. However, Monty ceded losses to TNA's new biggest star in Christian Cage, after the popular star jumped ship from WWE, with one loss occurring at Destination X in March of 2006 for Christian’s NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship. 

By this point, 14 months had passed since TNA stumbled at the line with completing Brown's championship circuit. Recapturing that lost feeling felt far from an imminent proposition.

Through the summer months of 2006, Brown worked with fellow bruisers in Samoa Joe and Rhino, and came out on the losing end of a well-received three-way dance that August at Hard Justice. The match (as well as an improvised promo he cut that night during an in-show delay) was effectively Brown's last hurrah with TNA, and he left shortly thereafter, following the expiration of his contract.

A two and a half year run with TNA - not counting the two months he spent there in 2002 - yielded no championships for Brown, in spite of the otherworldly momentum and palpable buzz he'd created for himself as the unconventional Alpha Male. To this day, fans and critics remain mystified that TNA failed to pull the trigger and belt up Brown.

TNA's Loss Is WWE's Gain, For A Short Time Anyway

Following his TNA exit, Monty Brown signed with Vince McMahon’s pro wrestling behemoth in November of 2006, making his formal debut on the ECW brand two months later.

Brown maintained his Alpha Male nickname and the Pounce as his finisher, but he would now be known as Marcus Cor Von moving forward. His entrance music was also changed to a lighter, jazz piece named “Smooth” that failed to match the ferocity of the wrestler it heralded.

On ECW, Brown received the traditional beginner's push, toppling enhancement talents before beating "Extreme" gatekeepers like Balls Mahoney, The Sandman, and Tommy Dreamer.

Cor Von soon joined The New Breed a group of heels that endeavoured to take control of ECW from the time-tested originals. Flanked by Matt Striker, Elijah Burke, and Kevin Thorn, the quartet battled four ECW originals at WrestleMania 23 in Detroit, but fell short when Striker was pinned by Rob Van Dam. Though the group did manage to win a rematch two nights later on the Tuesday ECW show, none of the four were particularly building a head of steam, Cor Von included.

The New Breed soon dissolved following a calculated undermining from CM Punk, freeing Cor Von to stand on his own two feet. Could he reclaim the faded momentum of his earlier TNA push as a singles star? We'll never really know.

In mid-June, Cor Von was one of four competitors in a mini-tournament to crown a new ECW World Heavyweight Champion, following Bobby Lashley's abdication of the belt. He wrestled CM Punk, while Elijah Burke took on Chris Benoit. Little did anyone realise that after Cor Von lost to Punk, he’d never wrestle again.

Brown disappeared from WWE television due to what was described as "personal issues" at the time. Three months after that match with Punk, Brown requested his release from the company and received it. 

It was later revealed that Brown's sister had passed away, and he went home to help raise her children. Brown maintains that he walked away from WWE on good terms, and that the door may have been open for a possible return. However, Brown opted to leave his childhood dream behind. He had wrestled his last match at age 37, less than three years after receiving his first world title push on the national stage.

Post In-Ring Retirement

In the years following his in-ring retirement, Brown became a personal trainer in his hometown of Saginaw, developing his own fitness program called Alpha-1. He also started his own line of athletic wear in Scripture Clothing.

Many years later, Brown resurfaced a few times in the wrestling world, albeit in non-active capacities. Fellow former TNA alum Robert Roode shared a photo of the two together at a WWE house show in Saginaw in February 2019, with Brown sporting a fuller beard. Reports also indicated that Brown visited several tapings of IMPACT Wrestling and it was revealed in 2020 that after Brown made those backstage appearances, that attempts were made to convince him to return to the ring for a Past vs. Present show that was scrapped at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Brown has remained happily retired, although he made a rare public appearance at Starrcast 2025 over AEW All In weekend, which came months after TNA tried to induct him into the promotion’s hall of fame but were unable to do so as they couldn’t get in contact with the Alpha Male. 

Monty Brown's Legacy

It's hard to believe that nearly a decade and a half has passed since Brown flew across the wrestling ring, jarring one poor wrestler after another with his shoulder, once more establishing his loftiness on the squared circle food chain. For reasons that are noble and understandable, Brown walked away, but it doesn't keep one from wondering, "what if." 

Even before he made the decision to be there for his family, "what if" was still being asked concerning Monty Brown. What if TNA rode the wave and had him pulverise Jarrett that night in 2005? What if TNA held off on the match until a later date, when the promotion would have perhaps been less married to their ordained plans, and more keen on making good with Brown's surging popularity? The truth is, Brown could have acquired all available accolades in those interim years, and still walked away when he did. You never really know.

Monty Brown as a wrestler is relegated to memories, history, and archival footage - reminders of just how special a talent and personality he was. Even when viewed for the first time by a newer fan 20 years alter, there is a certain magic to seeing somebody in wrestling that cannot exactly be duplicated by anyone else, regardless of their own skill set.

That in itself shows the appeal of The Alpha Male. If wrestlers in the years since could replicate his promos, display his precise intensity, and co-opt all of his unsuppressed mannerisms, he may have faded into the dustbin of history.

The fact that Monty Brown, more than a decade into retirement, and without a single major championship to his name, remains such a curiosity to this day speaks volumes about how he made fans feel. We may see a hundred more versions of your favourite in-ring performer before we'll ever see a second Monty Brown.