Allen Coage

Allen Coage is one of those rare athletes whose story sounds almost too good to be true — a kid from New York City who got deep enough into judo to win a bronze medal at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, then turned around and became a legitimate pro wrestling presence under the name Bad News Allen, and later Bad News Brown in the WWF. What gets me is that he trained at Nihon University, so this was no casual dabbler; he committed to Japanese martial arts culture at a serious level, and it showed in how he carried himself in the ring — stiff, no-nonsense, genuinely menacing. He passed away in March 2007 at 63, which feels far too soon for someone who lived that large. A legitimate Olympian who made it work in the worked world too — that combination is almost unheard of, and he pulled it off without apology.

Name (English)

Allen Coage

Name (Japanese)

アレン・コージ

Reading

あれん・こーじ

Born

October 22, 1943 – March 6, 2007

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Libra / Goat

Origin

New York City, New York, United States

Height

188 cm

Occupation

professional wrestler / judoka

High school

Thomas A. Edison High School

University

Nihon University

Motto

Private

• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A2%E3%83%AC%E3%83%B3%E3%83%BB%E3%82%B3%E3%83%BC%E3%82%B8

Tags

• New York
• professional wrestler
• judoka

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.