The Brain Busters

Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard were founding members of the Four Horsemen in World Championship Wrestling in the mid-80's, and often teamed up for six and eight man tag team matches with Ric Flair and Ole Anderson. Shortly after losing the WCW Television Title, Blanchard quickly began teaming with Arn and targeted the WCW World Tag Team Titles.

Tully and Arn won the WCW World Tag Team Championship on September 29, 1987 by defeating The Rock 'n' Roll Express after The Midnight Express attacked Ricky Morton prior to the match. They were immediately challenged by The Road Warriors to a title match at Starrcade '87 in the LOD hometown of Chicago. Despite a hostile pro-LOD crowd, the Horsemen retained the titles on a reverse decision. The Horseman would next receive a stiff challenge from ex-Horsemen Lex Luger, and longtime Horseman rival Barry Windham, who were dubbed the Twin Towers. The teams met at *Clash of the Champions I*, and the challengers upset the Horsemen, when heel miscommunication caused Anderson to get hit by a chair from Horsemen manager J.J. Dillon, and pinned by Luger.

Arn and Tully regained the titles less than a month later on April 20, 1988, when Barry Windham turned on his tag team partner and joined the Four Horsemen. The duo would mainly defend the titles against various combinations of teams between the trio of Sting, Nikita Koloff and "Dr. Death" Steve Williams. Meanwhile, the champions had begun a feud with WCW United States Tag Team Champions The Midnight Express, with the storyline being that Anderson and Blanchard considered the Midnight Express to be ungrateful punks who weren't on their level. The Midnight Express won the titles from the Horsemen on September 10, 1988, as both Blanchard and Anderson left WCW thereafter.

The duo made their debut in the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) late in October 1988, as "**The Brain Busters**", due to being under management of Bobby "The Brain" Heenan (and, by default, members of the Heenan Family).

The Brain Busters made their pay-per-view debut at the 1988 Survivor Series in the 10-team tag match, where they eliminated the Hart Foundation, before being eliminated via double disqualification with the Rockers. This led to a match with the Rockers on *WWF Superstars of Wrestling*, where both teams were again disqualified before the match could even get started. The teams wrestled to a double countout on the March 11, 1989 *Saturday Night's Main Event XX*.

The Brain Busters made their first and only WrestleMania appearance at WrestleMania V against former WWF Tag Team Champions Strike Force. After an even start, the Brain Busters dominated the ex-champions as Rick Martel walked out on Tito Santana and he was brutalized and beaten after a spike piledriver and eventually pinned.

After their WrestleMania win, the Brain Busters finally got to face the WWF World Tag Team Champions Demolition and defeated them by disqualification on the May 27, 1989 *Saturday Night's Main Event XXI.* The Brain Busters defeated Demolition for the titles in a rematch on July 18, 1989 in a two-out-of-three falls match. After losing the first fall, by pinfall, the Busters won the second fall, via disqualification, and won the third fall, with a distraction from Bobby Heenan and a steel chair thrown in from André the Giant, the Brain Busters ended Demolition's then-record-breaking 478-day title reign and became the first team to win both the WWF and WCW World Tag Team Championship. After then defeating The Hart Foundation in a non-title match at SummerSlam, they then lost the titles back to Demolition on October 2, 1989, in an equally controversial fashion as Blanchard, who was the illegal man, was pinned after receiving the *Demolition Decapitation* finisher. As was customary at the time, the Busters continued to defend the titles on house shows until the title change was acknowledged on television on November 4, 1989.

Their last match was a best-of-three-falls contest against The Rockers on *Saturday Night's Main Event XXIV*. The Brain Busters lost the first fall after not following directions from an enraged Heenan, who left the ringside area. The Brain Busters won the second fall, after which Heenan fired them during a backstage interview. The Rockers would go on to win the third and final fall of the match. On the day of the 1989 Survivor Series, Tully Blanchard was unable to compete, and the lack of a suitable replacement saw him replaced by Heenan who would wrestle for the first time since WrestleMania V. Arn Anderson left the federation more or less immediately after the pay-per-view and returned to the WCW in December, thus ending the Brain Busters for good.