DOOM
Butch Reed & Ron Simmons
1989-1991
WCW World Tag Team Championship
Written by Adam Zimmerman
The formation of one of the tag teams that I feared most as a child began in 1989 when a "female fan" (Nancy Benoit) began appearing at ringside and professing her admiration for Rick Steiner during Steiner Brothers matches. Rick's brother, Scott, and their valet at the time, Missy Hyatt, were skeptical of this woman's (if you'll pardon the pun) motives. Eventually, her motives were made clear when she turned on Rick, adopted the ring name "Woman," and proclaimed that The Steiners would meet their "doom" at Halloween Havoc that year.
The Steiners' "doom" happened to be a burly, masked tag team made up of two "rough looking customers," as they used to say. It may have been obvious to a lot of fans at the time who these two men were (Ron Simmons and Butch Reed) because they had both been around JCP/WCW for a few years at this point. I was only eight, though, so I'll use that as an excuse for my ignorance at the time. All I knew was they were big, mean, and on the way to the ring to attempt to destroy my heroes The Steiners Brothers.
Doom was successful in their first outing against the Steiners, even if it did take the old "loaded-mask headbutt spot" to get the job done. Regardless, they had won and had impressed me in the process as well. I feared them but they were undeniably awesome nonetheless. I had become an instant fan.
Just as soon as Doom began to make a name for themselves by beating The Steiners, they hit a huge slump. The slump started by placing dead last in a WCW round robin tag team tournament without scoring a single point. Woman then dropped the team to align herself with The Four Horseman and eventually Doom wound up facing The Steiner Brothers in a rematch -- which they lost. They also had to unmask after this loss (due to prematch stipulations), so stupid little marks like me at the time were finally smartened up to their true identities.
Now that I knew who Doom was; I liked them even more, even if they were on a downswing. I had been a fan of Simmons since he was first breaking in, being used as enhancement talent in Jim Crockett promotions and of course, Butch Reed had made a name for himself all over the country, if not the world, in various promotions. Luckily for Doom (and myself as a young fan) this is also were the upswing of their tag team career truly began.
Now managed by "The Godfather" Teddy Long, Reed and Simmons worked their way back up to another title shot against The Steiners and this time they walked away with the gold! Upon becoming champions, Doom ran roughshod over their competition, defending their titles against teams like The Rock 'n' Roll Express and Brian Pillman and Tom Zenk (a very underrated team, I might add) before eventually engaging in a feud with The Four Horseman. Even The Horsemen were no match for Doom at the time!
As with everything... all good things must pass, sadly. Doom split up when miscommunication between the two cost them a match against The Freebirds, causing Reed to attack Simmons, post-match. Teddy Long aligned himself with "Hacksaw" and Doom prepared to face perhaps it's toughest opponents ever - each other.
The two men's feud culminated with a "Thunder Doom" cage match at Superbrawl 1. With Teddy Long suspended in his own personal cage, high above the entrance ramp; both men battled it out in a hard-hitting cage match that was a fitting end to one of my favorite teams of early 90s WCW.