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A Liverpool Lad
Ian Brown was born in Garston, Liverpool on 3rd July, 1970. Adopting the name Ian Doc Dean he just scraped into the Heritage Years of Wrestling by virtue of making his debut at just fourteen years old. That was 1984 and by the summer of 1987, as he turned seventeen he was already working full time touring the holiday camps of Britain with Robbie Brookside and Steve Regal. Ian even managed to fit in one ITV wrestling appearance before the programme was taken off the air, losing to Steve Prince by the only fall. He also made a number of appearances on the S4C channel’s Reslo show.
The partnership and friendship with Robbie Brookside was to endure through the years as they became the top tag team in the country, The Liverpool Lads. Tag teams didn’t get any bigger, or more popular than Robbie and The Doc in the late 1980s and 1990s, travelling the country and beating the Superfly team of Ricky Knight and Jimmy Ocean to win the All Star Wrestling Tag Team Championship. Ian’s UK career was mostly associated with Merseyside based All Star Wrestling. Ian and Robbie recorded Video Diaries for BBC television about life on the road for a professional wrestler.
In individual competition Doc Dean twice won the All Star Wrestling British welterweight title between 1990 and 1993, taking the title from Mal Sanders in 1990 before losing and regaining it from Blondie Bob Barratt.
In the 1990s the initial increased interest in live shows following the cessation of television transmissions began to dwindle and opportunities for wrestlers in Britain reduced dramatically in the mid 1990s. Ian made visits to Germany, France and Belgium and then he and Robbie followed in the footsteps of their friend Steve Regal and made their way to the United States. When the tour ended Robbie returned to Britain Ian settled in the United States where he continued to wrestle.
Ian went to Japan and worked for New Japan Pro Wrestling, competing in the Best of the Super Junior IV tournament in 1997 and signed for America’s WCW later that year. He worked for WCW until the summer of 1998, making his last tv appearance on WCW Saturday Night, when injuries forced a premature retirement. He went on to set up a plumbing company in Florida.
The sad news was received on 13th August, 2018, that he had died suddenly of a heart attack, aged just 48 years old.
Page added 26/03/2023
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