In a world full of cartoonish muscleheads and screaming blondes, Brickhouse Brown was the heel who hissed instead of roared — a sly, sneering, Southern troublemaker in neon tights who made a career out of being hated, bloodied, and occasionally whipped with a leather strap. And like any good villain, he didn’t just live up to the hype. He outlasted it. Hell, he even outlasted death — if only for nine days.
Born Frederick Seawright in the Deep South of August 1960, Brickhouse Brown was a new kind of bad guy in a wrestling world that didn’t quite know what to do with him. He was talented, mouthy, and Black — which meant he had to be ten times better, faster, and louder just to be considered equal in a business still hooked on Confederate nostalgia and mullet-scented racism. And Brickhouse? He didn’t just endure it. He grinned, flipped it off, and won.
The Baptism of Fire: San Antonio and the School of No School
Let’s be clear — Brickhouse Brown didn’t exactly emerge from a polished wrestling pedigree. His first match? No training. Just a young man with tights, boots, and a dream stepping into the ring with Bobby Jaggers in Joe Blanchard’s Southwest Championship Wrestling in 1982. Think “Rocky” meets a stabbing.
Only later would he be properly trained by Terry Funk — a man whose idea of guidance was likely, “Bleed, then ask questions.” It was the perfect fit. Brickhouse was all guts and charisma, quick with the jabs and quicker with his feet, even if promoters didn’t know what to do with a young Black wrestler who wasn’t content being the silent babyface sidekick.
The Southern Heel with Swagger and Venom
By 1985, Brickhouse was tangling in the NWA Southeastern Tag Team scene with Norvell Austin, dethroning The Nightmares before dropping the belts back a week later. Just a taste of gold — enough to get addicted, not enough to satisfy.
He had a blink-and-you-missed-it run in the WWF during the Rock ‘n’ Wrestling boom of ’86 — scoring surprise wins over guys like Moondog Rex and Tiger Chung Lee, before being fed to the usual monster parade: The Iron Sheik, Harley Race, Bob Orton Jr. It was the kind of underdog curtain-jerker run that built careers or broke spirits. Brickhouse? He just smirked, packed his bags, and headed to Memphis.
That’s where the fire really started.
Memphis: The Land of Lawler, Watermelons, and Wrath
Championship Wrestling Association in Memphis was a riot of bad taste and Southern drama, a fever-dream soap opera of blood and betrayal. In March 1987, Brickhouse entered the lion’s den and by July, he beat The King Jerry Lawler for the AWA Southern Heavyweight Championship — a bold move, considering that pinning Lawler in Memphis was like mugging Santa Claus at a Christmas parade.
A week later, Lawler took the title back. Because Memphis.
But Brickhouse’s star never dimmed. If anything, it burned hotter. He claimed the CWA Heavyweight Championship in 1988. Then came the moment that crystallized the hatred, the heat, and the horror show of Southern wrestling: Robert Fuller of the Stud Stable gifted Brickhouse a watermelon on live TV… then whipped him with a strap like it was 1863.
It was ugly. It was grotesque. And it was exactly the kind of segment that sold tickets in a region still deep in its Jim Crow hangover. Brickhouse turned it into fuel. He made the heat personal, visceral. Fans didn’t just boo him — they believed in the fight. And in a territory business fueled by perception, that made Brickhouse money.
The Gold, the Grind, and the Glass Ceiling
Despite the gimmicks, Brickhouse was a top draw across multiple territories — Gulf Coast, Portland, Florida, WCCW. He wore a dozen belts on his lean frame, and each one came with sweat, blood, and some promoter telling him “this town ain’t ready for a Black world champ.”
In 1989, he took the Texas Heavyweight Championship from Iceman King Parsons — another trailblazer. In the 1990s, he was winning USWA World Tag gold with Sweet Daddy Falcone, The Gambler, and Reggie B. Fine. When he wasn’t holding gold, he was making champions. PG-13. The Moondogs. Jesse James Armstrong. Brickhouse was the perfect foil — a classic heel who could bump, jabber, and carry a greenhorn to something resembling a good match.
By the mid-’90s, he was so respected in Memphis that he could make the crowd riot by existing.
And when the WWF called again in 1995, Brickhouse stepped into two TV tapings, got squashed by Helmsley and Godwinn, collected his paycheck, and went back to the indies like a boss.
Life After the Spotlight: Legends, Icons, and Independent Grit
The territories died. The money dried up. But Brickhouse didn’t stop.
From 1997 to 2017, he wrestled across Mississippi, Tennessee, and anywhere that still put a ring under a county fair sky. No pyro. No guaranteed contracts. Just hustle. He laced the boots and kept doing the thing he loved, long after the cameras turned away.
In 2011, he appeared at Juggalo Championship Wrestling’s Legends and Icons iPPV, where he lost a five-way match to Austin Idol. Think about that sentence. Juggalo Championship Wrestling. That’s commitment. That’s insanity. That’s Brickhouse Brown.
The Realest Heel Turn: Cancer
In April 2017, Brickhouse announced he had stage 4 prostate cancer. He was down to 150 pounds. The cancer spread to his brain. His vision dimmed. But the fight? That never stopped.
The wrestling community, so often petty and fractured, came together. Benefit shows. Cauliflower Alley Club donations. Friends calling in favors. The brotherhood showed up.
And then the most Brickhouse moment of all:
He died.
On July 20, 2018, the word went out. Frederick Seawright was dead. Tributes poured in.
And then?
He woke up.
As the coroner was en route, Brickhouse sat up, looked at his mother, and said:
“I’m hungry.”
That’s right. The man no-sold death. He kicked out at two-and-three-quarters, just to prove a point.
The Final Bell (For Real This Time)
Nine days later, the cancer finally won. On July 29, 2018, Brickhouse Brown passed away — this time for good. On August 11, what would have been his 58th birthday, he was laid to rest.
But like all great heels, he made damn sure he was booed, hated, and remembered.
Legacy: The Heel Who Broke Barriers
Brickhouse Brown wasn’t Hulk Hogan. He didn’t main-event WrestleMania. He didn’t cash big checks or ride limos.
But he mattered.
He was a Black wrestler playing Black characters — not watered-down tokens. He was a heat magnet who made racists pay to see him lose, and then made them cheer him anyway. He navigated a business that didn’t always want him, and still kicked the damn doors down.
In 2020, he was posthumously inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame via the Legacy Wing. A nice gesture — a few years too late, as always.
But that doesn’t matter.
Because if there’s one thing we learned from Brickhouse Brown, it’s this:
You can’t pin a legend without a fight.
And sometimes, not even death gets the three-count.