Brown made a one-off appearance in the World Wide Wrestling Federation in February 1978, defeating jobber Frank Williams at a live event under his real name. He returned to the promotion in January 1979 and wrestled for the WWWF for the remainder of the year, appearing on several episodes of WWF Championship Wrestling.
He returned to the World Wrestling Federation in early 1988 as Bad News Brown, and it was during this time that he achieved his greatest notoriety. His trademark characteristic as Bad News Brown was never smiling—either he kept an angry face, or he "laughed loud" at the expense of opponents' misfortunes. While the roster was mostly filled with ultra-virtuous babyfaces and cowardly and monster heels, Bad News was something entirely different: a tough loner. While other heels were likely to form alliances with one another, Bad News was reclusive. He did not respect anybody, and was just as likely to attack heels as faces. His dislike for all fellow wrestlers was clear when he abandoned his teams at the Survivor Series of 1988 and 1989. Some memorable moments from his WWF tenure included winning the battle royal at WrestleMania IV by last eliminating Bret Hart, who was then a heel, after a sneak attack, followed by a brief feud with champion "Macho Man" Randy Savage and his manager Miss Elizabeth in early 1989 that led to more main-event matches. On the March 11, 1989 edition of Saturday Night's Main Event XX Bad News memorably took a microphone towards the end of his match with Hulk Hogan and told him that it was time for the Ghetto Blaster (his finisher). As he was getting ready to execute it, however, Hogan got out of the way, leading him to miss the move and suffer an eventual loss. Subsequently, Bad News also had a brief run challenging Hogan for the WWF World Heavyweight Championship but never pinned or submitted him.
Brown's next feud was with "Rowdy" Roddy Piper (starting at the 1990 Royal Rumble when he was eliminated by Piper, then illegally eliminated Piper. This led to Brown being ridiculed which he would counter by calling Piper out for wearing a "skirt". This culminated at WrestleMania VI in a match where both men were counted out. Brown was then assigned to work with Jake "The Snake" Roberts (where Bad News used a sewer rat against Jake's snake). Around this time, Brown was worked into a story where he attacked WWF president Jack Tunney on The Brother Love Show.
Bad News eventually left the WWF after SummerSlam 1990.
On March 6, 2007, Brown passed away.