♪
The first time I saw him, he had this
magnetic charisma that you could feel across the gym.
And, you just thought, hey, man,
that this guy's a star.
And I'll do whatever it takes!
To look adversity in the face and spit in its eye.
The wrestling world could never have imagined that
an undersized football player from Cincinnati would
revolutionize the business, ushering in a whole new era.
Shut the hell up!
Brian knew what the deal was.
That they're gonna screw him over,
they're gonna screw anybody over.
And how he could make that play for his own advantage.
In an industry that depends on the illusion of reality,
no one did more to blur the lines than Brian Pillman,
who shattered wrestling's 4th wall.
He was going against the "script".
This has never been done before.
What the... are you doing? Easy!
Pillman's over-the-top antics exposed the inner
workings of the business, leveraging trade secrets to
make the deal of a lifetime.
That Loose Cannon gimmick, he just took it so far.
Don't go in there! (screams)
A lot of people thought, "Oh, man, it was too extreme."
You didn't know where Brian started and
his wrestling persona ended.
Get him the hell out'a here.
He had a lot of troublesome relationships with women.
My mom had had enough and that kind of
pushed her over the edge a little bit.
He's being driven crazy at home,
he's supposed to be crazy at work.
And in between...
he's probably really going crazy.
On track to become a wrestling superstar at the
price of his own sanity, his rise to the top
was tragically cut short.
I'm watching the pre-show for the Pay Per View.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have some tragic
news to report... Brian Pilman.
I just screamed.
He had a persona that he wanted to perpetuate,
even if it killed him.
♪
Man, this is the gold chain that Brian Pillman got for me
way back in the day, and I'll never forget,
we were riding down the road one day and he goes,
"Kid, we gotta have gold chains."
He goes, "That'll look great."
And all these years later, I don't have a lot of things,
you know, from my old wrestling days,
but this chain is something that I'll always have it.
It's very sentimental to me, and it was a big part of the
makeup and the gimmick of the Hollywood Blonds.
I'm Steve Austin.
A friend of Brian's from way back in our WCW days,
and we were tag team partners.
Turned out to be really good friends and a
pretty damn good tag team.
The Hollywood Blonds!
Brian didn't phone nothing in.
He wanted to go out there and perform.
(cheering)
A guy that was never supposed to be big enough
or bad enough or strong enough to do anything...
He blew everybody away with
his tenacity and his will to win.
(cheering)
He was a good-looking guy, great physique, high-flyer.
Could do everything.
Oh, man!
Brian was very athletic.
It really seemed like he was willing to try anything,
and you could tell that he really wanted
to be a pro wrestling star.
I'm Jim Ross and,
when I was in WCW in the mid 80s,
Brian was a guy that we had very high hopes for and
really wanted to sign.
...'cause after we're done pounding you into submission,
the only thing that's gonna be prescribed
for you guys afterwards is a liquid diet of embalming fluid!
Brian, from the time he first got in the ring,
you could tell he was a performer.
He was an exhibitionist. He wanted you to notice him.
He had the personality for wrestling.
I'm Jim Cornette.
I've been involved in professional wrestling for
over 40 years as a manager, promoter,
announcer, matchmaker, and I was good friends...
In the 80s and 90s, with Brian Pillman.
He wasn't trying to just be the move guy.
He wasn't just trying to be the guy with
the nice mullet and the abs.
Like, he was trying to be everything.
He was trying to hit this business on all fronts and
fire on all cylinders, and he was trying to be the
biggest star that the business had ever seen.
My name is Brian Pillman Jr. I am only son of the
late, great Brian Pillman, otherwise known as
the Loose Cannon.
(horn & cheering)
Brian was a natural promo.
When they stuck a mic in front of him,
he would just go off in that raspy voice.
You're not running this interview, I am!
'Cause I'm Brian ing Pillman!
(cheering & applause)
Growing up, Brian had multiple polyps on his vocal cords,
and it was closing up his air passage.
They'd scrape 'em off and then, after so long,
they'd grow right back again.
And that's why his voice was so raspy,
because his vocal cords had been scraped so many times.
I'm Linda, Brian's older sister.
You know, he had over 40 surgeries.
I don't know the exact number.
When my mother came in from work one day,
she could hear breathing as soon as she came in the house,
and it was closing up his air passage.
And she called the doctor.
She had to hold the receiver up
so he could hear him breathing.
And that's when he decided he needed emergency tracheotomy.
♪ (sirens) ♪
(clanging)
He told my mother to have the ambulance
bring them to his house.
'Cause his house was closer than the hospital.
And he put a tracheotomy in Brian on his
dining room table, in the middle of the night.
♪
But, it never stopped him from doing anything.
He was always outside playing and running and,
he wasn't allowed to talk for like two or three weeks
after those surgeries and he didn't talk.
As a result of that, I think he overcompensated later on
by wanting to always talk, wanting to be an entertainer.
It formed him as the guy that was gonna overcome,
over achieve, knock down the obstacles,
whatever the case may be.
The son of a bitch was fearless.
I mean, he was... (laughs)
He was a tough, tough nut.
My name is Kim Wood.
I was the Paul Brown Strength Coach
for the Cincinnati Bengals.
And, Pillman had a chance to try out with us.
My instruction was to kill him...
and not literally kill him, but damn close.
But, he tried his ass off.
You know, he always said, it's not about the,
the size of the dog in the fight.
It's about the size of the fight in the dog.
He had a reputation in Cincinnati,
being a street fighter.
I heard that he was at some bar that had an upper floor,
like a balcony or whatever you want to call it.
And, he was up there and some girl
threw a drink in his face.
And, her boyfriend came after Brian.
Before it was over, the guy was hanging...
Brian had him hanging by his ankles over the,
the railing. Over the first floor.
And Brian was banned from that bar.
After a brief stint in the NFL,
Brian heads to Calgary to play in the
Canadian Football League.
Soon after, Brian suffers an ankle injury,
cutting his career short, which leaves him
searching for what to do next.
One thing I knew about Brian was,
is that he wasn't gonna be a high school teacher.
He wasn't gonna sell insurance.
There was a lof of things he wasn't gonna do.
He could use his toughness
and his physicality to make money.
A couple years ago when I was with the Bengals,
Kim Wood, the strength coach,
he had talked to me about getting into
professional wrestling.
He thought I had all the tools needed to be successful.
And it turns out, Calgary happened to be the
premiere training ground for wrestlers in the world.
And I said, "Hey, while you're up there,
go check out this... this Hart bunch."
The Hart's are the first family of Canadian wrestling...
...with patriarch Stu Hart at the helm.
In addition to his children that would go on to be
wrestling icons, the family also discovered and
trained several other future superstars.
They take him into the Hart dungeon and they teach him
how to wrestle in one of the most prestigious ways
to break into the business that there is.
Well, from what I hear, if you can't hear screaming
coming out of it, something's not going right.
Stu, the old man, would put people in submission holds
and then not let them out of the thing for,
you know, 3 or 4 hours.
If you could survive that,
you could survive almost anything.
So, you get that great foundation...
all, right off the bat from Stu.
It was an easy bridge to cross from football to wrestling.
Brian gets his start in Stampede Wrestling,
and although it's a small territory in western Canada,
its influence on the industry is felt
around the wrestling world.
In the 80s, there were millions of wrestling fans,
but there was a small subset called "smart fans" that
knew the inside inner workings of wrestling.
The insiders all knew the name Brian Pillman pretty quick.
I'm Dave Metzler.
Editor of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
It's an insider publication.
It's covered pro wrestling since 1982.
For a long time, it was like really the only...
you know, what I would call true source of pro wrestling
information that was out there.
The sheets were kind of a thing back in the day,
you didn't really want to get caught with 'em.
You know, it's kind of like secret documents.
And then, kind of got out and damn near
all the boys are reading it.
And with Brian, he had started wrestling
when he called me the first time.
And, he wanted to send me tapes and wanted me
to send tapes, so we traded tapes.
As far as student of the game, I mean,
top, top level, more than almost anyone
that I'd ever dealt with.
Meltzer was a good gauge for talent.
So, that tipped me off that Meltzer kept
writing good things about Brian.
Brian wound up in WCW by me getting a hold of it.
Alright, Brian, best of luck on that...
Upon arriving in WCW...
Brian Pillman!
Top star and matchmaker, Ric Flair,
sees something in Brian...
And looks to feature him on television in a main event spot.
And we put that match together,
and it was one of the highest rated Saturday night
television programs on TBS at that point in
the previous several years.
And, the crowd popped for him.
Crowd's chanting: "Go, Brian, go!"
Ric Flair was the kind of guy that wanted to go in the
ring with somebody like Brian and go 30 or
45 minutes and tear the house down.
And then he wanted to go to the bar with Brian or
somebody like Brian, for 5 or 6 hours and
tear the house down there.
That's the way he lived.
He lived a cartoon life, a fantasy life of...
of limos and...
long black socks and alligator shoes and...
you know, and babes.
I think Brian liked aspects of the lifestyle a lot.
You know, he wanted to be like Ric Flair.
Brian Pillman was a lady's man.
I mean, he's a gorgeous guy, he's on television,
he's a professional athlete.
So, yeah, a lot of the women were attracted to Brian.
Rochelle was a woman that Brian met a club,
downtown Cincinnati.
You know, they were happy and...
we all loved her.
She went and lived with him in Calgary for a while,
before he got the contract down in Atlanta,
and that's when Brittany was born in Atlanta.
My name is Brittany Pillman.
I'm the daughter of Brian Pillman.
I was a daddy's girl.
You know, everyone sees him as this wrestler and always
on the road and, you know, wrestling was his life,
but outside of wrestling, his children were his life.
My dad thought I was his firstborn child.
When I was a year old, he found out that he had
another daughter out there that was 2 years old.
♪
I'm Danielle Pillman. I go by Dani.
And, Brian Pillman is my father,
and I am the oldest of his kids.
My dad met my mom at the waterfront in Cincinnati,
like, some bar.
And, I mean, it was like a, a very brief love affair.
But, she did end up becoming pregnant,
but my dad had Rochelle as his girlfriend at the time.
So, yeah, that's kind of why she didn't want to
disclose that to my father immediately,
but at a certain point, she felt like, you know,
I needed my dad.
And, the second that I came into the picture,
he was there for me 100% and wanted me to be
in every part of his life.
And I think that's something to be said about him is that
he really did care about his kids.
You know, my dad living that lifestyle and all these
different women and, you know,
he had obviously cheated on my mom many times.
I'm sure that was hard on her,
but she stayed with him, you know.
She had a lot of issues.
She suffered with major depression.
There was a time my mom and dad were living in Atlanta
and my dad was at a show.
[Linda] The groundskeeper broke into the place and
attacked her with an ice pick.
[Brittany] And, she was stabbed several times.
Rob her, whatever, I don't know.
Stabbed her in the face, stabbed her in the cheek.
♪
So, that'll mess you up.
♪
Brian Pillman's good looks and athletic ability
allow him a spot on the card as a generic hero,
but he's not content to stay in one place for long,
nor do what he's told.
He was reasonably successful, but you know,
he wanted to be a main eventer,
and he wasn't a main eventer yet.
He was, he was a good mid-level guy.
You know, Brian's first couple years in WCW were tough.
I'm Eric Bischoff, former president of WCW.
And, once upon a time, Brian Pillman's boss.
Brian was relatively new on the scene his first
couple years in WCW, so he had to earn his respect.
What probably made that even tougher was the
amount of management transitions that took place.
Constant changeover in management led to
stop and start pushes in Brian's career.
As soon as he started to gain ground and
earn respect, new matchmakers would arrive,
pushing Brian back down to the bottom.
But finally, they put Brian together with Steve Austin.
He's ready to back you up 100%.
Alright, Stunning Steve Austin.
And I wasn't thrilled at all.
(cheering)
When people hear the name Steve Austin,
they think he was always the biggest star in wrestling.
At the time, in 1993, he was still finding his way and
hadn't got a main event spot yet.
And, this is about when I eventually started getting
a run as the United States Champion.
So, I was really looking forward to that.
I walked into the building and here's Brian coming up
behind me, and I knew Brian, but we weren't hanging out.
He goes, "Hey, kid, we need to come up with a finish."
And I said, "What the 'F' are you talking about?"
He goes, "We're a tag team now."
And I was really not, not happy.
I had nothing against Brian.
But it's like, I was, I was a singles wrestler.
I enjoyed working with another guy in the ring and
only having to depend on myself.
And they didn't have no name planned for us,
no this, no that.
It was two singles guys and they were gonna
throw us together as an interim tag team,
basically to get other people over because they didn't
have plans for Brian and they didn't have plans
for Steve Austin.
So, we were gonna try to make the most of the situation.
Any time that you start working together and
traveling with someone, you become closer.
And, normally I'd be at the wheel,
Brian would be riding shotgun reading dictionaries,
I mean, because he was already trying to
increase his vocabulary for promos.
And began the pilgrimage out to Florida!
Cut through the bureaucratic red tape and
get that title shot!
So, as it goes, we're going down the road and he goes,
"Hey, kid. Every tag team has to have a name.
So, what about the Hollywood Blonds?"
He goes, "It's been done before,
but it's been awhile so, let's do that."
And I was thinking to myself,
well, I ain't come up with a better one.
And so, like, I was cool with being the Hollywood Blonds.
- Guess what... - The Hollywood Blonds!
The vests, the trunks, everything was Brian's idea,
and we were two cocky, brash,
arrogant guys that we started rolling the
camera footage and stuff like that and you know,
Brian had that shit eating grin or that laugh, you know,
when you're getting heat on a babyface.
And Brian and I developed this bond
and this chemistry.
I loved tag team wrestling once I figured it out.
I hate to say it this way 'cause it sounds really corny,
but they were made for each other...
because they complemented each other so well.
They worked hard to make each other look good.
The Hollywood Blonds also gave Brian a chance to
open up as a heel, as a bad guy.
People nowadays are like, "Oh, I loved
the Hollywood Blonds," but if you go back then,
they were getting boo'd out the building.
Pillman, you suck!
And you loved to hate 'em.
I think it was more natural for Brian to be a heel because,
you know, he wasn't a guy that wanted to shake hands,
and kiss babies, and smile.
He wanted to be a smartass, he wanted to be obnoxious,
he wanted to show off.
You're all a bunch of losers!
He was getting better at what he does,
getting global exposure.
Partying, having fun.
Brian's fast and loose lifestyle doesn't mix well
with his turbulent situation at home,
and he pursues yet another woman who enters
his already complicated life.
I think Melanie was working in Atlanta.
She was a "showgirl".
He saw her picture in a Penthouse or something and
says, "I'm gonna marry that girl," and
somewhere along the line, he met her...
My dad was sleeping with Melanie behind my
mother's back 'cause he was always in Atlanta.
Melanie would call the house and, that's basically,
I think how Rochelle found out about it, you know.
She was hurt 'cause, you know,
they had a nice home, the family was happy.
But then he had this other life in Atlanta.
And then Melanie became pregnant...
and, that's how we have Brian Junior.
After another unexpected pregnancy outside of
their relationship, Brian and Rochelle split up.
Shortly after, Brian purposes to
his new girlfriend, Melanie.
We went to Vegas and he put on like a frickin'
St. Patrick's Day white tux with a big 'ol ugly green bowtie.
(laughing) I had a white dress, mind you,
the stripper in a white dress. (laughing)
And I had a big 'ol green corsage on,
and I loved it, every second of it.
I wouldn't trade it for the world.
Ah, my name is Melanie Pillman.
I'm the widow of Brian Pillman.
In private, like, he's, he's just more laid back and
sensible acting, but he's one of the most
intelligent men I've ever met in my life.
So well read and he just excelled at so many things.
He was... he was my soul mate,
I mean, I couldn't have picked a better guy to love...
love, than him.
His first years with her, I thought he was very happy.
It'd be a big thing, his Christmas card 'cause
it would be him and the wife, and all these little kids.
'Cause I had my two kids, you know.
He would show up with like three or four little kids.
They all had different mothers.
They'd be climbing on him, he'd be carrying a couple and,
one had his legs around his neck and
one is on his shoulder and...
he loved those kids.
He was counted on, he was depended on to,
to provide.
That responsibility is what pushes you to keep going
to work. You have to provide for your family.
Stunning Steve and Flyin' Brian.
And, finally, they made the decision to give the
Hollywood Blonds a big main event match.
It was gonna be on a Clash of Champions and Ric Flair
was returning, he was gonna be involved.
And, the rating came in and it wasn't very good,
and they couldn't blame Flair because
he was a big star so, they put the heat on
Brian Pillman and Steve Austin.
"Well, the Hollywood Blonds didn't draw a rating."
And that kind of doomed them there as being featured
in a more prominent capacity going forward.
It felt like betrayal.
I wish someone would finally tell me why the company
decided to break us up 'cause we started getting
over as a viable tag team that could hold,
you know, world championship belts.
We did.
We make chicken shit into chicken salad,
and now you want to split us out with no real
clear direction for either one of us.
So, breaking us up broke my heart.
I don't know of any other talents that have been
buried because they drew a bad rating.
At the time, TBS was drawing a lot of bad ratings,
but I think there was probably somebody that just thought,
"I don't want to use these guys," and
they used that as an excuse.
How that was handled, I look back on it today and
still shake my head that...
we could 'a done better.
I would say the period from 1990 to 1993,
it was very frustrating for Brian.
Also, there was some knowledge early on that
his home life was not as happy as it could be.
I felt like my dad allowed Melanie to run the show.
Melanie treated my mom very poorly.
I feel like she was very jealous of my mother.
Melanie didn't like him talking to her.
She didn't like me and my mother talking to Rochelle.
You know, she just, she made it hard to like her 'cause
she just caused trouble.
And then, Rochelle took off and
didn't tell anybody where she was.
Rochelle is scheduled to see Brittany for a visit,
but she never shows.
No one is able to get a hold of her,
resulting in a missing persons report.
Several days later, when Rochelle finally surfaces,
Brian and Melanie take decisive action.
And Brian said - and I agreed with him,
and I shouldn't have, "We should just file for custody."
And, that changed everything.
♪
Following the tag team break up with Steve Austin,
Brian's career has stalled, and the cracks in his
family life start to break open, consuming those around him.
The custody battle started because
Melanie didn't want Rochelle around.
Basically, Brian had more money and could keep the
attorneys paid 'cause the attorneys only work
when you pay 'em.
And, Rochelle just didn't have any more money.
I was, you know, delivering stuff to the lawyer.
I was bombarding her with these stupid things about
returning past child support that she blew in...
You know, just little minutiae that was making me feel
like a better person, but in reality,
I wasn't the better person.
Nobody should try to take kids away from a mother.
I should have never done that.
In a million years, I would never do it again.
It just devastated Rochelle.
♪
I was outside riding my bicycle one day.
This was at a time when she wasn't allowed to see me,
and she came pulling up and I just went running to her
and I was so happy to see her.
Rochelle was hugging her...
and they thought she was taking her.
Here comes my dad and it was just like this
huge argument, him pulling her away from me.
Melanie filed kidnapping charges against Rochelle.
And so, my dad had got full custody of me,
and in my mom's mind, she was just like,
I'm gonna lose my daughter and I'm never gonna
see her again, and so...
my mom called my dad's house and she wanted to
talk to my dad, but he was out of town.
Melanie had answered and Melanie told her,
she said, "Even your own mother thinks I would be a
better mother for your daughter than you'll ever be."
♪
And my mom called my grandma...
She called her mother and told her mother
what she was gonna do...
♪
And then she shot herself.
♪
I got the call to go to the hospital 'cause
she was being airlifted in, I was the closest.
And I was the one at the hospital that they told,
and then I had to tell everybody...
that she was gone. She died on the helicopter.
So, I had to call her mother and tell her mother.
Oh, it was very hard. To tell some...
To tell somebody's mother that their child was dead.
♪
It just destroyed Brian because
he felt so responsible. I mean, he was just so upset.
He cried, and he cried, and he said,
"Do you think it was all that pressure we put on her?
I think it was, Mel."
I'd be like, "Yeah, it probably was."
So, Brian, he wanted to pay for
her whole funeral and everything.
And, at the funeral, he held it together...
until they closed the casket.
And, he lost it.
He was hugging me and sobbing.
And, in fact, at one point, I kind of looked at him
'cause I thought he, I thought he was gonna pass out.
He was devastated... He was devastated.
♪
I felt...
so guilty for that, for years.
And, I think I drove her... Maybe not just me,
but I think incidents drove her to shoot herself.
Rethinking it, I would, I wouldn't have done it
the same way.
Nobody should have to fight for their kid.
I mean, it wasn't like she was abusing her.
So, I don't really know what my problem was back then.
It was, it was devastating,
and I know it was for Brittany.
I have a lot of anger built up towards my dad in a sense
because I do wish that he would have, you know,
allowed my mom to at least see me because
maybe she would still be here today.
I don't, you know, I don't know.
She had a lot of issues, but Melanie was
the overall call. She's,
she's an evil person and she's always been that way.
Melanie should have never said those words to my mom.
She's just, she's literally the devil and they say,
you know, you reap what you sow...
and now, she's living a life that she should have already
been dead years ago because of all the drugs that
she's done, but I feel like she's gonna live to be
100 years old and absolutely miserable for all the pain and
suffering that she has caused me,
and my brother, and you know,
my Aunt Linda.
♪
And I... And Brittany's the one that, you know...
I don't know how to make it up to her.
I just, there's nothing I...
I don't really know how to make it up to her.
I wish I could.
♪
The guilt of Rochelle's death weighs heavily on Brian,
and he dives even deeper into his career.
With his contract renewal with the WCW looming,
Brian is determined to renegotiate
for even more money.
When we talk business, it's like, "I have five kids,
I don't know how many more years I can do this
because my body's falling apart.
I have to make big money now...
because I've got five kids!"
This was his shot.
He talks with Bischoff that was evidently doing the
contracts there, and Bischoff says to him,
"Expect about what you're getting now."
He was pretty happy that I got him back to 225,
but I think he wanted four, is the number that
he was really wanting. I couldn't give it to him.
I couldn't justify it at the time that he wanted it.
He came to me and he says, "What do I do?"
And what I told him was this...
It's a question of value.
And when everybody's using everybody else,
what can you do that other people can't do?
What can you do that gains notoriety?
This thing runs on attention.
It runs on very superficial things.
We gotta create attention.
How can we do that in the position you're in?
With his pulse on the wrestling landscape,
Brian knew that he had to find a way to up the ante
in order to shock even the most hardcore of fans.
Brian knew if he could make people legitimately believe
that he was a loose cannon, that he was nuts,
he was off his rocker, he was capable of
doing anything or saying anything at any time,
that he could be one of the hottest guys
in the wrestling industry.
It was a pure money deal. What do we really want?
Bischoff to offer you a hell of a lot more money,
and we want Vince McMahon to see that you are of value
and offer you more. And then you flip a coin.
If he could play one side against the other
in the middle of the burgeoning wrestling war,
then he would come out much better,
six figures per year better.
And that's what he set about to do.
♪
Brian Pillman's plan was simple:
More attention means more money.
As the WWF and WCW are engaged in a ratings battle,
Brian exploits this to his advantage by playing them
off each other, while driving up his own value.
Brian came up with the Loose Cannon idea and
started slowly integrating it into his television appearances.
Bobby Heenan was the colour commentator.
Bobby had had a broken neck, and he'd had surgery,
and he was very protective of his neck and,
Brian goes around behind Bobby and starts
grabbing him by the shoulders and everything
and on live television. Bobby says...
What the... are you doing? Easy!
And then Brian knew he got it.
He got gold out of it, right,
because now everybody's gonna be talking about
the F-bomb that got dropped on Turner Broadcast.
Bobby thought Brian was nuts.
I think the Brain has left.
It seemed real, to the point where people were confused
whether it was real or not.
One of the guys he was involved with was
Kevin Sullivan who was the booker, the matchmaker.
Oh, my goodness!
They got a fight going on here!
You know, they're just beating the hell out of
each other and when Brian Pillman was ready to quit,
when it was time for him to leave, he was like...
I respect you, booker man.
"I respect you, booker man."
The mere fact that he was acknowledging on national
television that Kevin Sullivan was a head writer
of a wrestling show was something that had
never been done before.
Those that knew, knew. And those that didn't know,
would need to find out what a booker man meant.
It was a big thing because those guys are sensitive
about exposing the business.
When you're acting out a story line,
it's considered a work.
And, a lot of the boys backstage weren't really
sure this was real or if this was a work.
The wrestling locker rooms had never been
invaded that way before.
Because he knew if the other wrestlers believed it was real,
then they would tell the newsletter editors.
"Wow, that guy's really nuts."
And the word would travel.
I thought, this is going down bad.
Brian's getting fired.
And I'm out of contact with him anyway,
so I think he's completely lost his mind, you know,
he's not even talking to me anymore.
The "smart fans" were starting to figure out that
wrestling is manipulated, it's choreographed,
it's pre-determined, but that guy's nuts and
he's real, and he won't do what they tell him.
And that sells tickets because you had no idea
what or whether it was supposed to happen or not.
He was convincing people that he was insane.
Not only were the fans ready to be fooled,
but all the wrestlers were, the management people were,
there was a whole bunch of people that you could
play like a violin.
- Brian, I'd like to know... - Nervous?
No, I'm not nervous. I'm not nervous at all.
You should be.
I don't think anybody for sure at any given moment knew...
if or not they were really being worked by Brian.
But then he ended up working Bischoff.
I said, "Get him to give you some kind of release."
From his contract. "From your contract."
Brian says to Eric Bischoff, "If you fire me,
and then I bust out on TV the week afterwards and
people will know this has just gone out of control."
"The people in the office, the book keepers,
whatever, if they see that I'm still under contract,
they're gonna tell Dave.
And then everyone's gonna know that it's all a work.
So, you have to really fire me."
"If you give me this legitimate termination letter,
then I can show it to everybody and I can say,
'Look at what the guy did! Can you believe this?
Can you believe he fired me?'"
He did! He gave him a release.
So, he was then free to negotiate with Vince McMahon
and the WWF against Eric Bischoff and WCW so
he could get a better deal, all because Bischoff thought
he was working with Brian to create this "illusion" and
Brian was actually working Bischoff
to create his own illusion.
♪
Dude, I mean...
how do you do that?
How... I don't know anybody else that ever did that.
Yeah, stroke of genius.
I mean, it was a legitimate termination,
but it was a legitimate termination...
with a wink and a nod.
I said, "Brian, go to WWF.
I can't give you what you want.
Get yourself over there so that when you come back,
and I promise you, I will bring you back,
it'll give me the ability to pay you more 'cause
you've raised your own value."
In his world, it's his stunt.
He is flattered that he's the guy that's pulling the
great stunt, even though he was the power to begin with!
For anyone to suggest...
that the Loose Cannon character was designed to
manipulate me into giving Brian Pillman more money,
when in fact, Brian Pillman and I discussed how to make
this character work even better so that at some point
I could give him the money, it kind of flies in the face
of the rumours and the innuendo.
Oh, man, that's the greatest thing you can do.
If you can... somebody over and have them think
that it's a great idea, that's...
you know, ha, I mean, that's the trick of
breaking up with a woman, you know,
make her think that it's her idea.
♪
As a free agent, Brian takes charge of
his own appearances and publicity.
His insider knowledge, mastery of manipulation,
and disregard for exposing the industry solidifies
his position as the ultimate ring master.
In the wrestling war layout at the time,
the fans knew one thing: if you are really working
for one promotion, you can't appear for any of the others.
Tonight will be one of the most extreme hours of
wrestling with... And wait a minute...
One of the things with trying to prove it was real
is that WCW hated ECW so,
Brian must be on the outs with WCW.
(cheering)
Renegade promotion ECW is gaining traction for pushing
the boundaries of wrestling, and is the perfect stage for
the Loose Cannon's unpredictable antics.
He could curse, he could say off-colour things.
Eric Bischoff is each and every one
of these mother... ing...
smart marks rolled up into one
giant piece of shit!
I thought Brian was losing his mind,
as opposed to being, you know, brilliant.
I loved it. I was just nothing but entertained by it.
(cheering)
Damn near whipped it out and was gonna piss in the ring...
that's a pretty strong statement.
And, pardon my language, I was like, man,
this mother... er's out there.
You know, and I mean that in a good way.
Get him the hell out of here.
This stuff was working on both levels.
The fans who weren't inside, they just thought that
he was crazy and he was doing wild over-the-top things,
but for the fans who did know the inside terminology
or were with the secrets, they were like,
they can't be allowing him to do that.
Oh!
When he would have a television appearance,
it would be arranged so that it didn't look like
he was supposed to be there.
Or, he was doing something he wasn't supposed to be doing.
One time, he even to protest the matches that he'd
been given, he wrestled a giant pencil because
pencil in inside wrestling knowledge was
another name for the booker.
I always end up fighting with the pencil.
And then he's showing up and doing
these funny little vignettes.
He's got one, he's cooking,
and flames are going out of the frying pan.
And they hired a woman with a baby,
and then the guy comes to punch Pillman,
and he grabs the baby and holds the baby up
in front of him.
You scum! You piece of...
And I never once called Brian and said,
"Hey, dude, are you working? Are you shooting?"
You know, because I didn't want to know.
But I thought what he was doing was damn sure brilliant.
Some people think my dad was crazy and then,
you know, other people are like,
you know, "Your dad was," you know, "not crazy.
That was just a gimmick."
And a lot of people say he kind of fell into that,
like, they couldn't, they couldn't decipher if it was...
Is this Brian Pillman now?
Or, you know, like, is he still in character?
Or is this just how he is?
It's all just their perception of reality.
It was just like this, this blur between,
like, what is actually going on?
Like, you don't even know anymore,
but that was, like, the magic of it.
There was a lot of Andy Kaufman in, in Brian.
The Loose Cannon became Brian,
that was who he was.
Brian was a renegade.
Brian was a little bit of an outlaw.
Again, remember, when you're not the biggest dog
of the litter, and you got that gravelly voice...
you've had 30, plus, throat operations
when you're a small child, you get an attitude.
I said this many times, the greatest wrestlers
I've ever worked with are essentially natural,
organic extensions of their own personality.
And the Loose Cannon was just that.
I think the message that Brian showing up at ECW
sent to the other two companies is,
he was a free agent, that he was a gun slinger and
he'd go to the highest bidder.
Vince is watching.
It's the hottest thing in wrestling.
The only one that really knew what was going on
was Dave Meltzer. I said, "Hey, we have to tell Meltzer."
I value his friendship more than I value...
You know, any of this shit.
Something happened and I called up Kim,
and I go, "Oh, god, Brian's... Brian's in trouble."
He just goes, you know, like, "Brian...
you know, Brian's doing this.
He's, he's come up with a character,
and he's... you gotta work everybody."
And Brian goes, "What do I do with Dave?"
And he goes, "You don't talk to Dave because
if you tell him,
then he's gonna have to say it because that's his role.
And, I don't want you lying to him."
So, literally, like, he didn't talk to me for
a couple months there. Oh, yeah, without a doubt,
he wanted to fool me with the character.
And he did for a while.
And again, who are the real marks?
Who are the ultimate marks? Bischoff, and then we got Vince.
Vince McMahon was then as he is now the
undisputed leader, ruler, manipulator, organizer,
and owner of World Wrestling Entertainment.
- Vince? - Yeah, you.
Yeah, what do you... You know what you do with a whore?
You... 'em.
That's, that's what I thought of Vince,
that's how I think of Vince.
As Brian becomes the talk of the wrestling world,
it's time for the final step of his master plan:
track down and secure the attention
of wrestling's biggest power player.
♪
In perhaps his boldest stunt yet,
Brian Pillman plots to get the attention of
Vince McMahon at an insider industry tradeshow in
Las Vegas, the last place anyone would expect
to see the Loose Cannon.
Okay, so I'm in Vegas.
I was in there and I was leaving and,
Brian's coming and Brian's in full gimmick at this point.
And then, I see him, "Hey, Dave." Whatever.
I'm leaving, he goes, "Can I get your credential?"
And I go, "Yeah, here. Here's my credential."
And he went in and makes a beeline for
Jim Ross and Vince McMahon.
He had an idea to be the most outrageous,
outlandish, over-the-top character that
Vince McMahon had ever met.
He's gonna try to get Vince McMahon's attention.
Doing his whole Brian Pillman,
"Hey, Vince, ah-dah-dah, hey, let's take a picture!"
"Vince McMahon! Mother... er! God almighty!"
"It's the greatest thing in the world
I got a chance to meet ya! Can I get the arm around..."
Somebody takes a picture.
And Vince is like, "Who is this guy?"
He made an impression.
You didn't know whether he was a homicidal maniac or
just a guy that was having fun.
McMahon thought, "We can't hire this guy, JR.
We can't hire this guy, JR. He's crazy."
I said, "He's crazy like a fox." "What do you mean?"
"Well, he told me what he was gonna do."
"He did?" "Yeah, he's creative.
He's bold. He's kind of like you are, Vince.
He'll take a chance."
Brian's balls at that point and that day,
would probably fit in a wheelbarrow.
And dude, you work Vince McMahon, you know,
especially back in the day, pretty good rib.
And got his attention, too.
It was, it was pretty frickin' genius,
what he was doing.
But, but, he wanted to stay in WCW 'cause
WWF didn't offer guaranteed money.
And also, Vince was always pushing the bigger guys so,
Brian always felt that WCW was his company and
the company he would do the best in anyway.
People go, like, "Oh, "he did this manipulation
of his contract to go to WWF."
No, he did the manipulation of his contract to be able
to negotiate with WWF to raise his money with WCW.
Brian's bold plan is a success as he is in
negotiations for major contracts with both
WCW and WWF.
All he has to do is choose the right path.
No, it's money!
That's the bottom ...ing line!
It's money!
And these people are in fantasy land.
And it's money.
The only problem is...
like the Hebrew saying,
"Man plans and God laughs".
We're talking and it's always about, you know,
"I gotta save money, I gotta save money,"
and then he buys an $80,000 Humvee.
I couldn't fathom the idea of,
I've got 5 kids, I've gotta make money now,
I've gotta save money, and then buying a Humvee.
(sighs) God.
He would drive that wherever Brian wanted to drive that.
He didn't want to sit at the stop light,
he drove down a gully and up the other side
in that Hummer.
He didn't, you know, follow the rules.
I was actually in Miami, modeling,
but I called to check on the kids and,
the neighbour across the street,
I called her 'cause I didn't get an answer,
and she said, "My God, I just passed the Hummer and
little Brian's car seat's out in the middle of the yard
and big Brian's being flown to the hospital."
♪
I remember he flippedit, rolled it.
It was severe.
The wreck happened during the negotiations.
They're getting damaged goods.
It was truly the deal of, you can get on the
tiger's back, but how do you get off?
Fate figured that out.
There'd been a lot of wrestler deaths,
but not of a guy who was actually on the way to
the show at that moment.
It's like if Brian could just see the future and
what happened, Brian would have just,
"..., oh my god. No drugs, no nothing."
I know it would have scared him straight.
It's crazy how you go from having a silver platter
growing up to not even knowing
when your next meal is going to be.