♪
[Narrator] Previously, on Dark Side of the Ring...
Sure, you can watch the Hollywood Blonds,
and we could've been a great tag team if we'd been
left together, but if you can watch Flyin' Brian in his
total element being the Loose Cannon,
you're seeing one of the true really, really
bright minds in the business of professional wrestling.
What the... are you doing? Easy!
He was on track to becoming the biggest star in wrestling
by convincing people that he was the only one
that wouldn't do what he was told.
I have been fired...
by Eric Bischoff!
Brian and I talked about it. "I can't give you what you want.
Raise the value in your stock so that when you come back,
it'll give me the ability to pay you more
'cause you've raised your own value."
Brian Pillman masterminded a cutting edge character
the wrestling world had never seen.
Playing the system at its own game,
he single-handedly turned the industry on its head
in order to manipulate his way to the top.
If he played 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.
But did he want it for himself?
He didn't care about himself.
He cared about those little kids.
Lost inside his manic performance art,
Brian's real life spirals out of control.
He's depended on to provide for several different
mothers and families, and I think that does weigh on a man.
A tragic turn of events would not only alter
the course of Brian's career indefinitely,
but also the lives of those closest to him.
I really believe that if it was not for the Humvee wreck,
that everything would have turned out differently.
♪
Melanie called me, and she called to tell me that
Brian had an accident and it was bad.
♪ (sirens, helicopter chuff) ♪
And he was airlifted to the university hospital.
And, was in the emergency room so,
again, I was the lucky one to go to the hospital.
And I thought, oh, Jesus, here we go again.
When I got to the hospital, I walked right by the room.
And then Linda's like, that's his room, Melanie.
I'm like, "That's not my husband."
She's like, "I know, it doesn't look like him, does it?"
♪
'Cause his hair was red with all the blood,
and they had him in a neck brace.
I mean, his head was swelled up like a beach ball.
And I thought, oh, my god...
It was really bad. His eyes were red, like,
I didn't see any colour than red, like blood.
His eyes were just, ugh.
[Linda] He had six different doctors for his face.
There's one that just does the forehead,
the lower mandible, the upper mandible,
the nose, the eye sockets.
Everything in his face was shattered.
They had to put plates in his face and
they peeled his scalp back...
to make the incision, and peeled his face down
to put the plates in.
Word travels quickly that Brian has been in a terrible
car accident, and there's talk of him losing a foot.
His ankle was shattered.
In fact, the nurse told me that it was just like
hanging off the table.
She had to pick it up to put it back on the table.
♪
And then the doctor said, you know, that they would
have to just fuse it into a walking position,
that he wouldn't probably be able to run.
Or, or even wrestle again.
♪
I show up, and he goes, (muffled)...
I said, "Don't talk, Brian. It's alright.
Hey, I'm with you, I'm with you."
I'm thinking, holy ..., I don't know...
And then he's got a titanium mask,
and he's got things holding his legs together.
I remember him crying in the hospital, just saying,
he said, "I really messed up. I really messed up."
'Cause he thought, you know, his career was over.
And I said, "Just be grateful you were by yourself,
there was no kids in the car. It'll be fine."
But he, he was crying, saying, "I really messed up."
♪
Oh, he fell asleep at the wheel. He had been up and...
he went and picked up some of his medication,
and I guess it hit him too soon before he got back to
the house and you know, he just drove into a...
into a tree trunk off the side and it threw the Humvee,
totaled the Humvee.
No, just those...
muscle relaxers.
Maybe a few pain pills.
Well, we are turning the microphone over to you, sir.
We don't need any police reports or doctor reports.
Can you tell us, in your own words, what happened?
[voice of Brian Pillman]
[Interviewer] Oh, my lord.
♪
When he came home from the hospital,
I do remember him being in the living room,
and I had a gift and I wanted to give it to him.
And, I was just terrified 'cause I'm like,
that's not my dad. I don't know who that is.
You know, as a child and seeing my father like that,
I think it just kind of freaked me out a little bit.
♪
I do have some small memories there of just
seeing those bolts and how they're just screwed into
his leg and I'm thinking, what's going on here, you know?
And then, it's like... Then they look like
they're greased up, but it's like, not grease,
but it's like blood and like, just the...
It's all hardened and it's just,
oh, it was just a wild sight to see, you know,
just some, some rusty bolts sticking out of your dad's leg.
♪
Yeah, I just, I really remember him just being like
so exhausted...
and rundown.
I was just too young to really understand, like,
what was really going on with him,
and like, how ragged his life had become.
♪
The Loose Cannon thing had gone so far at this point
that a lot of the guys were convinced there was no wreck
and it was Brian working again,
and they're just trying to figure out what the angle is.
How does he expect to get more money out of this,
or more attention out of this?
Or, you know, was it really a wreck or maybe he just
ran his car off the road and, and wrecked it to get,
you know, publicity.
He had created so much, not only mystery,
but confusion about himself that even the guys that were
his friends weren't exactly sure how to take him.
Perhaps he would have done that for attention.
And Kim, who would not work me,
Kim is just like, "No, no, no. It's, it's real."
And I told people, I go, "It's real," and you know,
I think most people didn't believe me either.
He was, you know, there's the Andy Kaufman thing
in him, faking an auto accident,
perhaps he would have done that for attention.
There was even at one point a rumor that some of the
wrestlers put out that he was having plastic surgery
to look just like Shawn Michaels so he could go into
the World Wrestling Federation and be the evil
Shawn Michaels and fight him for the title.
Guys believed that...
'cause they thought Brian was nuts.
While the wrestling rumor mill is speculating
the authenticity of the accident,
media outlets also question Brian's intentions.
Brian, now, you're not having plastic surgery and,
you know, gonna go into the WWF as Shawn Michaels' twin
or something?
I don't know what goes on in America online.
[voice of Brian Pillman]
[Interviewer] Oh, it's preposterous, but...
[David] I can look back, and Brian was pretty
honest with me most of the time.
But the one where I know that he wasn't was
right after the accident. And Brian, you know, said like,
"Oh, yeah, the doctors told me, you know, like,
it's gonna take a while, but I will be 100%.
The doctors have told me."
And I know that the doctors told him the exact opposite.
The wreck happened during the negotiations.
He kept it pretty quiet how badly he was hurt.
And, if the real story of that wreck had come out
at that point, I don't think he would have got a contract
from either company. He could never again do,
physically, what he had been able to do before,
and he didn't want anybody to know that.
The object was to play Vince for money,
and he did.
Only he was... near dead when he did.
Vince signed him, and he signed him for more money.
♪
Vince McMahon offers Brian a guaranteed 3-year contract,
and although Eric Bischoff offers him more money,
his deal is subject to be renegotiated
every three months.
Brian knew, at that point,
because of the extent of the injury,
that if he had an out clause in a contract that
at some point fairly early it was gonna get exercised.
The events that have taken place in my life,
just in the past 8 weeks have...
really changed my...
the future of my life and...
from going from a point not knowing if I was gonna
live or not, to standing here...
signing a contract with the World Wrestling Federation,
it's a dream come true.
(applause)
What changed about Brian coming in to our company
at that time, well, he's not gonna be able to wrestle
to any degree, or even comparably to what he was.
♪
Although Brian is still in rehabilitation
for his injuries,
he officially joins the WWF in 1996 with the
Loose Cannon persona already in full force.
There's Brian Pillman. What's he doing here?
Brian Pillman, recently signing with
the World Wrestling Federation...
I just remember him coming in and,
I was like, okay, let's see what he can do.
Here in the land of, you know, WWF.
They'll let you go out there and push the envelope,
but you know, how strong is he?
Can he do it?
And, I would have, if I was gonna bet on Brian,
like, oh, yeah, if he could just get healed up,
he's gonna go right to the top.
I'm gonna rape, pillage, and plunder
this entire federation!
♪
When Brian came home, he still had an IV.
And, he'd unhook himself from the IV,
go do the show, and then come back and
hook himself back up again.
He had to do that because of work.
So then, it wasn't fun for him anymore.
You know, I don't think he enjoyed it anymore.
You know, that was what I consider
the beginning of the end.
[Narrator] As Brian Pillman continues to struggle with
his crippling injuries, an upcoming surgery keeps him
out of any in-ring action.
To disguise this from fans, the WWF devises a
shocking story line involving his old tag team partner.
I needed to do something to get some heat.
We were in Cincinnati, in his hometown so,
it's always great to attack somebody in their hometown,
especially him being in a compromised position.
[Jim] Steve and Brian were still friends,
and they still wanted to see each other succeed.
Steve was still on his way up.
So, we decided to put them together because
we thought that...
They would enjoy it, and at the same time,
the people would enjoy it as well.
- And wait a minute! - Wow!
What a cheap shot!
I laid into him and started kicking the hell out of him.
I broke that cane on his ankle,
that brass duck he had flew into the crowd.
- Oh! - Oh, my god!
I stomped a mud hole in his ass and walked...
That was a stiff beating I gave him because it had to be.
My character was a vicious, cold-blooded guy
who was ruthless and remorseless.
So, had I not given him the beating that I gave him...
who would have cared?
They cared about Brian because I hurt his ass.
He may have re-broken Pillman's ankle here!
He gets Brian Pillman down and he puts a metal folding
chair around the bad ankle, and then stomps
the seat of the chair.
Oh, my god!
And Brian screams.
"Oh, my god, he's reinjured the ankle!"
There's a way you can do that.
I won't give away any secrets.
But that was an excuse for Brian to have
continued problems with the ankle, publicly,
on television. It became, in the industry,
known as Pillman-izing a body part.
Brian took that ass whooping like a damn man.
He knew what I had to do and he sold it like a million bucks.
In the midst of a TV ratings war with WCW,
Vince strives to produce edgier content to further
capitalize on the feud between Pillman and Austin.
Somehow, they decided - and I was not...
consulted on this - but they decided that it would be
a wonderful thing if they did a remote
from Brian Pillman's house in Cincinnati...
[Commentator] We are live.
Austin is outside of Brian Pillman's home!
Steve Austin came to find him and stage a
home invasion on Monday Night Raw.
Austin, trying to get into the house...
of Brian Pillman.
I always want to do something that feels real and gritty,
especially something that's gonna have the,
you know, the...
the volume turned up, the testosterone,
the adrenaline turned up.
I mean, hell, man, if you're just casually...
If you're not a wrestling fan and you're kind of just
flipping channels and, all of a sudden,
you watch this 10 seconds of this scene,
you're not gonna change the channel.
Steve is a dead man walking!
Because when Austin 3:16 meets Pillman...
- Oh, my god. Oh, my god. - 9-millimeter Glock!
I'm gonna blast his sorry ass straight to hell!
All of a sudden, man, I start bashing in
that window with that aluminum baseball bat.
- (screams) - What the hell is that?
(screaming)
And there's Melanie in there just shrieking...
It's Austin!
I remember, Vince was like...
"Alright, we're gonna have Stone Cold and
y'all just wing it from there."
Don't go in there! Don't go in there!
(screaming)
♪
Nothing like that had ever been done before in wrestling.
It was kind of groundbreaking,
whether it was in a good way or a bad way.
People weren't ready for it. They weren't ready for it.
The reaction was pretty negative to it.
I mean, it was pretty darn negative.
I didn't like it. I didn't like the idea of like,
you know, using a gun and...
it seemed going really extreme,
but that's the direction wrestling went.
Oh, my god! He's back!
That's Brian, you know.
And I don't know whose idea it was,
and how much input he had on the idea.
He never really told me that,
but he was absolutely really into it.
And they had to apologize for it the next week because
the gun thing, you know, Vince had to actually go
on television and apologize for that angle 'cause
it got so much negativity.
And, on behalf of the World Wrestling Federation,
for those of you who were offended,
those viewers, we humbly apologize...
for the incident that took place last Monday night on Raw.
And, I think that's the only angle
Vince ever apologized for.
...join us here at ringside...
While still recovering from the car wreck,
Pillman is temporarily sidelined
as a broadcast announcer.
Yeah, I'm gonna cut through all your duplicitous rhetoric
and cut right to the chase, tell it like it is,
and hey, if the censors don't like it,
you're gonna get fired, not me.
I'm Brian Pillman.
I'll just go somewhere else and beat people up.
He looked at being an announcer as a come down.
It was less than, it's not being a man.
When I said, "Look, you can make a great living.
You know, you can take care of your health."
He didn't want to hear it.
Only thing he wanted to hear was me to encourage him that
you could come back and be what you were,
or really, really close to it.
And I, I never told him that because I would've been lying.
You know, the competitor in him wanted just to get
back in the ring and work.
He's working matches, but he was in a lot of pain.
The former Cincinnati Bengal has had
two major surgeries on his leg.
Even though he was able to sometimes have decent matches,
just 'cause he was smart enough to know how and
he would fall on his face, do things that were
dangerous in a different way,
but not hurt the body parts that were hurt,
it was really sad to watch.
You know, he wasn't the same at all.
Brian needed to stay medicated more often than
he should because of the pain he was in...
because he was doing things that
he shouldn't have been doing.
Oh, no! He missed... Oh, his ankle!
He made it through because he'd say,
"Oh, I'm okay. I'm good. I'm fine."
He wasn't fine.
Consistently performing well beyond
what his body can handle,
Brian's dependency on painkillers and
the pressure to provide for his family
is pushing him to the point of no return.
♪
While rushing through recovery,
Brian Pillman hampers any progress on his injuries
by choosing to still perform in the ring,
which results in his pain becoming all consuming.
The only thing Brian ever told me was that if he had
an ache or a pain, he took a pill.
And he said if it didn't go away,
he took another one.
And he took a pill until it went away.
♪
He was sick, physically sick with infection in his ankle
because he was going to shows and
not recouping it properly.
♪
I would talk to guys in WWF, and they would tell me
how he couldn't get through the airport,
you know what I mean?
He couldn't walk through the airport,
and he was out there taking bumps in the wrestling ring?
It's like, he cannot walk through the airport.
I'd see him kind of walk around with his suitcase,
and he wasn't moving so well.
But Brian is one of those guys,
like a man's man, you just figure...
Whatever it is, Brian's got it.
He's Brian Pillman.
You know, and I could have seen the writing on the wall,
but because of the regard that I held him in,
thought he was gonna be just fine.
When you have wrestlers that are missing shows,
who are obviously unable to perform when they get there,
then you know you've got problems.
It wasn't that obvious with Brian and,
how were you able to tell where the Loose Cannon ended
and the real person began?
We had some problems. We, we were having
problems 'cause he kept wrecking rental cars.
He was definitely, like, nodding out at the wheel.
He was definitely having issues.
He, he acted as though he wasn't gonna
be around much longer.
He used to say things like, "If anything happens to me,
make sure you move back to Atlanta.
And don't stay up here if you're not comfortable here."
And, "Make sure you find somebody
so the kids have a father."
I'm like, "Why would you even say something like that?"
And then, the next day, he wrecked a rental car.
I had become a bit estranged from him
because he was ...ed up.
And, at one time, he came to my house and he had a big welt.
You could see the hole...
it was like a, you know, the syringe,
it was a horse needle syringe that went in there.
And it was growth hormone or something.
But he was ...ed up.
He was like, (groans), he kept repeating himself.
And I said, "This is it, Brian. I'll give you to ten.
Get the... out of my house.
My kids are upstairs sleeping.
Don't ever come here in this state."
"Oh, yeah, but I gotta do...
I gotta... ah..." (mumbling)
I said, "No, I can't. I'm sorry.
You're a friend, but get the away from me right now,"
and he did.
Some of his friends had come to me,
when I was in charge of talent relations...
And say, that this is becoming a bigger issue,
and I needed to intervene.
And it was gonna be tough because he was not gonna
appreciate that intervention.
I called the agent, lead agent, and I said,
"You know, I'm gonna have a drug tester
there tonight to test Pillman."
And I said, "Make sure it gets done."
He felt like I had, I had betrayed him.
That's what he told me. "I can't believe you,
you, of all people, would betray me.
And that you, you always, you always had my back.
You were always there for me, and now this."
I said, "Brian, I'm trying to save your life.
That's all I'm trying to do."
And Brian was calling me up, "I hate Jim Ross.
Why is he singling me out? Do you know how many guys
in this company are doing drugs?"
And he goes, "They're not gonna find anything on me,
nothing but my prescription pain pills.
They're not gonna find any illegal drugs in me."
And in fact, you know, the only thing that they
found in him was his prescription pain drugs and
steroids which, you know, in extent, you know,
I don't know that that really counts for
what they were looking for.
I had to lead Brian out of the path that he was on,
to no avail. I failed.
I needed to convince him that he is so talented that
he was going to be a star in other areas of pro wrestling.
I failed.
In October of 1997...
At the Kiel Centre in St. Louis, Missouri,
Brian is scheduled to compete at WWF's
Pay Per View event Badd Blood.
In those days, the call time for talent at the
Pay Per Views was one o'clock.
And, sometimes guys would be late,
oversleep, miss their flight...
traffic, whatever. But, by 5 o'clock,
everybody was accounted for accept for Brian.
And that was egregiously late to be for a Pay Per View.
So, Bruce Prichard asked me, I'm in talent relations,
he said, "Call, try to find where he, you know,
where he might be.
Call the hotel where he stayed last night in Minneapolis,
see what time he checked out."
I get on the phone and, boom, a guy answers.
I said, "I'm with the World Wrestling Federation.
We're looking for one of our wrestlers.
He stayed there last night, Brian Pillman.
Can you tell me what time he checked out?"
And the guy said, "Hold on a second,"
and he put me on hold.
Okay, I guess he's checking his records.
And he answered, he says, "Sir?"
I said, "Yeah?" He said, "Mr. Pillman's dead."
And, the first flash that I had, "What is Brian doing now?"
I said, "Is this a rib?"
(sighs)
And the guy said, "No, the police are here now."
I said, "Okay."
So, I told one of the production assistants,
I said, "Go get Bruce."
And he said, "Oh, Bruce is busy. He's doing..."
I said, "Brian is dead. Go get Bruce."
And Bruce came in and got on the phone,
and I just kind of walked off because I,
I did not want to hear that...
news... right now, 23 years later,
I don't want to hear that news.
♪
[Narrator] On October 5, 1997,
Brian Pillman was found dead
in his hotel room in Bloomington, Minnesota.
He was 35 years old.
It's hard for me to still think about it today,
and think of that heart, of that athlete,
of that performer... stopping.
Just doesn't seem believable.
It almost didn't register with me because I'm like,
"Enh, Brian ain't dead." 'Cause he couldn't die.
If you knew Brian, this force field of energy
that he was, I thought could never be stopped.
I honestly thought that.
State police showed up on the door and...
and said that he had to tell me that my husband
was found deceased.
(sighs)
♪
As a kid already in the show business world,
I was thinking, like, is this a work,
like, is he really dead?
Like, no, he's surely coming back.
Like, I didn't even know what to think.
I didn't even... I didn't even cry when my dad died.
And, I just remember, like, my family were all sitting
on the bed, like, hugging each other and crying,
and everybody's crying. And I'm looking around,
I'm like, where's the camera crew, you know?
They've gotta be around here somewhere, you know.
I was like, alright, you know, I'll play the spot here.
You know, we'll all just hug and pretend we're sad,
but then like, reality set in.
I'm like, oh, shit, he's really not coming home.
Like, holy crap.
As a kid, that's just kind of what I thought.
I figured, you know what, he went to work that day
and he decided to stay there.
The next night on Monday Night Raw,
the news of Brian's death is broadcast live.
Yesterday afternoon,
Brian Pillman was found dead...
in a hotel room in Bloomington, Minnesota.
(bell chimes)
I remember when we tolled the bell ten times,
that was when I got emotional.
I remember, very emotional, and that's when I was like...
He's gone, he's gone.
And then I remember talking to, I think Jim Ross.
I said, "Hand the phone to Owen,"
and then Owen says, "I don't know.
I don't know what happened."
Then, Vince got on the phone and he says,
"Do you want to, you know, talk on camera?"
And then I just thought, well, you know what,
with, with Brian, the show must go on.
Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen,
in suburban Cincinnati,
the wife of Brian Pillman, Melanie Pillman.
Melanie, thank you so much for joining us tonight.
I did say to Vince, "Please, don't ask me about
drugs or anything like that because I do not
exactly know why he died yet."
Brian, because of his injuries,
has had to take a great deal of prescribed medicine.
And the first thing he does is start talking about pain pills,
and then I'm like, that's Vince, alright.
I made like a really funny face and I remember that's
the only clear part of that interview I can remember
thinking, wish this mother... er was standing here
so I could smack him. (laughs)
'Cause he swore, he swore he wouldn't say anything like,
leading down that direction until the
death certificate came out.
I think all athletes, to a degree...
experience a reliance on pain medicine,
and you know, I knew it was just
a matter of time before...
it happened to someone, and unfortunately,
it was my husband.
And, I just want everyone to know that...
I hope it's a wakeup call to some of you because
it could be your husband next or it could be you and,
you know, you don't want to leave behind
a bunch of orphans, like my husband did.
I absolutely despised the grieving widow interview.
I, I didn't like it on a wrestling program.
I was uncomfortable with it.
I didn't know why she had to go out there and...
and have to answer these questions that were
obviously meant to elicit tears and etcetera
for "television", for "good television".
I thought he should have sent her a cheque for $100,000
and kept her ass off TV, is what I thought.
[Vince McMahon] Have you had any opportunity
to think about what you,
now as a single parent,
will do to support your five children?
Vince, I don't even...
really know what day it is, you know.
So, I don't...
know what I'm gonna do.
Yeah, and everybody's like,
"Oh, that was so horrible what you did to her!"
I barely remember it. And it really...
I didn't really...
think about not doing it.
But, nobody pressured me into it.
[Jim] I hated it.
I didn't want to relive, and relive,
and regurgitate, and regurgitate this matter.
To pop a rating.
And to me, that's what it was all about.
♪
Um... heart disease.
And see, my father died of a massive heart attack at 55.
We got there early before people came in 'cause it was
supposed to be family and friends.
And when we walked in, there was a camera crew there.
And I walked up to 'em and I said,
"Who are you?"
And I said, "You're not supposed to be here."
They said, "Well, Melanie said we can," and I said,
"Well, I'm Brian's sister and I'm telling you, no, you can't."
And they left.
Um...
No.
Just Vince and Jim Ross were there.
[Jim] They had an open casket, and I knew then,
this is gonna be really tough.
There's the last time I saw him.
That's the last time I've seen Brian,
lying in a casket.
And that was just gut wrenching.
Absolutely gut wrenching.
I just stared, and I had memories flooding back,
when I was looking at the corpse.
I'm thinking, this shouldn't be a part of
my pro wrestling career.
This should not be a part of my journey in this crazy business.
And, we shouldn't be burying a guy that's this young.
You know, that's got a young family around him.
At the very end, everyone's gone except for,
you know, couple family members.
And, the little girls, they're kind of running around and
they're not, like, crying or anything.
They were just little kids and they go,
"We gotta say goodbye to daddy," and they all run to
the casket, "Goodbye, daddy. Goodbye, daddy."
It was like... (sighs)
(children laughing)
And, I think for me, I was just in complete shock.
I just, you know, I couldn't...
I couldn't put it all together.
I just couldn't believe it 'cause it's like,
I lost my mom and now my dad, you know.
And I was just, I was just a lost little girl.
Going through the motions and pretending
I was still alive and I had a soul.
I just felt like I just didn't know what to do.
Right now, like, it's the same day almost.
I mean, I can bring myself back to
that same pain in my heart.
If I let go too long, which I'm just gonna stop now,
if that's okay, for a second.
(sighs)
He had such an impact, such an influence on so many
people's lives, it had to have hurt
everybody to see him go.
It had to have hurt everybody to lose him.
But, the person that hurt the most was,
was Melanie, was my mother. She dealt with losing...
what was ultimately the love of her life.
After Brian is laid to rest,
his children are jolted into their new reality.
I never really had a problem with Melanie until
my father passed and then, you know,
like her true character revealed itself.
♪
I spiraled out of control.
I wasn't the best mother in the world.
I always loved my kids.
[Dani] Up until this day, Melanie receives royalties
from my father's legacy, which I have seen...
zero cents.
Oh, yeah, they said I was a gold digger, too,
and I spent all the money I ever got on crazy stuff.
Some of it was spent on crazy stuff, but not...
not the way they said it.
We stayed at my dad's house for a while and then things
got really bad and we moved.
And, you know, running water would be turned off
all the time, electric would be turned off.
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.
[Brian Jr.] It took a downward spiral.
I mean, there's no other way to put it.
It got worse, and worse, and worse, and worse.
[Melanie] Depressed a lot, sleeping a lot,
drinking too much.
Brian found me on... Passed out one time,
and I almost died of alcohol poisoning.
He was like 12, and found me on the floor
with a bottle of vodka by my head.
No kid should have to see something like that.
Craziness.
When my mother remarried and my stepfather came into the
picture, there was a lot of drug abuse on the side of them,
and there was a lot of neglect.
My stepfather was very physically abusive
with my sister and myself.
I would be grounded to my room,
"Oh, you're grounded for the next 6 months," you know,
"I better not see you out of your room."
He had dogs more or less trained to abuse me as well.
And if I was grounded, like, these dogs would
make sure I was kept in my room.
Like, they would bark at me, and they would bite me,
and the would physically, like,
keep me in my room because of how I was verbally and
physically abused by my stepdad, like,
these dogs would adopt that mentality of,
of like attacking me.
♪
And then I was just, I was just so abused
that my social... Developing, socially,
was very hard for me. And, and that's how...
you know, like...
nobody took me out to throw a baseball with me,
you know, like... (sighs)
Nobody took me out to throw a football,
you know, so... I went to school.
I didn't know how to play sports, you know.
(laughs) I wasn't very athletic, you know.
So, I couldn't catch a football,
couldn't throw a baseball.
But, I was big into games,
into video games and stuff, and...
I had a GameCube.
Eventually, he caught on to that.
My stepdad would catch on to that shit.
He'd unplug it, you know, he'd throw it against the wall.
♪
It's like everything I ever latched on to or loved
was taken away, you know, so...
it was hard, it was a hard time.
While Brian Jr. and Brittany grow up with Melanie,
Danielle lives with her mother.
As the siblings drift apart, their Aunt Linda takes action.
At least once or twice a month,
I would get them together.
And so, they didn't lose contact with each other.
(indistinct conversation)
[Brittany] She is literally everything.
She's, I swear, I think that she is a true angel.
I don't have a mom, but she's the closest thing
I have to as a mom. I can call her at any time.
I mean, she took me in, you know.
She bought this house so we could have a home and a family.
(sniffles) And, I just,
I don't know what I would do without her.
I really don't.
♪
They'd all come to my house...
[Brian Pillman Jr. shouts]
There's a spider in the bathtub upstairs.
I don't kill anything, you know.
I always take 'em outside when I find 'em.
Brian has a deadly fear of spiders.
(laughs)
And there's one, I saw it this morning,
I thought, oh, I'll get that later.
I didn't think he'd go up into that bathroom.
[Melanie] I love Linda to death.
And, she's helped the kids a lot. And...
I just want, I just want 'em to forgive me.
But, do I know if they will or not, I don't know.
Brian Pillman lives on in the hearts and minds
of his family.
But his legacy would return to the ring in a way
no one would anticipate.
♪
Brian Pillman's legacy in wrestling lives on in that
he created a character that people still remember to
this day because it was in large part himself.
(cheering)
He was a guy that overcame a lot of odds,
and totally kicked ass in an industry of guys that
were much, you know, larger than him.
I would have loved to see what the next 10 years would
have played out for him had he never had
that damn car wreck.
♪
He knew the hand that he was dealt
after the accident.
There wasn't a damn thing he could do about it,
which killed him.
Figuratively, and I think eventually, literally.
Brian's death started a domino effect that
forced people to recognize the steroid issue,
but put extra focus on the real cause
of people dying too young, which is pills.
The only hurdle he couldn't get across was the last one
and, it was his own body that had betrayed him.
♪
The biggest legacy though, unfortunately,
is what would have been, where he would have gone,
what heights he would have achieved,
how much bigger and better he would have gotten.
He saw the end goal.
Like, he was so close to like really just like
completely making it, you know.
Like, in wrestling.
Would he have been along with The Rock and Steve Austin
and a few other guys, the biggest star
in wrestling, 5 years later?
Probably. One of 'em.
♪
Just rebuilding my relationship with my kids.
Having my, you know, kids not be mad at me...
by the time I die. We'll see if that happens.
(laughs)
♪
You know, my dad's not here so,
if I got one parent left that I can go,
oh, well, you know, that's my mom,
that's just the way she is, you know, like, sure,
I could live the rest of my life hating her,
but where does that get me?
Ever since I've rekindled my relationship with her,
I've been happier in my personal life,
I've been better in my relationships with women.
I've been more understanding of people's plights
and people's vices.
I've been just a much more mature adult in general
since I've buried the hatchet with my mother,
so to speak.
And in many ways, I'm very happy that I have a parent
left on this earth to, to speak to and talk to, you know.
I called Mel a time or two and then
we just lost contact and...
then I reached out to, you know,
Brian Jr. a couple years ago,
I had one of Brian's old weight lifting belts.
Out of nowhere, a sign from the wrestling gods comes in
the form of a cellphone call from Stone Cold Steve Austin
to tell me that he has a Cardillo weight lifting belt...
that belonged to my father and that he wants to
mail it to me and give it to me.
And I'm like, you know what, if that's a sign,
that's a sign.
(cheering) Brian!
♪
When he first said he was gonna wrestle,
like, it struck terror in my heart.
I was like, oh, my god, he'll have fractured
relationships, his kids won't get the attention,
he's gonna travel all the time,
he's not gonna be able...
And then, I saw him perform, and I saw the look on
his face when he knew that he was creating,
you know, homage to his dad.
♪
And, I realized, this is it.
This is what's supposed to happen.
He just woke up one day and he was gonna be a wrestler.
And I, I literally laughed. I'm like, "You? A wrestler?
All you do is sit in your room and play video games.
There's no way that you're gonna be a wrestler."
And it was just crazy, like, he was determined and
he quit his job, he had just graduated college and...
he was, he was gonna do it.
And I was very hesitant at first just because of
everything my dad went through and I didn't want
my brother to fall into that same lifestyle,
so I was scared.
[Commentator] by Pillman, oh-ho-ho!
I think he'd be proud of him.
His son wants to carry on the Pillman name.
He wants to make his father proud of him.
He wants to accomplish something on his own,
but yet pay tribute to his dad.
I think Brian would be into that.
I just think he might be worried that, that...
Brian Jr.'s in it all by himself.
He's got some people looking out for him,
but I, I think Brian Sr. Would a whole lot rather
be there to keep an eye on him.
Great kid, looks a lot like his dad.
And I talk to him about these things.
There's a lot of great traits, Brian,
that your dad had, that I hope to god you,
you can acquire.
And then there are some...
not so much.
You have to learn where you draw the line.
Use his passion, use his intellect,
use his athletic ability, use his love of the game.
But then, don't get too far off the beaten path.
Don't be a Loose Cannon, Brian Jr.,
don't be a Loose Cannon.
The Varsity Blondes!
You know, a lot of people, "Oh, you know,
do you think your dad would want you to wrestle?"
And it's like, "Well, he kind of put his stamp
of approval on me to be a wrestler when he named me
Brian Pillman," you know.
There's really no going back at this point so...
no, it's just tragic to know that we never,
we never got to have that ultimate
father-son relationship. But, but in a way, it...
it inspires me to, to be a good father one day,
you know, so...
I think, I think that's my goal in all of this,
through wrestling and everything,
is to be a father, so...
♪
You know, that photo is very...
very symbolic to me, you know.
He's kind of holding me up and,
and I always look at it for inspiration,
you know, so...
I hope that one day I would have a son like that,
you know, to kind of hold up as...
as the future, you know.
It's like he's kind of giving me his blessing there
in that photo so... yeah.
He contributed a whole lot to the wrestling business.
He pushed the envelope.
The Loose Cannon gimmick
is one of the best ones ever created.
And, Brian was one of the best friends that I had
in the business.
And, I hope that he thought the same about me.
I love Brian.
♪