Original subtitles

The first time I saw him, he had this magnetic charisma that you could feel

across the gym.

And you thought, hey man, this guy's a star.

And I'll do whatever it takes to look at Burstie in the face and spit in his

eye. The wrestling world could never have imagined that an undersized

player from Cincinnati would revolutionize the business, ushering in

era. Shut the hell up!

Brian knew what the deal was, that they're going to screw him over, they're

going to 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

wall. He was going against the script.

This has never been done before.

Who the fuck 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.

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 of here.

He had a lot of troublesome relationships with women. My mom had had

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

some tragic news to report.

I just screamed.

He had a persona that he wanted to perpetuate, even if it killed him.

Man, this gold chain that Brian Feldman 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,

you got to have gold chains. They'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's very sentimental to me, and it was a big part of the makeup and the gimmick

of the Hollywood Blondes.

I'm Steve Austin, a friend of Brian's from way back in our WCW days, and we

tag team partners.

Turned out to be really good friends that are pretty damn good tag team.

Brian didn't fold nothing in. He wanted to go out there and perform.

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.

He was a good -looking guy, great physique, high flyer, could do

Brian was very athletic, 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

very high hopes for and really wanted to find.

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

and 90s with Brian Hilton.

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. He was trying to be everything.

He was trying to hit this business on all fronts and fire on all cylinders,

he was trying to be the biggest star that the business had ever seen.

My name is Brian Pillman, Jr. I am the only son of the late, great Brian

Pillman, otherwise known as the Loose Cannon.

Brian was the natural promo.

When they stuck a mic in front of him, he would just go off in that thrashy

voice. You're not running this interview.

I am.

Because I'm Brian fucking Bellman.

Growing up. Brian had multiple polyps on his vocal cords, and it was closing up

his air passage.

They'd scrape them 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 as air passage.

And she called the doctor.

She had to hold the receiver up so he could hear him breathing, and that's

he decided he needed emergency tracheotomy.

He told my mother to have the ambulance bring them to his house.

Because 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

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

talk and wanting to be an entertainer. It formed him as the guy that was going

to overcome, overachieve, knock down the obstacles, whatever the case may be.

The son of a bitch was fearless.

I mean, he was a tough, tough nut.

My name is Kim Wood. I was the Paul Brown strength coach for the Cincinnati

Bengals. And Pillman got 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 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 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 that he wasn't going to be a high school

teacher. He wasn't going to sell insurance.

There were a lot of things he wasn't going to do. Where he could use his

toughness and his physicality to make money.

A couple years ago when I was with the Bengals, Kim was the strength coach.

He had talked to me about getting into professional wrestling. He thought I had

all the tools needed to be successful.

It turns out Calgary happens to be the premier training ground for wrestlers in

the world. And I said, hey, while you're up there, go check out this Heart

Bunch. The Hearts are the first family of Canadian wrestling, with patriarch

Hart at the helm. In addition to his children that would go on to be

icons, The family also discovered and trained several other future superstars.

They take them into the hard dungeon and they teach them how to wrestle and one

of the most prestigious ways to break into the business that there is.

How would you sort of describe what the dungeon is for someone who doesn't know

what it 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 holes.

and then I'd let him out of the thing for, you know, three or four hours. If

could survive that, you could survive almost anything.

So you get that great foundation all 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

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 Meltzer, editor of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. It's an

publication that's covered pro wrestling since 1982.

For a long time, it was like really the only, you know.

what I would call a true source of pro wrestling information that was out

The sheets were kind of a thing back in the day. You didn't really want to get

caught with them. You know, it was kind of like secret documents.

And then it kind of got out to, damn, you're all the boys are reading.

I'm 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've ever dealt with.

Milcher 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 him. All right, Brian, best of

luck on that endeavor, ladies. Upon arriving in WCW.

Top star and matchmaker Ric Flair sees something in Bryan 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 it.

Rick Flair was the kind of guy that wanted to go in the ring with somebody

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 five or six hours and tear the

house down there.

That's the way he lived.

He lived a cartoon life, a fantasy life of limos and long black socks and

alligator shoes and, you know, babes. I think Brian liked aspects of the

lifestyle a lot.

You know, he wanted to be like Rick Flair.

Brian Pillman was a ladies' 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 at a club downtown Cincinnati.

You know, they were happy, and we all loved her. She went and lived with him

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

girl. You know, everyone sees him as this wrestler and always on the road.

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 two years old.

I'm Danielle Pillman. I go by Danny.

And Brian Tolman 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 very brief love affair.

But she did end up becoming pregnant that my dad had Rochelle as his

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

that I came into the picture, he was there for me 100 % and wanted me to be

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.

The groundskeeper broke into the place and attacked her with an ice pick.

And she was stabbed several times.

Was he trying to rob her? 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

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 wasn't 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 Bryan back down to the bottom. But finally, they put Bryan

together with Steve Austin.

He's ready to back you up 100%. All right, stunning Steve Austin. And I

thrilled at all.

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. He hadn't got a main event spot yet. And this is

about when I'm fixing to start getting a run as the United States champion.

So I was really looking forward to that.

I walk in 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

And I said, what the hell are you talking about?

He goes, we're a tag team now.

And I was really not happy.

I had nothing against Brian.

But it's like 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 going to 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.

And we were going to try to make the most of the situation.

Anytime 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's

trying to increase his vocabulary for promos.

And began the pilgrimage out to Florida.

He 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.

What about the Hollywood Blancs? He goes, it's been done before, but it's

while, 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 Blancs.

Beth, Trump, everything was Brian's idea.

And we were two cocky, brash, arrogant guys.

And we started rolling the camera footage and stuff like that. And, you

Brian, he had that.

Shitty grin or that laugh, you know, when you're getting heat on a baby face.

And Brian and I developed this bond and this chemistry.

I love tag team wrestling once I figured it out.

I hate to say it this way because it sounds really corny, but they were made

each other because they complimented each other so well. They worked hard to

make each other look good.

The Hollywood Blondes also gave Brian a chance to open up as a heel, as a bad

guy. People nowadays are like, oh, I love the Hollywood blondes. But if you

back then, they were getting booed out the building. And you loved to hate

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

smart ass. He wanted to be obnoxious. He wanted to show off.

He was getting better at what he does, getting global exposure, partying,

fun.

Brian's fast and loose lifestyle doesn't mix well with the 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 going to marry

girl. And somewhere along the line, he met her.

My dad was sleeping with Melanie behind my mother's back because he was always

in Atlanta.

Melanie would call the house.

And that's basically, I think, how Rochelle found out about it. You know,

was hurt.

Because, 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 I hit Brian, Jr.

After another unexpected pregnancy outside of their relationship, Brian and

Rochelle split up.

Shortly after, Brian proposes to his new girlfriend, Melanie.

We went to Vegas and he put on like a freaking St. Patrick's Day white tux

a big old ugly green bow tie.

And I had a white dress, mind you.

A stripper in a white dress.

And I had a big old green corsage on.

And I loved it every second of it. I wouldn't trade it for the world.

My name is Melanie Pillman.

I'm the widow of Brian Pillman.

In private, 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's excelled

at so many things. He was my soulmate. I mean, I couldn't have picked a better

guy to love than him.

His first years with her, I thought he was very happy.

It would be a big thing with his Christmas card.

Because it would be him and the wife and all these little kids.

Because 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 was on his shoulder.

And he loved those kids.

He was counted on. He was depended on to provide.

That responsibility is what pushes you to keep going to work. You have to

provide for your family.

And finally, they made the decision to give the Hollywood Blondes a big main

event match.

It was going to be on a clash of champions, and Ric Flair was returning.

going to 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 Blondes didn't draw a

rating. And that kind of doomed them there as being featured in a more

capacity going forward.

It felt like betrayal.

I wish someone would finally tell me why the company decided to break us up,

because we started getting over as a viable tag team that could hold, you

world championship belts. We did. We make chicken shit into chicken salad,

now you want to split us up 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 had been buried because they drew a bad

rating. At the time, TBS was drawing a lot of bad ratings. But I think there

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 check my head that we

could have 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 because

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

for custody.

And that changed everything.

Following the tag team breakup with Steve Austin, Brian's career has

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 because

attorneys only work when you pay them. 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 and floored. You

know, just little minutiae that was making me feel like a better person. But

really, in reality, I wasn't a 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 is devastated, Michelle.

I was outside riding my bicycle one day, and 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.

And 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 going to lose my daughter, and I'm never going to 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 going to do.

And then she shot herself.

Because I got the call to go to the hospital.

Because she was being airlifted and 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 somebody's mother that your child was

dead.

It just destroyed Brian because he felt so responsible.

He just was so upset. He cried and he cried and he said, do you think it was

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.

He lost it. He was hugging me and sobbing.

In fact, at one point I kind of looked at him because I thought he was going to

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 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 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

don't, you know, I don't know. She had a lot of issues. But Melanie was the

overall call. 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 going to 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 Brittany's the one that, you know, I don't know how to make it up to her.

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

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.

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've got to create attention.

How can we do that in the position you're in?

With his pulse on the wrestling landscape, Bryan knew that he had to

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

And that's what he set about to do.

Brian Pillman's plan was simple. More attention means more money. As the WWF

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 color 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,

And then Brian knew he got it. He got gold out of it, right? Because now

everybody's going to be talking about the F -bomb that got dropped on Turner

Broadcast. Bobby thought Brian was nuts. I think the brain is 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.

He was the booker, the matchmaker.

Oh, my goodness, they got a fight going on here. You know, they just... beating

the hell out of each other. And when Brian Pillman was ready to quit, when it

was time for him to leave, it 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 the head writer of a wrestling show was something that had

been done before.

Those that knew knew, and those that didn't know would need to find out what

Booker man meant.

It was a big thing because Those guys are sensitive about exposing the

When you're acting out a storyline that's considered a work, and a lot of

boys backstage weren't really sure if this was real or if this was a work.

The wrestling locker room 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

predetermined. That guy's nuts. And he's real. 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

like a violin.

Brian, I'd like to know.

No, I'm not nervous. I'm not nervous at all. I don't think anybody for sure at

any given moment knew if or not they were really being worked by Brian. But

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 that this has just gone out of control.

The people in the office, the bookkeepers, whatever, if they see that

under contract, they're going to tell Dave.

Everyone's going to 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.

Look 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

that he was working with Bryan to create this illusion.

And Bryan was actually working Bischoff to create his own illusion.

Dude, I mean, how do you do that?

I don't know anybody else that ever did that.

Yeah, scrubbing 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 because 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

point I could give him the money.

Kind of flies in the face of the rumors and the innuendo.

Well, man, that's the greatest thing you can do. If you can fuck somebody over

and have them think that it's a great idea, that's, you know, I mean, that's

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 in publicity.

His insider knowledge, mastery of manipulation, and disregard for exposing

industry solidifies his position as the ultimate ringmaster.

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. Hey, wait a minute.

Trying to prove it was real is that WCW hated ECW, so Bryan must be on the outs

with WCW.

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 -color things.

Eric Bischoff is each and every one of these motherfucking

smart fucks. 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.

Damn near whipped it out, was going to piss in the ring.

That's a pretty strong statement.

And pardon my language, I'm like, man, this motherfucker'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

the fans who did know the inside terminology or were with the secrets,

can't be allowing him to do that.

When he would have a television appearance, it would be arranged so that

didn't look like he was supposed to be there, or he was doing something he

wasn't supposed to be doing. One time, 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 a 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.

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

fell into that. Like, they couldn't decipher if it was, is this Brian

now? Or, you know, like, is he still in character? Or is this just how he is?

It was just like this blur between, like, what is actually going on? Like,

don't even know anymore.

But that was, like, the magic of it. There was a lot of Andy Kaufman in

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've got

that gravelly voice, you've had 30 -plus throat operations when you're a small

child, you get an attitude.

And I've said this many times. The greatest wrestlers I've ever worked with

essentially natural, organic extensions of their own personality.

And the loose cannon was just that.

I think the message that Brian showing up in ECW sent to the other two

is he's a free agent, that he was a gunslinger and he'd go to the highest

bidder. Vince is watching this. 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

tell Meltzer. I value his friendship more than I value, you know, any of this

shit. Something happened. I called up Kim and I go, oh, God, Brian's.

Brian's in trouble. He just goes, you know, like, Brian's doing this.

He's come up with the character, and he's got to work everybody.

Brian goes, what do I do with Dave?

He goes, you don't talk to Dave, because if you tell him, then he's going to

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. You know,

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.

What did you think of Vince at that time? Vince? Yeah, you personally. Yeah,

know what you do with a whore?

You fuck him.

That's what I thought of Vince. That's all I think of Vince.

As Bryan becomes the talk of the wrestling world, it's time for the final

of his master plan.

Track down and secure the attention of wrestling's biggest power player.

In perhaps his boldest stunt yet, Bryan Pillman plots to get the attention of

Vince McMahon at an insider industry trade show 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

dave whatever i'm leaving he goes can i get your credential and i go yeah 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

Vince McMahon had ever met.

He's going to try to get Vince McMahon's attention.

Doing his whole Brian Pillman thing. Hey, Vince. Hey, let's take a picture.

Vince McMahon, motherfucker.

God almighty.

It's the greatest thing in the world.

They got a chance to meet you. And they get their 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

fun? McMahon thought, we can't hire this guy. We can't hire this guy. He's

crazy.

I said, he's crazy like a fox.

What do you mean?

Well, he told me what he was going to 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 in that day would probably fit in a wheelbarrow.

Dude, when you worked Vince McMahon, you know, especially back in the day,

pretty good rib.

It got his attention, too.

It was pretty freaking genius, what he was doing.

But he wanted to stay in WCW because WWF didn't offer guaranteed money.

And also Vince was always pushing the bigger guys. So Brian always felt that

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.

It didn't matter, like, where he wound up. It was just, no, it's money. It's

bottom fucking line.

Money. And these people are in fantasy land.

It is 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 got to save money, I got to

save money, and then he buys an $80 ,000 Humvee.

I couldn't fathom the idea of I got five kids, I've got to make money now, I've

got to save money, and then buying a Humvee.

He would drive that wherever Brian wanted to drive that.

He didn't want to sit at the stoplight.

He drove down a gully and up the other side in the 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

neighbor across the street, I called her because 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 flipped it, 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 had 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

just, fuck, oh, my God.

No drugs, no nothing. I know it would scare 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.