WWE: Brian Pillman - Loose Cannon - DVD Review

Originally typed up on October 1, 2006

Hey everyone. I promised a review of the new WWE Brian Pillman DVD so here you go. First off, if you are wanting to watch this, you may not want to read this cause I'm going to spoil stuff that is said in it obviously.

Brian Pillman was a favorite of mine in the mid 90's especially when he made his way to the WWF. He was this loose cannon of a wrestler that you never knew what was going to happen with him. His loose cannon gimmick often made wrestlers wonder what was real and what was the character. He always kept fans guessing on what he was going to do next and actually he kept the talent and promoters guessing too. The internet was just starting to get going and he would use that to his advantage too. I've seen several people since try to pull off what Pillman was able to accomplish. Many people last year made the comparison of Matt Hardy to Pillman with what Hardy was saying on the internet and showing up at various shows looking like a loose cannon. Hardy wasn't able to pull it off though. It's the closest thing that I've seen but it got nowhere near Pillman.

The story part of the DVD runs 1 hour and 33 minutes long. Several of Pillman's family are interviewed for including his wife, Melanie. Others interviewed are Jim Ross, Eric Bischoff, Paul Heyman, Steve Austin, Mick Foley, Dusty and Dustin Rhodes, and others. The story opens up talking about his rough childhood as he had forty throat surgeries done due to the fact that polyps kept appearing. He would often have trouble breathing because of this. It was said to be unusual for kids to have this problem as Brian was two when this occurred the first time. This was the reason that his voice was always rough sounding cause of all the surgeries. The doctor that did the surgeries actually wrote an article about Brian cause of how rare of a case this was in kids. On to high school where they talk about Brian's football career. His size was always talked about as he was small compared to other players. He had very good success but colleges were afraid to put up the money in scholarships due to his size. Once again, he had to prove himself. He ended up being a walk on for Miami of Ohio. He sat on the sidelines and was treated badly cause he was a freshmen and also a walk on. He finally got put in during a play in practice. He ended up injuring one of the quarterbacks when he tackled him. When he went to the pro ranks, it was the same thing. No one wanted him cause of his size. He went to the local Cincinnati Bengals as a free agent. He made the team due to his performance in the last exhibition game. He was injured halfway through the season and was released. He went to the Bills and then to the CFL. After an ankle injury, he decided to try wrestling after he was told about it.

Brian called the Hart family who brought him in. Chris Benoit said that although Brian wasn't that good in the ring at first, he could really fly through the air. This became his persona, Flyin Brian. Jim Ross and WCW were sent a letter about Brian and asked to take a look. JR was interested immediately and had heard of him. He was brought into WCW. Paul Heyman talked about Pillman's high flying moves saying that Pillman was ahead of his time in what he could do acrobatic wise. Pillman studied Flair promos and matches while also reading books. The DVD doesn't go into any detail about how Flair helped train him. What really put Pillman on the map was the feud with Lex Luger. People were amazed at how good of matches that he was getting out of Luger. A little is shown of the team of Pillman and Z-Man. They were a fun tag team to watch and its a shame that they couldn't stay together longer. They then go into talking about the light heavyweight title. Pillman wanted to make the light heavyweight matches just as good and important as the rest of the card. They go into the matches with Jushin Liger which were always good. The highest profile match between the two happened at SuperBrawl 2 for the light heavyweight title. Dusty Rhodes comments saying that this match is one that he still shows to young wrestlers to teach them. Footage is shown of Brian and Melanie's wedding in 1993. Next up is the Hollywood Blondes tag team with Steve Austin. A lot of what Austin says about the team is also discussed in his book. Austin says that he found out about them teaming when Brian came up to him with all these ideas for their team. He went to Dusty who was the booker at the time and got the confirmation. Austin wasn't really happy about it cause he wanted to be a singles guy. Brian came up with the Blondes name and a lot of their outfits. They became really good friends and had a ton of fun being a tag team. Austin says that it was one of the happiest times of his career. Austin tells a story that is one of his favorites of them as a team. He tells about how after their match against Ricky Steamboat and Shane Douglas, Pillman was stiff with this belt that he was nailing Steamboat with. Steamboat cut this really mad promo after the match cause it really hurt and he WAS mad. Austin discusses how he and Pillman made each other better. The Flair For The Old segment with Flair and Anderson is brought up and Austin says that most of it was ad-lib. When asked about the split of the team, Austin says that it was basically politics. He said that they were put together to be the work horse and have solid matches but to put other people over. The problem was that they got hot and got over instead with the audience. They were stealing the thunder of the wrestlers that did the booking. JR has an interesting comment where he says that when you have an active wrestler booking that it is "a recipe for disaster". Hmm, that sounds familiar in the current state of wrestling. Austin and Pillman were mad over the split but didn't have enough power in the company to fight it so they didn't bother. He said if it would have happened later that they would have fought it and said no.

Next we go to the Horsemen era and loose cannon character. Eric Bischoff says that the loose cannon thing was Brian's idea. They play the famous Bobby Heenan clip where Pillman caught Heenan so off guard at ringside that Heenan said the f word on live TV. They don't say that Bobby had just had neck surgery and was worried about that and didn't know what Pillman was doing. One funny story to throw in this is that Bobby in his book said that after the show, he went and apologized for saying the word on TV. No one even knew what he was talking about and Bobby joked about how that was how that company was run at times with people having no clue. Next is the famous Pillman match with Kevin Sullivan where Pillman fought him for a few seconds. He then got the mic and called Sullivan "booker man" as he left the ring. Sullivan was of course booking WCW at the time and the two didn't get along. People didn't know what was going on with that and everyone was confused if that was planned or real. JR said that he even called Brian cause he was concerned and Brian led him on for a while before finally saying that he was playing a character. Nobody knew what was real and what wasn't with Brian cause he kept stuff to himself. Pillman then wanted to play off the Sullivan thing more and asked for WCW to publicly fire him as his contract was about to run out. Bischoff goes on to say that he often couldn't figure out if Pillman was working him or if he and Pillman were working everyone else. WCW did publicly fire him although still under contract and he showed up in ECW. Heyman was happy to have him if he wanted to show up. Brian told Heyman that it would be easy to make the fans cheer him but he wanted them to boo him. Heyman said that it took Pillman about 60 seconds before the fans wanted to hop the rail and beat him down. He beat up a fan at one point who was a planted fan. Heyman also says that Pillman was the only guy to have all three promotions talking about him at the same time. WCW was trying to resign him to a new deal as Pillman had told them that he would be back but he was said not to be doing so. ECW currently had him and was going to put him in the ring with Shane Douglas. He was talking about going on to WWF. Heyman said that he was about to cash in big time and make the biggest money of his career when the accident happened. The car crash shattered him physically and mentally. His ankle was shattered and he had no contract as his WCW contract had expired.

Pillman then goes to WWF who said that they would find a way to use him somehow. Many claim that he came back way too soon and made his ankle worse leading to more surgeries down the line. The gun incident from Raw is discussed with Pillman and Austin which was big time controversial at the time and really still is. I'll never forget watching that night when they showed Pillman pull a gun on Austin who had broken into his home. USA Network wasn't happy at all with this and made it clear that this shouldn't be done again. Several of the people interviewed said that it went too far but that it did get people's attention. Austin said that it really helped to start swaying things in the Monday Night Wars. Pillman returned several months later and got his revenge attacking Austin in the ring. Austin said that he has only been knocked out once in his career and that was by the Undertaker but the first hit from behind by Pillman almost had him seeing stars. Austin had a laugh over the story saying that he got beat up bad by Pillman that night in the ring but he was happy to see his friend get the revenge. They then move into the Hart Foundation. Pillman was honored to be a part of it and the Hart Foundation were honored to have him in there as he really was an honorary member of their family. Pillman's ankle was in bad shape and at one point had an infection in it. Pillman wouldn't quit working though and at one point had an IV hooked to it at home for antibiotics. He would unhook it, go to work, come home and hook it back up. That was how bad he wanted to work. He was put on the Shotgun Saturday Night show as a commentator so it would give him something to do while he was out of the ring. They thought he'd be a good guy to have on there. JR said that he really looked after him at this point but felt that Pillman was settling for being an announcer but wanted to wrestle. He would never admit that he was hurting and often lied about it to cover up his pain. He never complained about the pain but did take painkillers for it. He got back in the ring. JR did get concerned about Brian and wanted him to take a drug test cause he just wasn't himself. Brian was set off about having to take a drug test and felt betrayed by JR. He failed the drug test. The test results found muscle relaxers and pain killers but everything was prescribed to him. No street drugs in him. He was over medicating himself to get through the day of the pain. People saw the changes in him and wanted to help him desperately. He didn't want any help. He didn't say that he didn't need help but that he just turned it down. They move on to the Goldust feud which the DVD reveals that Brian and Terri Runnels dated in 1990 but she broke up with him and started dating Dustin. Dustin said that the feud was a bit much cause it hit a little too close to home. The DVD finishes with talking about Brian passing away on the day was of the Badd Blood PPV in St. Louis in October of 1997. JR said that two people were late getting there that day. One was Bret Hart and the other was Brian. They asked Bret when he got there if he had seen Brian and he hadn't. They called Melanie who said she had talked to him the night before. Her first reaction was that he had been acting strange and she was annoyed cause he had probably overslept and missed a flight. The police found him in his hotel room and notified the WWF. Melanie was asked about her interview the next night on Raw and she says that she wasn't pressured into it unlike what a lot of people believe. WWF took a ton of heat for interviewing her on the air on the night after. The official cause of death for Pillman was a heart attack. JR feels strongly that Brian passed away due to a broken heart cause he couldn't physically do what he wanted to do. Austin said that he was devastated when he heard the news and says that he thinks about Brian every day.

So, there you go. I don't know if I learned a whole lot of new info in this DVD but I enjoyed hearing stories from other people who knew him. I often wonder what Pillman would have done in the attitude era. Pillman was a guy that overcame the odds so many times and kept people guessing. You never knew what he was going to do in the mid 90's especially on Nitro. It was wild. He was a lot of fun to watch in 1989 during his high flying days. I actually did get to see Pillman wrestle live in Nashville at a house show about a month before he passed away. The heat that he got was amazing. I think me and my friend that was with me who I converted into a Pillman fan were some of the few people cheering for him in that building. It was fun. I recommend this DVD as I think it is definitely worth checking out especially if you were a Pillman fan. I told of the extras on it and they definitely picked out a TON of good ones. Take care and God bless!!