BRIAN PILLMAN – LOOSE CANNON (DVD Review)

The DVD begins with Pillman’s mother and sisters talking about his childhood.  When he was little, he had polyps in his throat and required almost forty surgeries to get rid of them, as they kept returning.  Apparently, his doctor made even more money off of him, as his doctor wrote a book about it.  I’m guessing this explains Pillman’s amazing voice.  In high school, he joined the football team, but most people felt he was too small to play.  Scouts from colleges approached him, but ended up as a walk-on at Miami of Ohio.  His first play, he broke the opposing quarterbacks’ collar bone.  He was not drafted out of college, but did join the Cincinnati Bengals as a free agent. His rookie year, he was awarded the Ed Block Courage Award.  He would go on to play for the Buffalo Bills and then to the Canadian Football League (CFL) before turning to wrestling.  It was during his football career that Pillman started using and abusing steroids and painkillers.

Pillman began training at the Hart Family Dungeon.  After he was fully trained, he headed to Atlanta for a job with WCW.  He was quickly given the moniker “Flyin’ Brian,” which Dustin “Goldust” Runnels is nice enough to explain to us: “The reason Brian was called Flyin’ Brian is because of his aerial assault.”  Pillman won the Light Heavyweight Title and proceeded to have amazing matches (in my opinion) with Jushin Thunder Liger and Brad Armstrong.  They say he really wanted to make it as important as the Heavyweight Title, but wasn’t given the opportunity to do so.

Then Brian married Melanie.  She states that he often came home from the road and just wanted to hang out with his kids, and not go anywhere else at all.

Back in the wrasslin world, Pillman gets put into a tag team with some nobody named Steve Austin.  Austin says he was confused when Dusty Rhodes put him in this tag team, as he was under the impression he was getting the US Championship.  However, since the Hollywood Blondes was such a great creation, it was okay.  Also, since the Hollywood Blondes got over in no time and people absolutely loved them, WCW killed it.

Pillman went back to being a singles wrestler, and even becomes one of the Four (Thousand) Horsemen.  This led to Arn Anderson being ultra cool and slapping Pillman for “not keeping his mouth shut.”  This led to the Loose Cannon gimmick.  We get Pillman grabbing Bobby Heenan’s coat, and Heenan dropping the word “fuck” on a pay per view event (which is apparently uncool).  Next we’re given the supposedly earth-shattering “Respect Match” with Kevin Sullivan, in which Pillman outs Sullivan as the leader booker of WCW.  The match starts.  Pillman quits instantly and says, “I respect you, Booker Man!”

Pillman is then released from WCW and appears at ECW’s Cyberslam 1996.  Paul Heyman says Pillman saw no challenge in getting the crowd to love him, so he instead decided to make them hate him.  Pillman got the crowd firmly behind him, and then whipped out his other loose cannon and proceeded to try to urinate all over the ring.  The crowd had no idea what to do.  Paul Heyman, Shane Douglas, and Tod Gordon came down and escorted him out of the ring.  On the way, Pillman pulled a fork out of his boot and stabbed a member of the audience (don’t worry, it was a plant – and not the leafy kind).  Styles then tells us a magically wonderful story about how Pillman came to an older couple’s house, who did a lot of work with ECW production.  Pillman took a crap on their bathroom floor, just to be a jerk.  Styles says he didn’t really like Pillman from that point forward.  Pillman was getting way over, starting verbal feuds with any wrestler in ECW that he could, but he wasn’t working under contract.  Thus, a bidding war began.

Unfortunately for Brian Pillman, before he could sign, he fell asleep behind the wheel of his Hummer, and slammed into a tree.  He was in a coma for almost a week, and worse (wrestling-wise), his ankle was shattered and had to be fused back together, severely limiting his in-ring ability.  He was also given pain meds, which he would become addicted to.

Once he was mostly recovered, Pillman signed with Vince McMahon and the WWF, appearing at the 1996 King Of The Ring Tournament.  He cut a fabulous promo on raping, plundering, and pillaging from the company.  So then, Brian Pillman was interviewing Austin on Superstars a few weeks before the Survivor Series, and started praising Bret Hart.  Austin when nuts and broke Pillman’s ankle (in the storyline, anyway).  This leads us to the GUN INCIDENT.  Austin breaks into Pillman’s house and Pillman tries to shoot him.  Pillman even manages to say “Fuck” as well, only rather than a PPV like Heenan, Pillman did it on RAW.  After this, USA gave them the time delay they are still on to this day.

Pillman then joins the Hart Foundation, which should have propelled him to the top, given the amount of air time they got back then, but of course, no such luck for Brian.  Pillman then went on to be a commentator, as he couldn’t handle the fulltime schedule with his ankle, but he wanted back into the ring.

Pillman’s drug problem was out of control by this point.  Pillman’s sister tells us a fabulous story about how he once unhooked himself from an IV, hit the ring, had a match, and then came back and hooked himself back up to it.  That’s a guy that LOVES THE BUSINESS.  Rocky Maivia, I’m looking in your direction.  Jim Ross made Pillman take a drug test, and it came back full of pain pills and muscle relaxers, but no illegal street drugs.  Austin tells us Pillman never complained about the pain.  Heyman says, “Brian wasn’t in denial.  He just didn’t want the help.”

Pillman and Goldust began the feud over Marlena.  Pillman challenged Goldust to a match where he would either retire or get Marlena for thirty days.  Pillman won it, and would then give us all clips of the “good times” he was having with Marlena.  He always claimed to be the father of Goldust’s daughter, Dakota. 

Badd Blood ’97 rolled around, and Pillman didn’t show up for his match against Dude Love.  Most people assumed he just missed his flight.  Then they found his body in his hotel room.  Vince announced the death on the Pay Per View that night. 

Most people assume Brian “Pill Man” Pillman died like so many other wrestlers – overdosing on pain pills and other drugs.  I believe this is the conclusion his life would have had, but as it is, the autopsy showed that he actually died from arteriosclerotic heart disease, a previous undetected heart condition.  Saddest of all, Brian Pillman died, not knowing he was going to become a father again.

Overall, fabulous DVD, and very informative, if you don’t know much about Brian Pillman.  It’s also great to relive this man’s wild ride in the world of Professional Wrestling if you do.  Either way, check it out.  You won’t be sorry.

GRADE:  8.5 / 10.0

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Tags: Arteriosclerotic Heart Disease, Badd Blood, Blondes, Brad Armstrong, Bret Hart, Brian Pillman, Canadian Football League, Cincinnati Bengals, Dakota, Death, dvd review, Ed Block, Fork, Four Horsemen, Fuck, Goldust, Gordon, Gun, Hollywood, Hummer, Jushin Liger, Kevin Sullivan, King of the Ring, Loose Cannon, Marlena, Miami of Ohio, Mother, NFL, Pain Killers, Paul Heyman, pregnancy, Shane Douglas, Sisters, Steroids, Steve Austin, Styles, Summerslam, The Rock, WCW, Wrestling, wwe, WWF