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Brian William Pillman (May 22, 1962 – October 5, 1997) was an American football player and professional wrestler best known for his appearances in the World Wrestling Federation, Extreme Championship Wrestling, and World Championship Wrestling. Brian Pillman had a legacy as "The Loose Cannon", a wrestling gimmick that would see him do a series of worked-shoots that would gain him a degree of infamy for his unpredictable character. He was also known for being extremely agile in the ring, but an accident in 1996 limited his in-ring ability.
[edit] Football career
Brian graduated from Norwood High School in Norwood Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati. While attending Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, Pillman played football for the Miami Redskins as a Defensive Tackle where he set records for "tackles for loss." A two-time Second Team All-American, he went undrafted to the National Football League, joining the Cincinnati Bengals (his hometown team) as a free agent in 1984 and later the Canadian Football League for the Calgary Stampeders in 1986. He also played for the Buffalo Bills in preseason action in 1985 but was the last player cut before the start of that season. His attempts to make the roster of the Bengals were covered in a series of articles in The Cincinnati Enquirer. During his football career, Pillman began taking steroids and painkillers in order to perform, resulting in him having health problems the rest of his life. [edit] Wrestling career[edit] Stampede WrestlingFollowing the end of his football career, Pillman remained in Canada and began training as a wrestler under Stu Hart and his sons. He debuted under his real name in 1986 in Hart's Calgary, Alberta-based Stampede Wrestling promotion. Pillman quickly formed a tag team with Hart's son Bruce known as Bad Company. In April 1987, Bad Company won the Stampede Wrestling International Tag Team Championship, defeating Ron Starr and the Cuban Assassin in the finals of a tournament. Their reign lasted until October 1987, when the titles were held up following a controversial ending to a match between Bad Company and their opponents, Jerry Morrow and Makhan Singh. Bad Company defeated Morrow and Singh in a rematch in November 1987 to regain the titles, eventually losing them to Morrow and the Cuban Assassin in July 1988. While in Stampede Wrestling, Pillman used his girlfriend at the time, Beulah McGillicutty, to get him over as a face by seating her at ringside and having heel wrestlers taunt her so that he could rescue her. [edit] World Championship WrestlingIn 1989, Pillman returned to America and began wrestling for World Championship Wrestling, where he was known as Flyin' Brian due to his athletic ability and variety of aerial maneuvers. He was known for his missile dropkick and diving crossbody. Along with the Rockers (Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty in the WWF), he was one of the first American wrestlers to incorporate a variety of Mexican lucha libre moves into his arsenal. He held the WCW United States Tag Team Championship with "The Z-Man" Tom Zenk. Brian Pillman also held the short-lived WCW Light Heavyweight Championship, feuding with Brad Armstrong, Jushin Liger, Richard Morton, and Scotty Flamingo. Pillman later feuded with Barry Windham, who he harassed while dressed as the masked Yellow Dog after losing a Loser of the fall-leaves-WCW match (Pillman was eventually reinstated). In 1992, Pillman turned heel, forming a tag team with "Stunning" Steve Austin known as the Hollywood Blonds. On the March 2, 1993 edition of WCW Power Hour, the duo won the WCW World Tag Team Championship. The team quickly became popular for their brash attitudes, and critically acclaimed matches with Ricky Steamboat and Shane Douglas. They also feuded with Ric Flair and Arn Anderson, mocking their ages and parodying Flair's interview show "A Flare for the Gold," with their own "A Flare for the Old." They would lose the WCW Tag Team Title to Arn Anderson and Paul Roma at Clash of the Champions XXIV After the Hollywood Blonds separated, Pillman became a tweener, feuding with wrestlers such as Brad Armstrong, Eddie Guerrero, Alex Wright, and Marcus Bagwell. In late 1995 at Fall Brawl, Pillman formed a team with Arn Anderson, and began feuding with Ric Flair and Sting. At Halloween Havoc, Flair betrayed Sting and reformed the Four Horsemen with Pillman, Anderson, and Chris Benoit. On September 4, 1995, he wrestled the first match on the very first episode of WCW Monday Nitro, defeating Jushin Liger. Throughout 1995, Pillman developed his "Loose Cannon" gimmick, cultivating a reputation for unpredictable behavior. During this period of time, Pillman changed his once Hollywood Blond and Flyin' Brian clean athletic look for an edgy, out of control image. Almost all of the time Pillman could be seen wearing leather vests, weird sunglasses, a lot of jewelry and crazy graphic T shirts with skulls, monsters, and sayings on them. Brian mostly preferred T shirts by a company called Liquid Blue. Brian frequently blurred fact and fiction with his worked-shoots, and outed Kevin Sullivan as booker during the February 1996 SuperBrawl VI pay-per-view in an I Respect You Strap match where the loser announces that they respect the other wrestler, much like an "I Quit" match. Brian Pillman grabbed the microphone, saying, "I respect you, booker man." In a match with Eddie Guerrero on the January 23, 1996 edition of Clash of the Champions, Pillman grabbed commentator Bobby Heenan by the collar, causing Heenan (who had a history of neck problems) to blurt out "What the fuck are you doing?" live on air (Heenan has since stated that he didn't know it was Pillman grabbing him and he blurted out the remark because he thought he was a fan grabbing him). Pillman was fired by WCW President Eric Bischoff in early 1996. In Bischoff's autobiography he said that Pillman was fired so that he could go and develop the "loose cannon" gimmick in ECW then return to World Championship Wrestling with more legitimate heat. Bischoff claims it was a plan he and Pillman came up with together. It would later backfire on Bischoff as Pillman did not return. [edit] Extreme Championship WrestlingImmediately following his departure from WCW, Pillman debuted in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based Extreme Championship Wrestling promotion, appearing at the annual Internet convention, ECW CyberSlam, on February 17, 1996. During an interview conducted in the ring by Joey Styles, Pillman insulted Bischoff, calling him a commentator, a "gofer," and a "piece of shit." After Styles attempted to end the interview, Pillman threatened to "yank out [his] Johnson" and urinate in the ring. Pillman was confronted by ECW owner Tod Gordon, booker Paul Heyman, and wrestler Shane Douglas, who had him removed from the ring by security guards. While being dragged from the arena, Pillman attacked a plant sitting in the audience with a fork he produced from his boot. Although he did not wrestle for ECW, Pillman made several further appearances with the promotion, engaging in a war of words with Douglas. He also gained the backstage ire of New Jack when he referred to the tag team consisting of New Jack and Mustafa (The Gangstas) as "Niggas with Attitudes" (not as a racist comment, but in reference to the rap group N.W.A) when crashing one of their interviews. [1] On April 15, 1996, Pillman was badly injured after falling asleep while driving his Hummer H1 in Kentucky and driving into a tree trunk, flipping the vehicle. He was in a coma for a week and suffered a shattered ankle, forcing doctors to fuse it together in a fixed position. This injury severely limited his mobility, forcing Pillman to abandon his high-flying ring style and adopt a more conservative mat based style, and elevated his addiction to painkillers. [edit] World Wrestling FederationPillman signed a contract with the World Wrestling Federation on June 10, 1996, with the signing announced in a press conference. He was the first wrestler to sign a guaranteed contract with the WWF, indicative of the period in which Vince McMahon began to protect the company from abruptly losing talent to WCW, with Lex Luger, Kevin Nash, and Scott Hall all previously doing so. Pillman acted as a commentator while recovering from his broken ankle, transitioning to a wrestling role after attacking a fan during an episode of WWF Shotgun Saturday Night. Following WrestleMania 13, Pillman aligned himself with Bret Hart, Owen Hart, Davey Boy Smith, and Jim Neidhart as part of the anti-American Hart Foundation, all of with whom he was familiar from his Stampede Wrestling roots. He began feuding with his former partner, Steve Austin. In the course of the feud, Austin was given on-screen credit for damaging Pillman's ankle after placing it in between the seat and backrest of a folded chair and then jumping on the chair (this particular style of attack has since been dubbed "The Pillmanizer," in honor of this incident). After his feud with Austin, he feuded with Dustin Rhodes until his death. [edit] "Pillman's Got a Gun"On the November 4, 1996 episode of Monday Night Raw, Pillman took part in the infamous "Pillman's got a gun" angle with Steve Austin. Austin and Pillman had been feuding for several weeks, and Austin had finally decided to take matters into his own hands and visit Pillman, whom he had already injured, at his home in Walton, Kentucky. Meanwhile, WWF interviewer Kevin Kelly sat in Pillman's house with a camera crew and the Pillman family, while Pillman's friends surrounded the house to protect him. Austin was attacked by Pillman's friends as soon as he arrived but quickly subdued them. He then proceeded to break into Pillman's home and advance on his nemesis. Pillman responded by producing the same 9 mm Glock that he had displayed earlier and pointing it at a hesitant Austin, while Kelly and Pillman's wife Melanie screamed for help. The camera feed was then disrupted, with the scene fading to black. The on-scene director contacted commentator Vince McMahon and reported that he had heard "a couple explosions." The transmission was restored shortly before the end of Raw, and viewers witnessed Pillman's friends dragging Austin from the house while Pillman aimed the gun at him and announced his intention to "kill that son of a bitch!" Pillman also slipped up by making the mistake of saying "fuck" on live television, which meant that it could not be edited out. The WWF (and Pillman personally) eventually apologized profusely for the entire angle, with Pillman claiming that the profanity "just slipped out." [edit] DeathSome time during the night or early morning prior to the October 5, 1997 In Your House: Badd Blood pay per view in St. Louis, Pillman died in a Bloomington, Minnesota, Budget Inn hotel room. An autopsy found that Pillman had a previously undetected heart condition - arteriosclerotic heart disease - had led to his death. Pillman did not know that he was about to become a father once again when he died. On Raw the next night, he received a ten-bell salute. Vince interviewed Melanie Pillman on the same night. She stated she wanted him to be remembered as "A great father, and the best husband." [edit] LegacyWWE released the DVD "Brian Pillman: Loose Cannon" in 2006, as a tribute to his legacy. Pillman is widely regarded as one of the most groundbreaking wrestlers in history. His peers consider him to be the first American wrestler to introduce a lucha libre, or highflying style to a more mainstream audience. Other wrestlers describe him as being "ahead of his time" and see his "Loose Cannon" character to be an influence on the Attitude Era, which could be the most successful WWE run in history. [edit] In wrestling
[edit] Championships and accomplishments
[edit] Personal lifePillman developed throat polyps at around 2 years old. They came back multiple times throughout his life, which resulted in him spending much of his youth in the hospital. He underwent 36 throat operations to remove it, leaving him with his signature raspy voice. Pillman dated Terri Runnels while they were in World Championship Wrestling together before her marriage to Dustin Rhodes. He later married Melanie, who already had two children at the time, Alexis and Jesse. At the time, he had two daughters, Danielle and Brittany. Brian and Melanie had two children together, Brian Jr. and Skylar. Skylar was born exactly 7 months after Pillman's death in october 1997.[2] In 1995, Melanie adopted Brittany because her mother had committed suicide.[3] In early 2008, Pillman's stepdaughter Alexis started her wrestling career as a valet and ring girl under the name "Sexy" Lexi Pillman. [edit] Media
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