by Dave Meltzer
WWF officials and some of his business associates were extremely worried about his behavior. Wrestlers who liked him were afraid to travel with him. There was an argument while he was on an airplane telephone where he was shouting and cursing loudly out of control which further fueled the worrying of both WWF road agents and other wrestlers. About five weeks before his death, Ross, who had remained close friends with him and had been counseling him several times per week regarding his problems, ordered him to undergo a drug test. He was furious about being singled out, since he had never gone on television so loaded he couldn’t perform in or out of the ring as it is believed another top star had done one or two times in the recent weeks.
Melanie was also worried about the level of pain medication he’d been taking and her own knowledge of being close to and around wrestlers on-and-off for ten years that the wrestlers shared their prescription drugs back-and-forth and wanted him to undergo rehab, but he had a saying that he even wore on a t-shirt that rehab was for losers. He refused and blamed being singled out to take the drug test on wreaking havoc with his marriage, and felt that when a wrestling company affects his marriage that he had to get out of the wrestling company. He requested a release from the WWF, feeling he could go back to WCW and slide back into the final slot in the Four Horseman.
His personal situation was rocky for a short period of time, which included him violating a restraining order and Melanie filing for a divorce. After a brief separation, he had returned home. He was pulled from the 10/3 house show in Winnipeg and from all Friday night house shows for the next few weeks because of a court-mandated Anger Management Class he had to take for violating the restraining order for four straight Saturday mornings, and went back on the road after the class for the matches in St. Paul for the final match of his career against Goldust.
The drug test came back a few weeks ago showing nothing in his system except for the prescription pain medication it was well-known he was using, and also showed a small amount of decadurabolin, an anabolic steroid that was very popular among bodybuilders and wrestlers in the 80s. Decadurabolin can stay in the system literally for several months and there have been medical cases of it showing up on a drug test even one year after use had stopped although cases like that are extremely rare. Pillman had apparently used it as almost a desperate attempt to speed up the healing process for his ankle before his return to the ring. Because it was a small amount and the drug has such a long half-life in the system, he wasn’t suspended.
Pillman had suffered internal side effects many years ago from his steroid use from football and early in his wrestling career, not to mention suffering many muscle pulls and tears which he attributed to his use. This caused him to get off the drugs before it became a major issue in the industry, and actually he was fairly vocal about their potential problems and the effect they were having on the wrestling business. In fact, when Frey started doing anti-steroid public service announcements when the industry was under the steroid cloud, Pillman was the first to go on television, admit to use and warn others against it.
The PPV show went on, although not as scheduled. About 25 to 30 minutes of the show had been blocked off for Pillman matches with Dude Love and Goldust. With very little warning, the Mexican minis were rushed onto the show and did not have a good match. With the show running way short, an eight man tag was added, again with very little notice. It was a show that was under a dark cloud from the beginning, and the matches certainly reflected that. And then, seemingly oblivious to everything that had gone on, Shawn Michaels and Undertaker put on one of the greatest cage matches in the history of wrestling to save the show.
The next night, both WCW and WWF opened their Monday night live shows with mentions of Pillman’s death. WCW had a brief graphic and it was never mentioned the rest of the show. WWF opened the show with virtually all the wrestlers in attendance coming out for a ten-bell salute. During the show they constantly promoted an interview with Melanie Pillman, live from the family home in Walton, KY. During the show they showed large framed photos in the family den, a photo of Brian holding his baby son, a photo of Brian & Melanie together and a photo Pillman & Austin as WCW tag team champions as teases to build to Melanie’s interview.
Melanie Pillman had reservations about going on live, but eventually consented due to her own loyalty to the company that employed her husband. The only thing I’d like to say in defense of everyone involved, is that under the emotional state everyone was under, it would be cruel and heartless to be critical of the segment because it wasn’t smooth flowing perfect television. But the segment left a lot of people very uneasy for many different reasons, not the least of which were all the teases and holding it off until late that made it come across as a way to build up ratings.
She had a very heartfelt message, a warning for mainly those within the industry as to not let her husband’s death, and for that matter similar deaths within the profession be in vain and use this as a lesson to be learned from everyone. She wanted her husband to best be remembered as the greatest father in the world and as a warm and compassionate person.
We all knew abuse of pain killers among some wrestlers is out of control and the stories of erratic behavior that some find funny just aren’t very funny today. It is impossible to have pro wrestling, or for that matter pro football, pro basketball or anything of the type as we know it today without some form of pain killers. But there comes a line that everyone has to draw, and that’s when the pain killers take over the body and simply aren’t medication to heal the body. This was going to happen to someone in the business, and whomever it would be, the odds were that it would be somebody’s husband and somebody’s father. As it turned out, it was Melanie Pillman’s husband and the father of their five, soon to be six, children. And to them, and to his friends, the story doesn’t end this week as the rest of the industry goes on to its next chapter.
Mark Madden of WCW, who had known Pillman for many years, wrote an article for the WCW website and asked if we could have it printed here. I never imagined anything written by Mark Madden at this point to be in the Observer, but it is a great piece:
It’s one o’clock in the morning, and I’m waiting for a phone call.
It’s a phone call that’s never, ever going to come.
It’s from my friend Brian. You knew him as Flyin Brian, as the Loose Cannon, as the Ticking Time Bomb, as one-half of the Hollywood Blonds, as a member of the Hart Foundation, as a member of the Four Horsemen, as the Rouge Horseman, as one-half of Badd Company, as Brian F’n Pillman. But to me, he was just Brian.
He drove me absolutely, totally insane.
I never knew when I was going to hear from him. Sometimes he wouldn’t call for weeks. Sometimes he’d call five times in one day. He’d usually call me at home, but sometimes at work. Once he called me when I was on my radio sports talk show. And got on the air.
Thank God for seven-second delay. Hey, you know what he was like.
Brian was a good friend. Not many give a damn about friendship these days. Most see friendship as a means to a self-serving end. But Brian valued friendship and so do I.
And now I sit by the phone.
Sit waiting for a call that will never come.
Because it’s the only way I can make myself feel like he’s still around.
Those most affected by Brian’s death are his wife, Melanie, and their five children. But anyone who knew him was touched by him. Wrestling is a backstabbing kind of business on a good day. But I don’t know anyone that disliked Brian. He got along with wrestlers in both major companies, with management in both major companies. He was a great guy. A great husband. A great father. A great friend.
And a great performer. Brian loved wrestling. He had an old-school style respect for the business but a 90s sensibilities about what would work. I believe he would have wound up running one of the major companies someday.
Brian wrestled in WCW from 1989-96. He had two hot runs. The first was in 1993, when he
partnered with Steve Austin as the Hollywood Blonds. By my reckoning, they were the best tag team of the 90s. Brian shed his pretty-boy babyface image to become a sadistic, psychopathic heel. He was as easy to hate in the ring as he was to like outside it.
He got torrid again in 1995, when he was a member of the Four Horsemen. That was an exciting time for him. He really looked up to Flair, fashioned his persona after both Flair and Terry Funk. To team with Flair was like a dream come true.
In 1996, he had a pseudo-shoot feud with “booker man” Kevin Sullivan. It had everyone in wrestling, from the boys to casual fans to dirt-sheet readers wondering if it was legit or if it was pro wrestling.
It was easy to wonder that about Brian himself. In the ring, he was half-crazed. Away from it, he was sometimes totally crazed. He could even be scary. But just when you thought he was about to go completely off the edge, he’d smile and say, “It’s all a work, you know,” and then laugh.
Brian was in a bad wreck in April 1996. He flipped his humvee, mangling one of his ankles. The ankle was eventually fused into a walking position. He never regained his mobility. It frustrated him.
By the time he recovered and started with the World Wrestling Federation, he had his character down pat. His interviews were so strong, his psychology was so good, that he didn’t even have to wrestle at all to get over. And when he did wrestle, he was fine. It hurt. But he did well. Brian would have been an all-time great. He was like Terry Funk on acid, and that was without doing acid. And now he’s gone.
Wrestling makes strange friendships, and there haven’t been many stranger than ours. A wrestling star and dirt-sheet alumnus. An ex-NFL player married to a Penthouse Pet and an overweight sportswriter.
Now that I’ve worked for WCW for four years, it’s kind of fashionable to be my buddy. But when I wrote for the dirt sheets, even though I talked to a lot of wrestlers, very few would acknowledge me in front of other wrestles. Kayfabe, you know. But Brian would introduce me to other guys, as only he could. “Hey, do you know Mark Madden? No? Well you should, because he buried you in the Pro Wrestling Torch this week.” Thanks.
I have some regrets. I regret that I never tried very hard to help him curb his inner demons. For the rest of my life, I’ll wonder if Brian might still be with us if someone had gone the extra mile to help him. I doubt it, because there was no telling Brian what to do.
I regret we didn’t spend much time together in person, although we did talk on the phone constantly. By the time I started going on the road to work at WCW, he was already in the WWF.
But the regrets are few. And the memories are many
Brian often called late at night, one, two or three in the morning. He always had a crazy plan, a way to get over, a way to make money, a way for us to work together. He made me laugh. I trusted him. His friendship meant a lot to me. I hope he knew that. I’ve shed a few tears over this, but I’ve found a way to beat that.
Every time I feel like crying, I think of Brian laughing his maniacal laugh. Of him talking about Melanie and his kids. Of him trying to work me during his feud with Kevin Sullivan. Of one of his schemes and plots. Or anecdotes. Or one of his booking ideas. Of his advice to long-suffering WCW wrestler Joey Maggs. Of his dealings with his seemingly luckless lawyer Elliot Pollock.
It was a pleasure knowing Brian. He was a lot of fun. I miss him. I think I’m going to bed. It’s two a.m. The phone isn’t going to ring. No thought and no memory can stop the tears from flowing now. Good bye, Brian.
OCTOBER 20
So this was the week the corpse of Brian Pillman was being used by everyone for their own personal vendettas. At least, that’s what everyone was saying about their enemies.
Whether it was Eric Bischoff saying how disgusted he was about the WWF and the USA Network using the death and rushing on the Melanie Pillman interview the very next day to draw a rating on 10/6, something that was the prevailing view from virtually everyone within the industry we spoke with as the week went on; to the complaints not only about having teased the interview through most of the show but of the nature of the interview itself; or Jim Cornette claiming Phil Mushnick was using the death to further a personal vendetta against the WWF in his editorial on the 10/13 Raw; or the belief that the WWF put Cornette up to doing the promo, which was delivered better than probably any pro wrestling interview all year, to use the corpse of Pillman to cut a promo on Mushnick based out of fear of what someone from the outside looking into this situation would discover; to the tremendous amount of second-guessing in hindsight about how everyone in and out of the business handled the touchy situation. Brian Pillman lived for being the center of controversy. And in death, the situation turned out to be no different.
After reflecting back one week, without question the Melanie Pillman interview in hindsight was a bad idea. While I haven’t spoken with anyone in the WWF on the subject, I’d be shocked if in hindsight they at this point haven’t come to the same conclusion and there are people who have given me that impression. It was too soon. It shouldn’t have been done live. Some questions appeared to be asked attempting to garner a close-up of her crying. Given certain realities of the situation, it put Mrs. Pillman, already in an incredibly emotionally trying situation for both obvious and not so obvious reasons, under a microscope that she didn’t deserve to be put under.
My impression is that the interview stemmed from a conversation that Vince McMahon had with her the previous night, where she spoke about wanting to warn other wrestlers and their families about pain killers and for them to try and avoid a repeat of this situation. McMahon said that he wanted to put her on television to say that, but the point didn’t get across as well for a variety of reasons. The fact the interview was teased throughout the show and they showed the photos from his basement did come off as ratings-driven. I’d hate to think so but recognize the realities of this business and know that it is a possibility and it isn’t as if the record companies that promote rock & roll stars don’t have business plans of making money off deaths considering that’s the one industry where the per capita mortality rate seems to be worse than pro wrestling.
In the video that aired after the interview, I was uncomfortable with them claiming that his 1996 car wreck was the result of a drunk driver when it was actually him losing control of the vehicle and running off the road and being thrown from it when it rolled. Personally I’m willing to cut McMahon and the WWF a lot of slack for how it handled 10/6 if only because if there were numerous errors in judgment in how things were handled, everyone making those decisions was also under a tremendous amount of emotional stress.
There was criticism of the promotion not announcing the death to the fans in St. Louis for fear it would dampen the enthusiasm of the live crowd at the PPV. Certainly it put a shadow on the PPV portion of the event. Just as the show was going on the air, the WWF told Elliot Pollack, Pillman’s business agent (not to mention USWA commissioner), that they had decided not to mention the death at all during the show, but then minutes later changed their mind.
Mushnick wrote only a few lines during the week, basically pointing out that if this had been another sport, it would have been page one news and there would be investigations because of the frequency of deaths of wrestlers, and also called Pillman “an admitted steroid user.” That line got a lot of people hot. It’s a term that isn’t incorrect, and there is a very slim chance it’s applicable to the situation since the preliminary diagnosis of his death was a heart attack and apparently he had used decadurabolin somewhat recently as a desperation attempt to strengthen his lower leg, but most of Pillman’s steroid use was during his football days and the early part of his wrestling career which was many years back. The WWF, which was scared to death from the moment it learned about the death about how Mushnick would write about it, apparently had Cornette go on television to attack Mushnick about taking advantage of the death to wage his personal attack against the WWF and his crusade against steroids in pro wrestling.
&nbs
p; This is a situation where I can see both sides of the story from their respective positions to a point. The idea of abolishing this industry is ludicrous and I don’t agree with how strongly Mushnick comes against the industry but for the most part can’t argue that most of the points he makes have validity. And for all of Cornette’s protesting about the Bill of Rights, Mushnick has not only the right but his job and the reasons he’s won awards from his job is because he pulls no punches and doesn’t go halfway with his opinions, in many ways no different than Cornette.
There are legitimate problems with the industry, and the number of deaths is one of the major ones, and many of its stereotypical portrayals of various ethnics and women to children, that Mushnick has pointed out. In the long run, had it not been for Mushnick probably more than any other person and his enemies can deny this until they are blue in the face, but if they do they are lying to themselves, the steroid situation within pro wrestling today may be just as rampant as it was in 1991 and the number of injuries and even tragedies stemming from it would be greater to go along with it. Not to mention that the style of wrestling in the ring would be totally different.
At the same time, his categorization of pro wrestling fans as a group I’m not comfortable with and Cornette made some valid points in his commentary. The pro wrestling fans Mushnick deals with on the Internet validate his belief about most or all wrestling fans, and it’s a belief grounded in some cases, but I think it’s unfair to paint all of them with the same brush. But a lot of the anti-Mushnick backlash comes from wrestling fans who want to blame the messenger because they are hiding from or aren’t able to deal with the message.
