Dark Side Of The Ring - Pillman Part 1 FULL RECAP
Brian Pillman clawed his way to the top with a groundbreaking performance until an act of fate would change everything. While Dark Side of the Ring officially returns with their Season 3 premiere on Thursday, May 6th at 9 pm, Part 1 of Pillman was released early, which is why I will be covering it in full detail below. I will be posting the second part of the recap on Thursday night.
The Intro
The episode kicks off with Steve Austin remembering that the first time he saw Brian, he had this magnetic charisma that you could feel across the gym and thought, “Hey man, this guy’s a star.”
Chris Jericho returns as the narrator noting that no one could have ever predicted that an undersized football player from Cincinnati would revolutionize the business, ushering in a whole new era. In an industry that depends on the illusion of reality, no one did more to blur the lines than Brian Pillman who scattered wrestling’s fourth wall.
Jim Cornette was introduced and brought up that Brian was “going against the script” and it had never been done before.
By Pillman exposing the inner workings of the business, he was able to receive the deal of a lifetime.
Family members briefly touched on Brian’s struggles at home with Jim Cornette noting, “He’s being driven crazy at home, supposed to be crazy at work and in between, he’s probably really going crazy.”
On track to become a superstar at the price of his own sanity, his rise to the top is tragically cut short.
Dave Meltzer appears and reflects on watching the pre-show for a PPV when Vince McMahon announced the death of Brian Pillman backstage. Dave noted, “I just screamed.”
Pillman - Part 1
The episode kicks off with Steve Austin showing off the gold chain that Brian Pillman purchased for him as part of the Hollywood Blonds. Brian felt they just need those chains. While Steve doesn’t possess many items from his career, the chain is one he will keep forever as it’s very sentimental to him.
Steve noted that Brian blew everyone away with his tenacity and will to win. He was a good-looking guy, great physique, a high-flyer and could do everything.
Jim Ross is introduced and noted that you could tell that Brian Pillman just wanted to be a professional wrestling star. As an executive in WCW, Brian was someone that Jim had very high hopes for and really wanted to sign.
Jim Cornette receives his introduction and states that Brian’s personality was tailormade for wrestling and he wanted everyone to notice him. Jim was good friends in the 80s and 90s with Brian Pillman.
Brian Pillman Jr echoes the statements made by others introduced before him by noting his father wanted to be the biggest star.
Austin believed that Brian was a natural promo and that when a microphone was placed in front of him, he would just go off in his raspy voice.
Brian’s sister, Linda Pillman summarized how her brother’s trademark raspy voice came to be. Growing up, Brian had multiple polyps on his vocal cords and it was closing up his air passage. The doctors would scrap them off and after a while, they would grow right back. This was why his voice was so raspy because his vocal cords had been scraped so many times. The number was over 40 surgeries.
After Brian’s mother coming home to find her son barely being able to breathe, Brian would receive an emergency tracheostomy. The doctor would take care of this on his dining room table in the middle of the night table as it was closer than the hospital.
Despite the countless surgeries, Brian was not deterred from enjoying life as he was always outside playing and running. That said, there were periods of 2-3 weeks following the surgeries where he wouldn’t be allowed to talk.
Jim Cornette theorized that due to the fact he wasn’t able to speak much after those surgeries, it’s why he always wanted to talk when he got older. It formed Brian as the man who would always overcome.
Kim Wood, Brian’s former NFL Strength Coach for the Cincinnati Bengals made an appearance by bringing up how Pillman was naturally a hard worker. Brian had a reputation in Cincinnati for being a street fighter.
After a brief stint in the NFL, Brian headed to Calgary to play in the CFL. Soon after, Brian suffered an ankle injury, cutting his career short. This left him searching for what to do next.
It was Kim Wood who suggested that Brian should get into professional wrestling as a way to leverage his physicality and make money doing so. Wood also recommended getting in touch with The Hart bunch.
When asked to describe the Dungeon, Linda said, “From what I heard, if you didn’t hear screaming coming out of it, something wasn’t going right.”
Brian would get his start in Stampede Wrestling and while it was a smaller territory, it was also highly influential.
Both Jim Cornette and Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer brought up how insider fans were aware of the name Brian Pillman pretty quickly.
Dave touched on how the Wrestling Observer was really the first “insider” publication. Steve joked that you never wanted to be caught with those documents yet it got out that damn near all the boys was reading the dirt sheets.
Brian reached out to Dave Meltzer and the two trading tapes. Dave was quick to point out that Brian was not only a student of the game but perhaps even more so than anyone else he ever dealt with.
After Meltzer frequently writing about Brian and praising his work, Jim Ross would get in touch with Brian, which led him to be signed by WCW.
Upon arriving in WCW, Ric Flair very quickly saw something in Brian and wanted to feature him in the main event spot. Cornette stated that the match between Brian and Ric Flair was the highest-rated Saturday night match in quite some time. Cornette further joked that Ric wanted an opponent like Brian to tear the house down for 30 or 40 minutes then go out to the bar together for 4 or 5 hours and tear the house down there too.
Brittany Pillman, Brian’s daughter got introduced. She admitted to being a daddy’s girl. While wrestling was his life on the road, away from it, Brian’s children were his life. Originally, Brian thought that Brittany was his only daughter, but after a year, found out he had another daughter in the world who was a year older named Dani. Thankfully, Brian embraced Dani once they were introduced to each other and wanted to be part of her life.
With Brian being a ladies’ man, it also led to infidelity.
A story is featured with Brian’s girlfriend (mother of Brittany) being attacked by the landlord with an icepick. She ended up being stabbed several times in the face.
Brian was reasonably successful as the generic hero but wanted to be a main eventer.
Former WCW President, Eric Bischoff gets introduced by sharing that Brian’s first couple of years with the organization were tough.
Constantly change over in management led to start and stop pushes in Brian’s WCW career. Pillman was then paired with Steve, who admitted to not being thrilled about the news since he was just promised a prominent singles push.
In 1993, Steve was still finding his way but figured that this news singles push would inch him closer to the main event. Brian would come up behind him one day and say, “Kid, we need to come up with a finish” which implied they were teaming together.
WCW did not have any plans for this interim tag team and it was meant to get others over.
Whenever you start working and teaming with someone, you start to become closer and Austin/Pillman travelled the road together. Austin was behind the wheel with Pillman in shotgun reading the dictionary in an effort to increase his vocabulary for promos.
It was Brian who proposed the tag-team name of Hollywood Blonds. While there were already a few teams with the name, it had been several years since it was used.
The vest, trunks and all the small nuances were all Brian’s ideas.
Bischoff felt the two complemented each other and worked hard to make each other look good.
The Hollywood Blonds also allowed Brian to work as a heel, which was much more natural for him.
Brian’s homelife was deteriorating and came across Melanie while still with his other girlfriend, Rochelle. Brian was essentially living a double life in Atlanta. Melanie would then unexpectedly become pregnant with Brian Pillman Jr.
On March 17, 1993, Brian would head to Las Vegas and marry Melanie.
Melanie would be introduced for the very first time and revealed that while Brian was laid back, he was also one of the most intelligent men she ever met.
Since Melanie already had other children, it was starting to become a pretty big family.
After main event match at Clash of the Champions XXIII against a returning Ric Flair with partner Arn Anderson, the Hollywood Blonds were blamed for an underwhelming rating while also losing their Two-out-of-three falls match.
Just as the Hollywood Blonds were getting over as a viable tag team, Austin and Pillman were split up without any direction. Austin admitted that he was extremely upset over this move.
Jim Ross believed the situation was handled very poorly and the company could have done better.
Brittany would bring up how Melanie treated Rochelle very poorly while essentially coming off as very likeable to Brian’s family. Rochelle was scheduled to visit her daughter Brittany but suddenly disappeared. A missing person’s report was put out with Rochelle being located, but Brian wanted to file for custody of Brittany. Melanie believed this “changed everything.”
Following the tag team breakup with Austin, Brian’s career had stalled and the cracks in his family life started to break open.
Melanie regrets tearing Brittany from Rochelle.
At one point, Rochelle showed up unannounced to see Brittany. She gave her a hug while Brian observed this as a kidnapping attempt, so Melanie filed charges.
Fearful of fully losing her daughter, Rochelle called Brian, but he was out of town, so Melanie picked up. Melanie tore her down and brought up how Rochelle’s own mother felt Melanie could take better care of Brittany. Rochelle would call her mom, threatened suicide and proceeded to follow through with the act by shooting herself. Brian’s sister Linda lived nearby and was met with the news that she died en route to the hospital via helicopter.
Brian blamed himself, feeling that he placed too much pressure on Rochelle and boxed her into a corner. Out of guilt, he paid for the entire funeral and held it together until the casket closed.
Melanie also blamed herself in hindsight.
Brittany does have a lot of anger built up towards her dad but ultimately believes that Melanie is evil personified while causing pain for the entire family. Brittany also pointed out Melanie’s heavy drug use over the years, which is physically evident.
With Brian’s WCW renewal looming, Brian was determined to renegotiate for even more money. Meltzer brings up how Brian wanted enough money to support the family since he didn’t know how many more left to perform with an already aching body.
Bischoff brings up how Pillman wanted $400,000, but couldn’t justify that sum, so offered him $225,000.
Pillman would turn to Kim Woods and asked what he should do. Kim pointed out that it’s a question of value that when everyone is using everyone else, what can you do that other people can’t do? What can you do that gains notoriety?
With the suggestion of needing to create attention, Brian knew that he had to find a way to up the ante and shock even the most hardcore of fans.
Jim Cornette said that if Brian could legitimately make people think that he was a loose cannon that he could be one of the hottest figures in the industry.
Kim further suggested that you want WCW to see your value and offer more money while WWF notices this too and does the same. You can then flip a coin. If Brian could play one side against the other, he could stand to make an extra six figures more.
Brian’s plan was simple, more attention means more money, which is where the loose cannon concept came from while integrating it on television.
The footage was shown of Brian grabbing Bobby Heenan’s jacket from behind while Heenan standing up to ask, “What the f**k are you doing!?” on live television. Bobby was very protective of his neck after having surgery on it.
It seemed real and people were confused as to whether it was actually real or not.
The infamous I Respect You Strap match from Superbrawl VI got references with Pillman grabbing the microphone, stating “I respect you, Booker Man” before leaving. This was the first time the position of the head writer was ever acknowledged on a wrestling show. As you can imagine, there was sensitivity about exposing the business. Bischoff noted how many of the boys backstage had no idea whether it was real or scripted.
Jim Cornette said that Brian Pillman was convincing people that he was insane.
The fans, management and wrestlers were all ready to be fooled. Were they being worked or not?
Brian would tell Eric Bischoff, if you legitimately terminate me then I could show the letter to everybody. This allowed Brian to negotiate with Vince McMahon against Eric Bischoff and WCW.
Steve believed it was a stroke of genius and wonder how anyone could pull it off.
Eric believed it was a termination with a wink and a nod, while others such as Jim Cornette and Kim Wood felt Bischoff got worked.
Eric believed Brian could go make money in WWF, raise his value and then come back.
Kim felt the greatest thing you can do is f**k somebody over and make them think that it’s a great idea.
As a free agent, Brian took charge of his own appearances. His insider knowledge, mastery of manipulation and disregard for exposing the industry solidified his position as the ultimate ringmaster.
The footage was Brian Pillman’s incredibly memorable debut at ECW Cyberslam was shown. ECW was already pushing the boundaries of professional wrestling, which made this the perfect stage for the Loose Cannon character.
Dave Meltzer felt Brian was losing his mind while Austin was very entertained by the antics. In fact, Steve never was called Brian to ask, “Are you working or shooting?” Steve didn’t want to know but thought what he was doing was damn sure brilliant.
Brittany and Dani brought up how this was a blur of reality, but this was the magic of it.
Dave Meltzer revealed that there was a lot of Andy Kaufman in The Loose Cannon character. The character became Brian.
Jim Ross noted that Brian was a renegade while pointing out that the most successful wrestlers are organic and extensions of their own personality.
With Brian already capturing the attention of both promotions, it was Kim who suggested they contact Dave Meltzer as they trusted him. Kim confirmed with Dave that everything was a work and the reason Brian stopped talking to Dave was due to the fact it was his job to report those facts and stories. Therefore, Brian fooled Dave.
Kim would point out that the ultimate marks were Bischoff and Vince McMahon.
When Kim was asked, what did you think of Vince personally? His response. “You know what you do with a whore? You f**k them. That’s what I thought of Vince, that’s all I think of Vince.”
As Brian became the talk of the wrestling world, the goal was now to secure a deal with WWF.
At an insider industry tradeshow in Las Vegas, Brian Pillman plotted one of his boldest stunts. As Dave Meltzer was leaving, Brian asked for his credential, which Dave provided. Pillman would then enter and immediately approached Jim Ross and Vince McMahon. Brian then acted completely over the top with Vince to the point where McMahon remarked to Jim Ross, “we can’t hire this guy, JR, he’s crazy!” Jim noted, “He’s crazy like a fox.”
Jim Ross believed that Brian’s balls that day to show his creativity and put everything on the line won Vince over. Austin also believed that pulling a rib like this on Vince was pretty genius.
Brian’s bold plan was a success as he was in major negotiations with both WWF and WCW. All he has to do is choose the right deal because all that mattered was the money.
Dave pointed out how it was strange that Brian would frequently discuss saving money then purchase an $80,000 Hummer.
The episode ends with a visual of a bloodied Brian Pillman laying in a field after being ejected from his Hummer, which is where Part 2 will pick up.