Brian Pillman

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Brian Pillman
Data
Ring name The Yellow Dog
Flyin 'Brian
California Brian
"The Loose Cannon"
height 178 cm
Fighting weight 103 kg
birth May 22, 1962
Cincinnati , Ohio
death October 5, 1997
Bloomington , Minnesota
Trained by Stu Hart
Bruce Hart
Keith Hart
Owen Hart
debut 1986
Brian Pillman
Position (s):
Linebacker 		Jersey number (s):
58
born on May 22, 1962
died on October 5, 1997
Career information
Active : 1984 - 1986
College : Miami (Ohio)
Teams

* Offseason or Practice Squad member only

Career statistics
Stats at NFL.com
Career highlights and awards

  • No notable successes

Brian Pillman (* 22. May 1962 in Cincinnati , Ohio ; † 5. October 1997 in Bloomington , Minnesota ) was an American American football poker pro and wrestlers .

football

Brian Pillman studied at Miami University , where he played as a linebacker for their American football team "Miami Redskins" . In 1984 Pillman managed to move as a free agent to the Cincinnati Bengals in the National Football League (NFL), for which he came to six league appearances. For the 1985 NFL season, Pillman moved to the Buffalo Bills , but was not selected for the regular season squad in the training camp . In 1986 he moved to Canada in the Canadian Football League (CFL) and played one season with the Calgary Stampeders . During his career as a football player, Pillman began using steroids and pain relievers as doping drugs .

Wrestling

Stampede wrestling

After retiring from his football career in 1986, Pillman stayed in Calgary and began performing under his real name on the wrestling promotion Stampede Wrestling . Pillman formed a tag team called "Bad Company" with Bruce Hart, the son of the promotion owner Stu Hart , which held the promotion tag team title twice. A frequent part of Pillman's appearances at Stampede Wrestling was to place his girlfriend on the ring in order to “protect” her from teasing bad heel wrestlers as part of the show and thus sell herself better than Face .

World Championship Wrestling

1989 Pillman moved to the promotion NWA World Championship Wrestling of the media mogul Ted Turner . In this promotion Pillman was always announced as "Flying" Brian Pillman due to his wrestling maneuvers from the ring ropes. Pillman got a new ring partner with Tom Zenk , with whom he got the tag team title of the promotion. The promotion changed name in 1991 and became the World Championship Wrestling. After an injury to Zenk and a short time Pillman had to compete as "Yellow Dog" because he had lost a "Loser Leaves Promotion" match , Pillman found a new tag team partner in 1992 with "Stunning" Steve Austin . Your team, which with the name " Hollywood Blondes " took up a name under which two other tag teams had already been successful, received the WCW tag team title in March 1993. Pillman and Austin were heels, but they played that role cheekily rather than nasty, for example, making fun of the age of opponents like Ric Flair and Arn Anderson .

After the Hollywood Blondes split up, right after losing the title, Pillman was no longer pressed into the heel-face scheme and became a so-called tweener . Pillman had various feuds and became one of the most important wrestlers in the WCW. At the start of the WCW television show “WCW Monday Nitro”, with which WCW attacked a parallel broadcast show by competitor World Wrestling Federation and thus opened the “Monday Night Wars”, the first broadcast was Pillman's fight against Jushin “Thunder” Liger . In 1995 Brian Pillman was briefly a member of the Stables Four Horsemen .

Pillman's gimmick gradually switched to the Loose Cannon (Eng: "Lose Schnauze"). Pillman, in whom the separation between played and unplayed behavior was difficult to recognize due to the fact that he appeared under his real name, produced shoots that were at least partially played "worked shoots", the best known on February 11, 1996 during pay -Per-View -Events Superbrawl VI took place. A "respect match" was scheduled, a task match carried out as a strap match, between Pillman and Kevin Sullivan . Pillman lost, apparently on purpose, by saying "I respect you, booker man," revealing Sullivan's role as booker .

Pillman was fired from the WCW a little later.

Extreme Championship Wrestling

Pillman appeared in a program on the Extreme Championship Wrestling promotion just six days after his last pay-per-view appearance for the WCW . In an interview segment he described the WCW boss Eric Bischoff as a "piece of shit" and threatened to urinate in the ring. Pillman appeared on several ECW programs and had exchanges with wrestler Shane Douglas , but never played an official match for promotion.

On April 15, 1996, Pillman was in a car accident after falling asleep behind the wheel of his vehicle and getting into a truck. He was in a coma for a week. In addition, his ankle was so smashed that it had to be stiffened. To suppress the constant pain in his ankle, Pillman had to use strong pain relievers. He has now become addicted to drugs. His friend Chris Benoit later said in various interviews that Brian Pillman finally took a pill almost every hour and washed it down with alcohol .

World Wrestling Federation

On June 10, 1996 Pillman signed a contract with the World Wrestling Federation, for which he initially only appeared as a commentator due to the consequences of the accident. Due to the stiffened ankle, Pillman was forced to change his wrestling style and instead of maneuvers from the ring ropes to rely more on wrestling techniques. The changed style was explained in a storyline with an attack by his former tag team partner Steve Austin, in which he smashed Pillman's ankle between the seat and back of a folding chair. Pillman was incorporated into the anti-American Hart Foundation's feud against Austin.

death

On the eve of the pay-per-view In Your House - Badd Blood , Brian Pillman was found dead in his hotel. The cause of death was heart failure caused by the abuse of pain medication combined with congenital heart failure. He left a pregnant wife, three of his own and two stepchildren.

From 1997 to 2001, Ohio hosted the Brian Pillman Memorial Show annually in his honor , a wrestling event that featured both WWE stars and independent wrestling promotions for the Pillman Children's Education Fund. In 2006, WWE released a DVD with a biography of Pillman and selected matches from his career. The Stampede Wrestling promotion, which he began with, places him in their Hall of Fame .

Awards

Pro Wrestling Illustrated

Wrestling magazine Pro Wrestling Illustrated (PWI) ranks him 84th among the 500 best wrestlers and number 50 among the best tag teams with Steve Austin.

Wrestling Observer Newsletter

  • 1987: Rookie of the Year
  • 1993: Tag Team of the Year (with Steve Austin)
  • 1994: Most Underrated Wrestler
  • 1997: Feud of the Year (with Bret Hart, Owen Hart, Jim Neidhart and Davey-Boy Smith vs. Steve Austin)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wrestling magazine Rampage , May 1996
  2. ^ Philip Kreikenbohm: Brian Pillman «Wrestler Database. In: CAGEMATCH - The Internet Wrestling Database. Accessed March 11, 2018 (English).

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Pillman, Brian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American football player and wrestler
DATE OF BIRTH May 22, 1962
PLACE OF BIRTH Cincinnati , Ohio
DATE OF DEATH October 5, 1997
Place of death Bloomington, Minnesota