I do not offer subscriptions to a mailing list! I do not e-mail images! _________________________________________________________________ From time to time, it's brought to my attention in e-mail that there are people who copy my text verbatim on their own web pages. Last week, for example, my commentary on the CBC's segment on the WWF appeared all over the web, with some people crediting other thieves for my words. This happens on the net, especially as younger people start to populate it, so there's not much that can be done about it. Thanks for taking the time to read these things at the source. This week, I put most of my efforts towards a piece on the tragic death of Brian Pillman. While other news is scant, I hope you enjoy this write-up and don't see it appear in too many other places. As should be clear to anybody who is trying to get a hold of me in e-mail, I'm absolutely swamped with research and lecturing duties and barely been able to find the time to update this page. Apologies. _________________________________________________________________ - WWF wrestler Brian Pillman was found dead in his hotel room in Bloomington, Minnesota, at 1:09pm local time, Sunday. His death was caused by heart failure, likely exacerbated by the immense amount of pain killers that he was taking. Pillman is survived by his wife, Melanie, and their five children. After a brief career as both a Calgary Stampeder and a Cincinnati Bengal, Brian Pillman found his way to Stu Hart's basement, where he trained to become a pro-wrestler. He debuted in Calgary Stampede Wrestling on 11/07/86 and, by the end of the year, already looked to be a strong candidate for a Rookie of The Year award in 1997, indeed winning the Pro Wrestling Observer's award in that category, ahead of Shane Douglas, Biff Wellington, Doug Furnas, and Ron Simmons. Pillman had undergone numerous operations to treat throat cancer, from which he had suffered since being a young child. This left him with a raspy voice that led many to wonder whether he'd be a marketable wrestler; somehow, likely through sheer enthusiasm, his interviews were oftentimes amongst the best in the business. His desire for a wrestling career would be tested at the outset after a severe shoulder separation had him sidelined for several months. During this period, early 1987, Stampede Wrestling had no shortage of great talent, from youngsters cutting their teeth - Hiro Hase, Johnny Smith, Chris Benoit, Ben Bassarab, Owen Hart - to established veterans who could carry the youngsters - Gama Singh, Bruce Hart, Bad News Allen, Mike Shaw. Pillman's recovery would be slower than expected due to the unexpected severity of the injury, stretching through to March, at which point the legendary Keiichi Yamada arrived in Calgary and Biff Wellington debuted. Pillman would actually first return as a referee, feuding with Stampede's heel referee at the time, Rod Hayter. After some angles as a referee, Pillman returned to wrestling in March, feuding with the Singhs and Ron Starr and really working hard. The Stampede International Tag Titles had been in chaos for a few months. The Viet Cong Express (Hiro Hase & Fumihiro Niikura) had vacated the title at the end of 1986 when Niikura suffered a heart attack scare that left him sidelined. A young Japanese wrestler surnamed Matsuda was brought in to be Viet Cong #3 and take the empty spot, but he suffered a cerebral hemmorage during training and, despite wanting to return, the idea was abandoned. As a result, the promotion held a two-day tournament to determine the new tag champs, with Bad Company, Brian Pillman & Bruce Hart, winning the tournament final over Cuban Assassin & Ron Starr on 04/06/87. Bruce Hart took Pillman under his wing as the babyface duo fended off the various heel combinations that would come their way over the next few months. You have to remember that this was 1987 and the wrestling world was tremendously different than it is now. The Japanese women delivered the most athletic product, the Japanese male juniors were exciting, but the high spots were not as dangerous as the spots we see today. To give you an idea, Dynamite Kid was doing a top rope superplex that awed fans. Keiichi Yamada debuted his top rope superplex in Calgary. Pillman was praised as a great flying wrestler because he had a great drop kick and top rope splash. While the actual moves may change over time, the sense of workrate is a measure that can be applied across different stages of development in the sport. By that measure, Pillman was a top notch performer that easily deserved his Rookie of The Year honours. Eventually, of course, Bad Company would trade the tag titles with various heel combinations. I have a fair bit of this stuff on tape, although the video quality varies and Stampede TV was often heavily edited so only final minutes of matches aired. Pillman exclusively worked tag matches for a long while. In 1988, he started getting singles matches, but also continued to team with Bruce. In some ways, while Pillman was great, he was overshadowed by Owen Hart & Chris Benoit, who rose out of the mix of young wrestlers listed earlier to become the real stand-out performers in the promotion (Hase & Yamada had returned to Japan by this time). Pillman ended up moving on to the NWA. Ric Flair took a liking to Pillman right from the start. Pillman was already working third-from-the-top at Halloween Havoc '89, challening Lex Luger for the US Title. The same match-up was second-from-the-top at the November '89 Clash. Brian continued to work hard and shine. He worked against Cactus Jack Manson when Jack debuted on the group's syndicated TV show in a jobber role. He was teamed with Tom Zenk and the two went on to win the now-defunct US Tag Team titles in early 1990, only to lose them to the Midnight Express in May in, perhaps, Pillman's highest-profile stellar match performance, a ***3/4 match (how could those matches vs. Luger be strong?). It's funny to hear Shane Douglas rag on Flair for not taking any youngsters under his wing; obviously, Shane thought that Flair should have taken him. At the time, though, Pillman was clearly a better candidate than his Rookie of The Year runner-up, Douglas. But times change. It seems like Pillman's career entered a limbo state after the dismantling of his championship team with Zenk. Dusty Rhodes was booking, smaller wasn't better, and Pillman was too small. He was programmed against Barry Windham, first doing the job at Wargames in February, where he would suffer neck damage due to sloppy Sid's power bomb (Sid, of course, was given a punctured lung at the hands of Scott Steiner, with many suggesting that the injury was in retaliation for Sid's sloppiness). At the first SuperBrawl in May, Pillman delivered another in a line of stellar performances against Barry Windham, who felt like working that night. The Windham feud stretched through July and August, with an unmemorable "Yellow Dog" angle that took from Barry Windham's past. Finally, though, with a "steering committee" in charge of WCW booking, the idea of creating a Lightheavyweight Title took fire and a tournament began. By far the most memorable match of the tournament took place at the September, 1991, Clash when Pillman faced the Freebirds' Badstreet, Brad Armstrong under a hood. All that was good about this short match (and it was a very good match) was negated by the second Lightheavyweight match on the show, which saw Richard Morton & Mike Graham take us back to the 1960s. The tournament final at Halloween Havoc in October was equally deflating. With everything that had happened around the world, one would have hoped that WCW would have clued in to what made the smaller guys a successful subdivision in some places. He defended the belt against various challengers. On Christmas, in 1991, Pillman lost the title to a visiting Jushin Liger. They had a few matches at house shows during this period. Highlights of the title change aired on Japanese TV. At the second SuperBrawl show in February, 1992, Pillman regained the belt from Liger in what to this day remains the best opening bout on a PPV. After regaining the belt, he had an excellent match against former partner Tom Zenk before moving into a feud with Scotty Flamingo (now Raven), who took the belt from him on June 6, 1992. At this point, mid-1992, Bill Watts was in charge of WCW. Watts decided to turn Pillman heel, coming up with some angles to get heel heat on Pillman (at a Clash in November, he faked an injury and then destroyed Brad Armstrong for a DQ in 25 seconds). Watts actually wanted to team Pillman & Steve Austin early into things, but Austin vehemently refused the idea. Before Watts left the company in March of 1993, however, the two were a tag team and getting loads of praise. On March 3, 1993, the two were given the tag titles. Pillman suffered an ankle injury later in the year, torn ligaments and bone chips, leading to a title tournament for the tag belts. He returned as a face again to feud with Steve Austin, with the two having a tremendous show-stealing match at the November Clash. But while Austin's stock started to rise in 1994, Pillman's stock seemed to dip. There were no new ideas on how to use him. By the end of the year, he was jobbing for the Honky Tonk Man and not getting PPV matches. 1995 was still a mixed bag when it came to overall use of Pillman, but at least he had the chance to put on some great matches with Alex Wright, Marcus Bagwell, and Johnny B. Badd, showing that he was becoming able to carry weaker wrestlers to strong matches. And he developed a reputation for being one of the toughest wrestlers outside of the ring. A memorable story had Pillman facing down Sid Vicious in a bar fight. Sid went out to his car and came back in with a squeegee as a weapong, but Pillman still faced him down. This led to Sid being the recipient of many squeegee remarks from fans and even motivated a squeegee being used as a weapon during a wrestling match run-in. In early 1996, things would take a strange, ahem, turn. Throughout January, Pillman had become known for staying in his psychotic character all of the time, until the lines between work and reality blurred for everybody watching. At SuperBrawl VI on February 11, Pillman was slated to meet booker Kevin Sullivan in a strap match that was essentially an "I Quit" match. After not selling for Sullivan for a few seconds, seemingly going after Kevin's eyes, and delivering the weirdest "match" we've ever seen on PPV, Pillman grabbed the microphone from a stunned referee and said "I respect you, booker man," walked off, and gave the finger to the crowd. Everybody wondered if this was a strange work or a strange shoot. As April, along with Pillman's contract with WCW, came to a close, tragedy struck. A year earlier, Pillman's girlfriend had commited suicide. Now, he was involved in a car accident that severely injured him. He was thrown 40 feet from his hummer, an open-air military vehicle, while driving on April 15, after running off the road and hitting a tree stump. The injuries were definitely career-threatening, as, indeed, he was listed in critical condition with potentially life-threatening injuries. By this point, it seemed as though Pillman may have burned his bridges with WCW, as the strange "loose cannon" gimmick and reality had blurred together a few too many times; for instance, during a match, Pillman jostled Bobby Heenan, who has a bad neck and specifically avoids any interaction with the wrestlers. Speculation had him working with ECW, in program with Shane Douglas. He recovered. On April 19, he was released from the hospital, after extensive reconstructive surgery. The most serious injury turned out to be a crushed ankle; initially, there had been fear that his spinal cord was damaged. In a weird twist, however, despite all of the trauma and the potential limitations that a weak ankle would place on his matches, Pillman still managed to attract contract discussions from both WCW and the WWF. At this point, his "loose cannon" persona was appealing to the promotions. Even fans who are "in" on the reality of pro-wrestling embraced Pillman more than ever before: fans on the internet and in ECW loved his shtick. It seemed like he was an incredibly hot commodity despite delivering no quality matches under this new guise and despite the reduced potential for quality matches. In fact, earlier in the year in a match that looked great on paper, Pillman vs. Eddie Guerrero, Pillman's antics destroyed whatever good work the match might have delivered. Lots of stuff happened in the months that Pillman needed to heal. Firstly, he did start appearing in ECW, doing interviews that seemingly would lead to a match against Shane Douglas. More importantly, though, the WWF suffered some serious talent losses. On May 27, Razor Ramon (Scott Hall) debuted on WCW's Monday Nitro, eventually bringing along Diesel (Kevin Nash). WCW got a tremendous reaction to this angle, although it is still questionable whether the nWo story-line that ensued was totally responsible for the surge in business. During this period, Pillman had been trying to manipulate WCW into offering him a larger contract renewal by suggesting that the WWF was making attractive overtures. In reality, as the talent flow of the time suggests, WCW was by far the better place to work because it offered guaranteed contracts to wrestlers and a lighter travel schedule. Pillman, now married with a large family, needed that security; in the WWF, only a small number of wrestlers had any sort of guarantee. Pillman would need to be pushed as a headliner to draw WWF money comparable to a good WCW guaranteed contract. In the end, due to a lot of internal pressure and Pillman playing both sides against each other, WCW did offer Pillman a large contract: just over $1-million for three years work, with the proviso that WCW could terminate the deal, if it wished, after every three month period. That might sound like a severe proviso, but it is not atypical when somebody comes in after a serious injury and his long term health is in question; for example, WCW has a similar proviso in Perry Saturn's contract, since Saturn is coming in with a damaged knee. In any case, Pillman turned down the offer and signed a three-year deal, details unknown, with the WWF. In response to the talent exodus, the WWF had just begun instituting "down-side" guarantees in contracts, basically guaranteeing a minimum salary, but promising more if business levels were maintained or increased. He debuted on Raw in June in a contract-signing skit that saw him act psychotic. The ankle problems persisted. An infection halted his return to the ring and, instead, Pillman did some interview segments, leading to Owen Hart & Pillman squaring off against Bret Hart. By October 1996, Pillman had yet to wrestle a match in the WWF. The promotion had just survived an intense bidding war to keep Bret Hart in the fold. Pillman's ankle troubles grew even worse and more surgery was required. An angle had been developed with Pillman chumming up to former partner Steve Austin, who through exceptionally hard work and determination had maneuvered himself into an ever stronger position in the promotion. To give Pillman an excuse for disappearing, Austin turned on him, destroying his ankle in a folding chair. This all led to the infamous Monday Night Raw on November 4, 1996. Throughout the show, the WWF cut away to Brian Pillman's house to show Steve Austin's attempted break-and-enter. When Austin finally busted into the house, Pillman had drawn his gun and, acting crazy, waved it around. The video signal died and the audience heard some gunshots. It was the first angle in wrestling to ever use a gun, or so they say. It seems likely based upon the reaction to it that it will be the last such angle in a major promotion. The WWF even made an official apology. Bret Hart turned heel and the Hart Foundation was formed, with Brian Pillman a member; he still had yet to wrestle. Finally, in May 1997, Pillman started up as a wrestler. Wearing long tights to hide his now skinny legs, he worked a six-man tag, only working brief spurts, taking some bumps, and obviously hobbling on his now-fused ankle. Slowly, he got back into the groove, relying more on traditional heel spots than ever before because of his injury. On Monday Night Raw on June 9, he faced Mankind, the same wrestler who he broke in to WCW eight years earlier as Cactus Jack. The match had no heat whatsoever. The next week he wrestled Steve Austin to a DQ finish in another match that saw Pillman do very litle in the ring. Pillman stayed involved in Hart Foundation angles and matches building to the Canadian Stampede In Your House on July 6, where he was involved in his best WWF match, a ten man tag match. Eventually, he started his angle with Goldust. After a loss, Pillman was forced to wrestle in a dress on Monday Night Raw. Week after week, Goldust would interfere and cause Pillman to be disqualified, keeping him stuck in the dress for another week. Finally, Pillman snapped and said that he was the father of Goldust's daughter, that he and Goldust's wife Marlena had been together years ago. This led to the match where Goldust "lost" Marlena to Pillman, who gave her a biker chick makeover and tormented Goldust on TV. Pillman was supposed to have wrestled Dude Love on Sunday night at Badd Blood before "losing" Marlena back to Goldust the next night on Raw, where a renewal of wedding vows for Goldust and Marlena had been scheduled. There was much speculation that Marlena would choose to stay with Pillman to further the angle. Brian Pillman's Title History * WCW World Tag Team Title: 93/03/03-93/08/18, with Steve Austin * WCW Lightheavyweight Title: 91/10/27-91/12/25 and 92/02/29-92/06/20 * WCW US Tag Team Title: 90/02/12-90/05/19,with Tom Zenk * Calgary Stampede International Tag Titles: 87/04/06-87/11/11, 87/11/13-88/07/22, with Bruce Hart - The WWF had In Your House: Badd Blood on Sunday. Overall, I'd give the show mild thumbs up: the undercard was pretty darn weak, but the main events were reasonably solid. In particular, Shawn Michaels delivered another in a line of career-best performances. Quick run-down: * Rocky Maivia & Kama & D.Lo Brown beat Hawk & Animal: Shamrock was to be the third man on the face team, but his lung problems persist. With two-against-one, it still seemed apparent that the Legion of Doom would take the match, until Faarooq came out for some lame interference to lead to his side's victory. This was a very poor opener, not just because of the lame ending, but also because of the total lack of quality wrestling. D.Lo Brown is the best worker of the five, which actually says a fair bit. * Max Mini & Nova beat Tarantula & Mosaic: Uncharacteristically sloppy, I though, but still the first good match. I was hoping it would turn into more than it did, though. * Godwinns beat Head Bangers to win the Tag Titles: Another weak match. The Head Bangers are passable, but they don't measure up to other world class teams. And the Godwinns, well, their gimmick is pretty embarrassing. Hopefully, they'll quickly migrate the tag belts to Vader & Patriot. * Owen Hart beat Faarooq to win the Intercontinental Title tournament final: Faarooq is lousy. Despite the emotion of the night, Owen tried to work, but he couldn't make this match interesting. The finish was screwy, with Steve Austin whacking Faarooq with the IC Title so Owen could get the pin. They played it like Owen didn't even know that Austin got involved in the match. * Disciples of Apocalypse beat Boricuas: Dreadful. * Bret Hart & Davey Boy Smith beat Patriot & Vader in a flag match: The work was very good in this match, as one might expect, but the flag stipulation was stupid and ended up playing no role in the finish. They announced early on that pinfalls and submissions were also ways of winning the match. Patriot threw a fit at the end of the match, after he had been rolled up by Hart. * Shawn Michaels beat Undertaker in a "Hell in the Cell" match: Shawn delivered another career-best match, lifting the Undertaker to what was likely his best match ever. Michaels took hellacious bumps, bled like crazy, and never stopped working his butt off. They did some great unique spots, both in and out of the cage. When a camera man was levelled by Michaels and removed from the cage, it was a solid tease at outside interference. Instead, Michaels & Undertaker left the cage and brawled on top of it before getting back inside. The only negative part of the match, and it was a big negative, was the uncreative and generally horrible finish: Kane (Glen Jacobs, Kane spelled this way based on UT's first WWF appearance) lumbered down to ringside and "ripped" the door off the cage, tombstoned Undertaker, and then walked away. They could have had Kane appear after a cleaner finish, but I guess that was asking too much. Overall, the show had two very solid matches, one that will likely get match of the year praise on the net, despite the uninspired finish. RAW this past Monday was an incredibly weird show. Before the show, they gave Pillman a ten bell salute with all of the wrestlers standing on the ramp; that was a nice touch. The show opened with two segments featuring Shawn Michaels & Hunter Hearst Helmsley acting like jackasses and delivering "shoot" comments to McMahon. I'm not sure that the average person who watches Raw would even understand half of the time spent on this, which makes it pretty stupid, albeit intriguing for us. They suggested that the nWo (without saying that name) was being run from "up north," which seems like a cheap way of riding the coat tails the success of that WCW creation. Michaels correctly stated that he delivered a stellar performance at Badd Blood the night before; truthfully, he could have delivered that quality of a match against almost anybody, but Undertaker could never deliver that quality of match without Michaels. Anyhow, the Hart Foundation confronted the "Kliq." Marc Mero debuted in his new gimmick, a boxing-oriented character, and was sadly nowhere near what he used to be. I was hoping that he'd be fired-up for his return, but it was very much a lacklustre affair. Oh, the Head Bangers got an upset win over the Godwinns, as the tag scene continued to decay. Davey Boy Smith beat Rocky Maivia, and Owen Hart defeated Hawk in a screwy match. Kane appeared and looked slow and stupid. There was talk that the Truth Commission's Interrogator (the tallest guy) was being groomed for a series with Undertaker. Imagine the matches down the road with Kane & Interrogator lining up for the Undertaker...dreadful. Bret Hart lost by countout to Hunter Hearst Helmsley in a weak match. Helmsley is not over at all even with Chyna, the association with Michaels, and the headline matches. Vince McMahon interviewed Melanie Pillman from her home. It was strange to watch Vince pump Melanie for responses the day after her husband's death; it came off as a little tasteless to not let her grieve first. But if Pillman's death gets spun by somebody as having been drug-induced, the WWF could face some trouble down the line. In a totally stupid spot, Jim Cornette repeated the remarks about WCW and the nWo that have appeared all over the place on the net and in newsletters. I'm not sure who this segment was supposed to appeal to. The fact is that WCW is drawing better ratings and buy rates than the WWF is. The fact is that almost all of the time, WCW has better undercards than the WWF and the WWF has better main events. The fact is that WCW has not even tried to get the strong undercard wrestlers over as main eventers and the WWF has had very little luck getting their mid-carders over as main eventers. Yeah, Nash, Hall, Syxx, and others have ego problems, but they are surely not the only ones in the business with that problem. Don't get me wrong: I thought it was great to hear Cornette rant and rave (hell, I paid a fair chunk of money to fly to SMW territory a few years back), but it was a poor judgment call to put this on Raw. They advertised for WCW and looked like cry babies. Next week on Raw, The Legion of Doom win the tag titles from the Godwinns; the tag scene is in a downward spiral. - WCW has Halloween Havoc on 10/26/97. Tentative line-up has: * Hulk Hogan vs. Roddy Piper in a cage * Giant vs. Kevin Nash * Diamond Dallas Page vs. Randy Savage * Jeff Jarrett vs. Curt Hennig for the US Title * Scott Hall vs. Lex Luger with Larry Zbyszko as referee * Eddy Guerrero vs. Rey Misterio Jr. for the Cruiserweight Title * Disco Inferno vs. Jacquelyn The Giant-Nash match likely won't happen, since Nash his letting is knee recover from surgery. - I finally got to see a clip of Bill Goldberg this past weekend. He has been beating mid-carders on WCW Nitro and walking away from Gene Okerlund's queries. I'm pretty much unimpressed, although the gimmick might be cool if he could work. - Jim Duggan & Dave Finlay are returning to WCW. - - RAW 10/06 with a 3.91 rating against a 3.0 rating. The detailed ratings are a click away. - The PPV buy rates of the past six months (year or so) show that the WWF has an average buy rate of 0.59 (0.52) and average gross of $1.51-million ($1.32-million), while WCW has an average buy rate of 0.69 (0.67) and average gross of $2.12-million ($2.02-million). The details as they stand are available. I will try to update the figures by next week (sorry). - - The WWF has Survivor Series on 11/09/97. Tentative line-up has: * Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels for the WWF Title * Owen Hart vs. Steve Austin for the IC Title Awesome line-up! Just give them the whole 2:50. Who wants to see NOD vs. DOA vs. Boricuas and the like? - WCW has World War III on 11/23/97. - The WWF has a PPV on 12/07/97. - WCW has Starrcade on 12/28/97. Tentative line-up has: * Sting vs. Hulk Hogan for the WCW Title - Videos: I have posted something about the availability of videos. If you missed it, I'll send it to you in e-mail upon request. ______________________________________________________________________ Thanks to: Masaki Aso. ______________________________________________________________________