Story Of Bryan Pillman
It all started in late 1995 at the coffee table of the strength coach of the Cincinnati Bengals, Kim Wood's house.
Brian Pillman was 33 years old. His body was breaking down from the years of football and high flying wrestling. His contract was due the next summer. His future was stable in that there was little doubt he'd be able to renew his deal, probably for about $250,000 per year on a three-year deal at the level he was at. But, like every branded mid-carder in WCW, he was frustrated that he wasn't going to elevated and felt unless he got a Lex Luger contract, he'd never be pushed past the glass ceiling into the main mix.
Unlike others who just got frustrated waiting for the push that never came unless they left the company, he decided to formulate a plan. He and Wood, who was like his father figure because his natural father died young, formulated this angle. The idea was he'd come up with an angle with Eric Bischoff and Kevin Sullivan, who were running the company, that he had gone nuts and was doing things on camera he wasn't supposed to. The angle was to work the boys and use the Internet, then in its infancy, to make himself into a major topic of discussion and that nobody, expect Bischoff and Sullivan, would be on it. The brilliance of the work from his perspective is that he would tell Bischoff and Sullivan they were the only ones in on it, and they'd work together with him to create scenarios. have occasional blowups in front of the wrestlers, to work them. But in reality the work was designed to work Bischoff into giving him a big contract as what Bischoff would feel was a self created new star, which would guarantee him a push that contract would afford him at the time when physically he knew his skills were declining.
The rest, as they say, was history. He lived the work to where it consumed him and became him. He was living in character to the point his few friends he let in on it by the end wanted nothing to do with him because he wouldn't, and probably couldn't, drop the act. There are probably some good Andy Kaufman analogies. It set the stage for the modern pro wrestling angle, particularly in WCW. And it was apropos because in the end, all that talk never drew anyone a dime. After weeks of what appeared to be unprofessional behavior both on television, and confrontations with Bischoff behind the scenes in front of witnesses, Bischoff, who was doing the announcing at the time, would constantly give the impression he was getting legitimately frustrated with Pillman, making quick comments that Pillman was on the verge of being fired.
Then came an in-ring incident where he locked up with Kevin Sullivan, and Sullivan went after his eye on live TV in what appeared to be a few second shoot. Then they did the "I respect you, Booker man" match a week later and Pillman walked off. People were stunned. Pillman, in order to make the angle more effective, had Bischoff work the entire office. He even talked them into sending him a real termination notice and a contract release. That would guarantee even the most skeptical of the wrestlers, given after a while wrestlers started catching on, would believe it. All of a sudden, he started negotiating early with Vince McMahon. Truth be told, Pillman originally never had any intention of going to the WWF. His idea was to negotiate with WWF only because it would make him seem more important for Bischoff to keep after Bischoff had done his prized angle with him, being that WCW paid better and WWF offer didn't guaranteed contracts, even though he recognized there was more upward mobility in the WWF, particularly since at this time their biggest star, Shawn Michaels, was about his size while all the WCW main eventers were a lot bigger.
Somewhere in there, he was to make a surprise appearance at a Nitro. At this point, because of the termination notice, the people in the company really thought he was gone. He went to ECW, by this time Paul Heyman was added to the list of the few who were in on the deal and loved the idea of Pillman, who was becoming the underground hero, on this underground TV show because ECW fans went crazy whenever Pillman showed up. Heyman, like Pillman, had his own secret relationship at the time with WCW to allow Pillman to work his television while shooting his angle. Before all this, but after his "booker man" angle, he went to a Nitro to sit in the crowd, hold up a sign for his 900 line, and cause a commotion. When Hulk Hogan saw just how much of a buzz there was for Pillman, and the word basically out in wrestling by this time that if was all a work, he immediately wanted him to work him, and beat him of course, so Pillman was added to the legendary match at WCW Uncensored that year, a two-on-eight triple decker cage match in which Hogan and Savage were going to beat eight different heels including cameos by Ze Gangsta (who drew two PPV houses against Hogan in the 90s as Zeus) and the late muscular giant Jeep Swenson as The Ultimate Solution. Pillman, sensing it would be the worst match in wrestling history. (and it was damn close), didn't want any part of it, plus felt it was too soon to come back--it was the very next PPV after the booker man line, to return.
To make it worse he'd be put in a match that couldn't possibly benefit his or anyone's career to be in. He did have a legit medical excuse not to appear, which he used, although he under normal circumstances would have worked it being it was a PPV main event. Even as the live ore-game show, they were billing him as appearing in the main event in a Steve Austin Survivor Series like promotional rip off. Probably at about this time, Sullivan sensed that he was the one being worked. Sullivan never believed Pillman even had the throat operation he claimed he was recovering from in the first place, although he really did. And then Pillman started negotiating with WWF, who, much to his surprise, offered him a downside guarantee with the opportunity for more a unique deal at the time in the WWF that would set the stage for all the company's contracts.
In the middle of all this, Pillman, who was so whacked out playing this loose cannon persona on a local radio and in his private live never sleeping, that he fell asleep at the wheel of a humbee he'd brought while on an insane spending spree, was thrown 40 feet into a field, where he was lying in a pool of his own blood. His face was so swollen that his friends who visited him couldn't even recognize him. Because everything else was a work, people believed the accident was as well, and even medical documents and police reports couldn't convince the wrestlers who had been worked once that anything in this world, or at least Pillman's world, was real. By this point, Sullivan, as paranoid as Pillman was a loose cannon, was insisting to everyone he knew that Pillman had worked his own accident. His facial injuries Sullivan told everyone was really plastic surgery so he could look like Shawn Michaels for a feud. Pillman already had the bad ankle from football, which explained that operation. Pillman was scared he'd blown his gig, but gave the impression to McMahon and Bischoff the doctors said he'd be able to return and his ankle, bad from football, would actually be stronger due to the surgery and he'd be back near 100 percent.
Secretly he was scared to death he's destroyed the future of his family by getting into a car wreck while executing his master plan, and be left with no job. As it turned out, both companies remained interested. The story of this angle ended when McMahon's offer stayed on the table. Bischoff, playing hardball on the negotiations from the start and apparently skeptical of his ability to return, refused to drop the 90-day injury termination wind-down. Fearing that he's never work again, he felt he had no choice in the contract matters at this point. As everyone knows, the Pillman story in no way had a happy ending. But in changed pro wrestling for ever.