Brian Pillman

Brian William Pillman (May 22, 1962 – October 5, 1997) was an American professional wrestler and professional football player best known for his appearances in Stampede Wrestling in the 1980s and World Championship Wrestling (WCW), Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), and World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in the 1990s.

Pillman created a legacy as "The Loose Cannon", a wrestling gimmick that would see him do a series of worked shoots that would gain him a degree of infamy for his unpredictable character. He was also known for being extremely agile in the ring, although a car accident on April 15, 1996, from which he received extensive ankle injuries, limited his in-ring ability. By the end of his career, he worked with his long-time friend and former tag-team partner Stone Cold Steve Austin in a storyline involving a firearm and with The Hart Foundation during the first instances of the developing Attitude Era. In October 1997, he died unexpectedly due to an undetected heart disease.

Brian William Pillman was born on May 22, 1962, at the Jewish Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio, to a Welsh mother named Mary; he had three sisters named Angie, Linda, and Susan, as well as a brother Phil. His father died of a heart attack when Pillman was three months old. Pillman developed multiple throat polyps as a child beginning at age two, undergoing between 31 and 40 operations to tend to them and receiving an electrolarynx. As a result, Pillman spent a large part of his early childhood in a hospital, only going home for Christmas. His mother chose to send him to a public school so that he could spend more time with his friends, leaving him as the only Presbyterian in his Catholic family. As a child Pillman played many sports, including basketball and hockey, but was rather fragile and often made fun of by other children due to his raspy voice, which had been damaged by the operations, prompting him to learn how to box.

Pillman graduated from Norwood High School in Norwood, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati. While attending Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, Pillman played football for the Redskins (now Miami RedHawks) as a linebacker. A Division I Second-team All-American in his junior year and a Division I All-American in his senior year, he went undrafted in the 1984 NFL draft. He joined his hometown Cincinnati Bengals as a free agent and later the Canadian Football League for the Calgary Stampeders in 1986. Pillman also played for the Buffalo Bills in preseason action in 1985, but he was the last player cut before the start of that season due to an assistant coach finding steroids in his room. His attempts to make the roster of the Bengals were covered in a series of articles in The Cincinnati Enquirer written by Peter King. Pillman and Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh were roommates and defensive teammates while at Miami.

Following the end of his football career, Pillman remained in Canada and began training as a wrestler under Stu Hart and his sons. He made his in-ring debut in November 1986 for Hart's Calgary-based Stampede Wrestling promotion. Pillman quickly formed a tag team with Hart's son Bruce known as Bad Company, winning the Stampede Wrestling International Tag Team Championship by defeating Ron Starr and the Cuban Assassin in the finals of a tournament on April 5, 1987. Their reign lasted until October, when the titles were held up following a controversial ending to a match between Bad Company and their opponents, Jerry Morrow and Makhan Singh. Bad Company defeated Morrow and Singh in a rematch in November to regain the titles, eventually losing them to Morrow and the Cuban Assassin in July 1988. While in Stampede Wrestling, Pillman had his girlfriend at the time, Trisa Hayes, portray his sister in order to get him over as a face by seating her at ringside and having heel wrestlers taunt her so that he could rescue her.

After finishing with Stampede in late 1988, Pillman worked briefly in 1989 for New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) as part of its "Battle Line Tokyo Dome" tour, where he wrestled in singles matches against Masa Saito, Tatsumi Fujinami, Black Cat and Naoki Sano and in tag team matches with Big Van Vader against Riki Choshu and Fujinami.

Pillman returned to the United States in May 1989 and began appearing in vignettes hyping his in-ring debut for World Championship Wrestling (WCW) the following month, where he became known as Flyin' Brian due to his athletic ability and variety of aerial maneuvers. He unsuccessfully challenged Lex Luger for the NWA United States Heavyweight Championship at the Halloween Havoc pay-per-view on October 28 and at Clash of the Champions IX on November 15.

During this time, Pillman began teaming with "Z-Man" Tom Zenk and feuded with the Fabulous Freebirds (Jimmy Garvin and Michael Hayes), who they defeated on February 12, 1990, to capture the NWA United States Tag Team Championship. They successfully defended the titles against the Freebirds on February 25 at WrestleWar, but lost them at Capital Combat on May 19 to The Midnight Express (Bobby Eaton and Stan Lane). He defeated Buddy Landel on July 7 at The Great American Bash and at Clash of the Champions XIII on November 20. At WrestleWar on February 24, 1991, Pillman participated in a WarGames match, teaming with Sting and The Steiner Brothers (Rick and Scott) in a loss to The Four Horsemen (Ric Flair, Barry Windham and Sid Vicious) and Larry Zbyszko. On March 21, Pillman wrestled at the WCW/New Japan Supershow I in the Tokyo Dome, where he, Zenk and Tim Horner lost to Kuniaki Kobayashi, Shiro Koshinaka and Takayuki Iizuka.