In good conscience, I cannot recommend the new Brian Pillman book "Crazy Like A Fox" for the pro wrestling fan on your holiday shopping list.
It isn’t because of the writing quality, or any inaccuracies about one of the industry’s top stars during the early days of the famed WWE/World Championship Wrestling promotional wars. In fact, far from it — and that’s the problem.
Those who love the rough-and-tumble “sports entertainment” genre might not feel the same way after reading the work of Liam O’Rourke, who has written what may very well be the most compelling pro wrestling biography in the history of the genre. And for full disclosure: I’m not saying this because I’m quoted in the book stemming from my knowledge of Pillman’s career having written a long-running syndicated pro wrestling column and my personal dealings with him when we both lived in the Cincinnati area.
O’Rourke didn’t need me to ink a masterpiece that uses Pillman’s rise and fall as a metaphor to painstakingly skewer the insidious nature of a genre that still remains true to its carny roots both in and out of the ring. Pillman’s story alone is fascinating enough for its own 30-for-30 treatment a la the recent ESPN special on “Nature Boy” Ric Flair.
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After overcoming size limitations to forge a brief NFL career with the Bengals in the mid-1980s, the 5-10, 227-pound Pillman was urged by the team’s now-retired strength coach Kim Wood to consider pursuing a career in the grappling game. Nicknamed “Flyin’ Brian,” Pillman was able to enjoy a quick rise in WCW thanks to his athleticism, charisma, good looks and quick wit on interviews. He helped paved the way for today’s generation of light-heavyweight wrestlers by engaging in a breakthrough series of matches against Japanese legend Jushin “Thunder” Liger.
Before adopting his “Stone Cold” persona, Steve Austin teamed with Pillman as the “Hollywood Blondes.” Pillman even had a brief tenure as part of Flair’s legendary Four Horsemen quartet. But with his career hitting a wall and WCW contract expiring in 1996, a desperate Pillman collaborated with Wood to devise a scheme that would con the conmen inside the company. Pillman convinced WCW chief executive Eric Bischoff to let him straddle the fourth wall between pro wrestling fantasy and reality during a time when trade secrets still weren’t widely known in the early days of the internet.
Pillman “went off script” with the public use of insider terms, profane rants and matches designed to fool fans into thinking they were real-life fights. In what was further considered taboo at the time, Pillman appeared for a rival company — Extreme Championship Wrestling — to further assail WCW management as well as members of ECW roster.
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Then came Pillman’s ultimate swindle: getting Bischoff to legitimately release him from his WCW contract under the guise of adding further legitimacy to his unhinged character and anti-establishment ways. By doing so, Pillman gained free-agent status that allowed him to sign with WWE when WCW didn’t meet his new contract demands.
Pillman took the reality-based aspects of pro wrestling to a new level when brandishing a gun on "Monday Night RAW" as protection from a “home invasion” by Austin, resulting in one of the most controversial segments during WWE’s self-touted Attitude Era.
“It wasn’t so much that Brian was ahead of his time in that he was the master of the time he was in,” O’Rourke told Sporting News in a telephone interview from his home in Shropshire, U.K. “He could play things out in his head before most of us did. He figured out where things (in wrestling) were going and was the first to accelerate the rate of progress on that. He would cherry-pick ideas from reality and bring them into wrestling in ways that are still being used now by others.
“He was the first one in the business to steer things in a direction that ideally suited him. It’s one of the real tragedies that he never really got to go all the way with it.”
Pillman’s personal decline began in April 1996 during his time choosing between WCW and WWE offers. Thrown from his new Humvee when losing control of the speeding vehicle and hitting a tree stump, Pillman suffered a severe ankle injury from which he would never fully recover. Pillman’s later attempt to keep delivering at a high level resulted in heavier reliance upon pain medication at a time when WWE had scrapped its mandatory drug-testing procedures to try and regain its top spot from WCW, which was succeeding with talent that wasn’t subject to such protocol. Pillman also was abusing recreational drugs and alcohol amid family pressures caused by what was turning into a messy divorce.
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The combination proved too much for Pillman’s body to handle. He died of a heart attack in October 1997 at the age of 35. Although now considered a footnote in pro wrestling history two decades after his passing, the Pillman saga remains relevant because so many elements still ring true that shape how performers and promoters develop a distorted view of reality. The depravity that rises bring out the worst of the human spirit behind the scenes in shaping the finished product presented to the masses.
The 31-year-old O’Rourke laughingly admits he developed an “obsession” watching Pillman matches during his own ill-fated attempts to become a pro wrestler in his teenage years before instead pursuing a livelihood in media. Inspired by a suggestion from his brother to turn such interest into a book, O’Rourke began interviewing as many of Pillman’s friends and family members as he could to learn what made him tick.
Such diligence produced a 309-page tome meticulously chronicling Pillman’s story and lasting impact that includes feedback from well-known pro wrestling contemporaries like Scott “Raven” Levy, Shane Douglas and Jim Cornette. Such input and other Pillman anecdotes run the gambit from hilarious to horrifying.
“As much coverage as Pillman’s life received, it had not been presented in the detailed way it should be,” said O’Rourke, whose self-published book is available on Amazon.com.
“What I wanted to do to was look beneath the surface. It’s fascinating. You keep peeling and the more incredible it becomes.”
One question that inevitably surfaces is what Pillman would be doing today if still alive. Pillman was trying to break into Hollywood acting during his “Loose Cannon” phase knowing he couldn’t wrestle forever, especially in his physical condition. But his knowledge of what made wrestling-types tick and manipulative ability may have kept Pillman tethered to the trade in some form or fashion.
“It’s almost heartbreaking to think about what could have been,” O’Rourke said. “The entire situation was sad not just for him but his family. Brian wouldn’t have wanted for his kids to be messed up, which unfortunately ended up happening. Things have turned better now but it was pretty murky.
“If he had lived, he would have been a really big deal and may have even ended up as the right-hand man to (WWE chairman) Vince McMahon. He was so smart and the impression I get is that Vince had take to him.”
Instead, the “Loose Cannon” never got to fire his best shot.
