Friday, July 25, 2008

Brian Pillman : Loose Cannon

I finally managed to watch the Brian Pillman DVD yesterday afternoon.

One of the things that I noticed right at the start of the documentary portion of the two-disc set is how inaccurate the first bit of information was. I am good with dates and I remember that news of Pillman's death was announced on October 5th 1997. As he was found dead in his hotel room after last being seen alive the night before - it is possible he could have died on the 4th but, in the opening segment of the DVD, the WWE says 'A tribute to the life of Brian William Pillman 22nd May 1962 - 6th October 1997'.

I know this is nitpicking but the people who produced the DVD should have made a little bit more research into things like that. It is, after all, a story that focuses on his death in the latter part of the piece.

This end portion was puzzling as well.

Jim Ross noted how Pillman's painkiller addiction was getting out of hand in the final months of his life. The company had done an on-the-spot drug test on him at a time when drug tests weren't done and they found that he had been overusing the medication he was using. What concerns me is they didn't really do anything to stop him. I don't recall him being suspended or sent to rehab and the fact that he was still on the road at the time of his death despite failing this test is baffling. It shows the mentality of the wrestling promoters in the age before the Guerrero death.

Pillman didn't die of a drug overdose, he died of a heart attack.

That's what Jim Ross trumpets at the close of the documentary. He points towards the heart problems Pillman's father died from to prove a genetic link. The problem I have with that is, abusing painkillers and injecting steroids or growth hormones into his body would have speeded up the inevitable if he was destined to die from a congenital heart disease.

The early and mid portion of the documentary highlights how Pillman was a fighter. Not only did he battle his way through childhood cancer, he fought his way through a football career when he was too small to compete and managed to make it for the Cincinnati Bengals as well as the Calgary Stampeders.

When an injury forced him to leave football, he turned to wrestling.

The wrestling career is the main focus of the DVD. One of the things I took away from it is seeing how much he crammed into such a short career.

When I was done watching, I had this thought of how his character would have evolved had he not been injured in that car wreck in 1996 which ultimately led to him being hooked on the painkillers. It's an interesting thought but we'll never know now.

The second disc features a load of his matches. I've yet to see this disc but I saw most of these bouts when they originally aired. This disc alone is a good enough reason to purchase the DVD.

No comments:

Post a Comment