อันนี้เป็นสิ่งที่เพื่อนรักBrian Pillmanได้ลงไว้อาลัยให้กับเพื่อนที่เค้ารัก
BRIAN PILLMAN 1962-1997
It's one o'clock in the morning, and I'm waiting for a phone call.
It's a phone call that's never, ever going to come.
It's from my friend Brian. You knew him as Flyin' Brian, as the Loose Cannon, as the Time Bomb, as one-half of the Hollywood Blondes, as a member of the Hart Foundation, as a member of the Four Horsemen, as the Rogue Horseman, as one-half of Bad Company, as Brian F'n Pillman. But to me, he was just Brian.
He drove me absolutely, totally insane.
I never knew when I was going to hear from him. Sometimes he wouldn't call for weeks, sometimes he'd call five times in one day. He'd usually call me at home, but sometimes at work. Once he called me when I was on my radio sports talk show.
And got on the air.
Thank God for seven second delay. Hey, you know what he was like.
Brian was a good friend. Not many give a d*** about friendship these days. Most see friendship as a means to a self-serving end. But Brian valued friendship and so do I.
And now I sit by the phone.
Sit waiting for a call that will never come.
Because it's the only way I can make myself feel like he's still around.
Brian Pillman passed away Sunday morning, October 5. His body was found in his Bloomington, Minnesota, hotel room. He reportedly died of heart failure. He was 35.
Those most affected by Brian's death are his wife, Melanie, and their five children. But anyone who knew Brian was touched by him. Wrestling is a backstabbing kind of business on a good day. But I don't know anyone that disliked Brian. He got along with wrestlers in both major companies. With management in both major companies.
He was a great guy. A great husband. A great father. A great friend.
And a great performer. Brian loved wrestling. He had an old school-style respect for the business, but '90s sensibilities about what would work. I believe he would have wound up running one of the major wrestling companies someday.
Brian wrestled in WCW from 1989-96. He had two super-hot runs.
The first was in 1993, when he partnered with Stunning Steve Austin in the Hollywood Blondes, by my reckoning the best tag team of the '90s. Brian had shed his prettyboy babyface image to become a sadistic, psychopathic heel. He was as easy to hate in the ring as he was to like outside it.
Brian got torrid again in 1995 when he was a member of the Four Horsemen with Ric Flair, Arn Anderson and Chris Benoit.
That was an exciting time for Brian. He really looked up to Ric Flair and, in some ways, fashioned his persona after a combination of Flair and Terry Funk. To team with Flair in the Horsemen was a dream come true for Brian.
In late 1995, Brian had a pseudo-shoot feud with "booker man" Kevin Sullivan. It had everyone in wrestling, from the boys to casual fans to dirtsheet readers, wondering if it was legit, or if it was traditional pro wrestling.
It was easy to wonder that about Brian himself.
In the ring, Brian was half-crazed. Away from it, he was sometimes totally crazed. He could be scary.
But just when you thought Brian was about to go over the edge, he'd smile.
"It's all a work, you know," he'd say. And then he'd laugh.
Brian was in a bad car wreck in April, 1996. He flipped his Humvee all-terrain vehicle, mangling one of his ankles. The ankle was eventually fused into a walking position, but Brian never really regained his mobility. It frustrated him.
But it didn't matter.
Well, it mattered to Brian. He prided himself on having good matches.
But by the time Brian recovered from his ankle injury and started with his new company, he had his character down pat. His interviews were so strong, his psychology so good, that he didn't even have to wrestle at all to get over. And when he did wrestle, he was fine. It hurt. But he did well.
Brian would have been an all-time great. He was like Terry Funk on acid -- and that was without doing the acid. He would have been a Funker for the new millenium.
And now he's gone.
Wrestling makes strange friendships, and there haven't been many stranger than ours. The wrestling star and the dirtsheet alumnus. The ex-NFL player married to a Penthouse Pet and the overweight sportswriter.
But friends we were.
Now that I've worked for WCW for four years, it's kind of fashionable to be my buddy. But when I wrote for the dirt sheets, even though I talked to a lot of wrestlers, very few would acknowledge me in front of other wrestlers. Kay-fabe, you know.
But Brian Pillman would actually introduce me to the other guys.
As only he could.
"Hey, do you know Mark Madden? No? Well, you should, because he ----ing buried you in Pro Wrestling Torch this week."
Thanks, Brian.
I have some regrets about my friendship with Brian.
I regret that I never tried very hard to help him curb his inner demons. For the rest of my life, I'll wonder if Brian might still be with us if someone had gone the extra mile to help him. I doubt it, though. There was no telling Brian what to do.
I regret that we didn't spend much time together in person, although we did talk on the phone constantly. But by the time I started going on the road to work at WCW Pay-Per-Views a year ago, Brian was already up north.
Really, though, the regrets are few.
And the memories are many.
Brian often called late at night, one, two, three in the morning. He always had a crazy plan, a way to get over, a way to make money, a way for us to work together.
He made me laugh.
I trusted him.
His friendship meant a lot to me. I hope he knew that. I think he did.
I've shed a few tears over this.
But I've found a way to beat that.
Every time I feel like crying, I think of Brian laughing that maniacal laugh. Of him talking about Melanie, about his kids. Of him trying to work me about his feud with Kevin Sullivan. Of one of his schemes or plots. Of one of his anectdotes. Of one of his booking ideas. Of his response when I'd come up with an idea he embraced: "I don't like it -- I love it!" Of his advice to long-suffering WCW enhancement guy Joey Maggs. Of his dealings with his seemingly luckless lawyer, Elliott Pollock.
It was a pleasure knowing Brian. He was a lot of fun.
I miss him.
I think I'm going to go to bed. It's two a.m.
The phone's not going to ring.
And no thought, no memory -- nothing could stop the tears from flowing now.
Good-bye, Brian.
สำหรับเรา นักมวยปล้ำทุกๆคน ไม่ว่าเค้าจะดีหรือจะเลวยังไง มันเป็นกีฬาที่เรารักมาก... นักมวยปล้ำสำหรับเราคือ ผู้ที่อุทิศตนให้กับวงการที่มีแต่คนว่าหลอกลวง พวกเขานั้นยอมเป็นคนที่ถูกหาว่าหลอกลวง ปราศจากความเมตตาปรานี แต่ความที่พวกเขารักที่จะทำเช่นนี้...มันไม่ใช่สิ่งที่ผิด สิ่งที่เสียหายอะไรเลย... เราก็เป็นคนหนึ่งที่ยินยอมจะถูกเรียกว่าคนหลอกลวง แต่นี่ก็คือสิ่งที่เรารัก...เรายินดีจะถูกต่อว่าเช่นนั้นโดยที่ยังจะยืนยันไม่เปลี่ยนความคิดเห็นไม่ว่าใครจะว่าอะไรก็ตาม
แม้ว่ากีฬามวยปล้ำจะมีคนต่อว่าต่อขานมากขนาดไหน เราก็ยืนยันว่าจะรักกีฬาชนิดนี้ ไปจนกว่าชีวิตจะหาไม่ มันคงกลายเป็นส่วนหนึ่งของตัวเราไปแล้วมั๊ง... ห้ามไม่ได้...
สุดท้ายนี้ BRIAN PILLMAN ไม่ว่าPILLMANจะเลวแค่ไหน... เราไม่เคยเชียร์PILLMANเลย แต่ตอนนี้เขาจากไปแล้ว... เพิ่งจะมารู้ตอนนี้ก็สายไปแล้ว ว่าเรายังต้องการที่จะเชียร์เขาอยู่... ไม่มีอะไรมากกว่า 2 คำสั้นๆมีความหมาย เสียใจ และลาก่อน PILLMAN Rest In Peace...