The late, great Brian Pillman had a reputation in pro wrestling for being a loose cannon, both in character and out of it. Stories of him are still bandied about regularly and his out-of-the-box thinking is still spoken of in reverent tones. Still, sometimes it takes a long time for even the best stories to get out. But be thankful we have a great one to share with you today.
In an appearance on Vince Russo’s podcast, Kevin “I respect you, bookerman” Sullivan held court and in passing, he talked about Pillman’s penchant for coming up with the craziest and most outlandish ideas he’d ever heard. In particular, Pillman wanted to do an X-rated publicity stunt at the Super Bowl that, had it actually happened, the entire world would still be talking about today.
“Remember when Cincinnati went to the Super Bowl? He came to me and said, ‘I’m going to do something that’s gonna shock the wrestling [world]. During the game, when the ball’s on the other end I’m gonna run out on the field, with a chain, strip naked and lock myself to the goalpost with six chains. Even if they stayed away from it, you knew it was going to make the front page. They would have put him away for observation for 90 days, but, HE WAS WILLING TO DO IT! That’s how far out his thinking was.”
This story is actually entirely plausible, as the game in question was Super Bowl XXIII in Miami in 1989, when Pillman was still in his “Flyin’ Brian” days and no wrestling fans had any idea yet what a complete madman he was. He also would have likely been able to make it onto at least the sidelines, as he almost certainly still had Bengals connections from being on the team in 1985.
What a story that could have been. The entire world probably would have known about Pillman back then if he had followed through on it. Heck, maybe him chaining himself to the Super Bowl goalpost with his ding-dong out would have started the Attitude Era eight years early. I guess we can dare to dream.
