Dark Side of the Ring

[DMJ]

After watching the doc, I'm willing to say - with some confidence - that if the accident doesn't happen, Pillman thrives in 98' the way Foley did as I think, as much of a partier as he was prior to the injury, it clearly added a ton of gas to that fire. 

Austin needed challengers and Pillman, even if he had had to adapt his style to just brawling, makes a ton of sense to have been in that mix. There's easy gold to mine in Vince having to find a way to trust Pillman to take care of Austin, but not being 100% able to. 



 

[AA484]

23 hours ago, SirEdger said:

I can't help but wonder if Pillman had been alive in 1998, that perhaps Vince would've maybe gone with Austin vs Pillman for the bulk of 1998. I still think the Mr. McMahon character would've been born but imagine McMahon being willing to associate himself with the Loose Cannon to get rid of Austin.

Also gives Pillman an easy path to eventually turning face when Vince inevitably stops trusting or turns on him.

[Robert S]

1 hour ago, DMJ said:

After watching the doc, I'm willing to say - with some confidence - that if the accident doesn't happen, Pillman thrives in 98' the way Foley did as I think, as much of a partier as he was prior to the injury, it clearly added a ton of gas to that fire.

Without the accident Pillman never ends up in WWF, if you believe Kim Wood. He clearly stated that Pillman wanted to choose the better money offer, which was WCW, but the problem with the WCW deal was, the contract could have been dissolved by WCW at any time (with just a three months salary to be paid; he formulated it a bit differently, but that is what he meant) while apparently the WWF deal had no such clause (I guess WWF began with such contracts only after the Monday Night Wars ended, otherwise they would not have tried to get guys like Mark Henry to quit giving them humiliating gimmicks; might also be, that they had different kinds of contracts back then). Pillman knew that after a short time WCW would have realized how broken down he was and would have terminated him, at which point WWF also would not have had any interest in him as an in-ring performer.

[DMJ]

Ahh, I did not think that one all the way through then.

I'm not going to consult Crazy Like A Fox or anything, but I guess I also thought that Brian was like Jericho in the sense that he believed WWE to be a better long-term possibility for singles success (seeing as the cruiser division had surpassed anything he could do physically and there was almost zero chance of him going up against Hogan, Savage, etc). Meanwhile, you look over at WWE around the time, Pillman vs. Michaels is much more within the realm of likelihood.

[Beast]

Anyone else wish Brian Pillman had come in as the evil mirror Shawn Michaels?

 

[flyonthewall2983]

5 hours ago, DMJ said:

After watching the doc, I'm willing to say - with some confidence - that if the accident doesn't happen, Pillman thrives in 98' the way Foley did as I think, as much of a partier as he was prior to the injury, it clearly added a ton of gas to that fire. 

Austin needed challengers and Pillman, even if he had had to adapt his style to just brawling, makes a ton of sense to have been in that mix. There's easy gold to mine in Vince having to find a way to trust Pillman to take care of Austin, but not being 100% able to. 

My big thing is what would he have made about Montreal, and what if any thoughts he had about Bret going to WCW if he knew about it prior to his death. On one hand it would be hard to imagine him sticking around being happy to work for the people who screwed over a friend of his, but on the other it would probably be a stickier mess for him to defect than it was when WCW tried to hire Owen. 

[sek69]

Yeah that's the one stickler in "Brian would have been top 5 in the biz if not for the accident" argument. Talent wise, no doubt, but as loyal as he seemed to be to those who were loyal to him,I don't think Montreal would have set well with him at all. Maybe Bret would have been able to talk him into staying like he talked Foley out of walking out, but it very much seems like he would have been pissed at the company and they would probably would not let him leave either.

[flyonthewall2983]

Maybe it would be easier to let him go because of his "loose cannon" reputation, but give him some kind of non-compete clause instead of going right away to Atlanta. 

[G. Badger]

Finished the Nick Gage episode and its rough watching. Its not the death match stuff but, he just isn't likable at any point. Even with Snuka and Benoit you could find points in their stories/lives where you could empathize or relate to before they commit their crimes. They didn't start out as bad people from the get go. Gage comes across as a psycho who never should have been booked in a pro match from the start. All the crazy stuff that happens is indeed dark but, you kinda don't care because he sounds like a bad person. All that and he just doesn't have the star power to even make this a "big star gets destroyed by his demons" story like Benoit or whoever. He just seemed like a guy who wrestles to hurt people and then hurt people outside of wrestling too. This felt like too much of a fan request episode than anything else.

[Enforcer]

Moxley saying He always wear a handkerchief like he is ready to rob a train, the only time he isn’t wearing one, he robs a fucking bank was gold. But I agree, rough watching.  

[MoS]

Yeah, having watched the episode, I think the issue more or less is with how the makers filmed the episode. I haven't followed Gage's career, but from everything I have seen from his peers and fans who know him, he genuinely felt guilty for what he did, took ownership, made amends and has now been rehabilitated. The documentary did not focus on that at all. It showed him hit rock bottom, but to go from there to redemption, you need to show remorse and atonement. By all accounts, Gage has done that, but you wouldn't know that from watching the doc. The closest the doc came to showing that was the bit about Gage getting emotional at the support he received in jail, and starting to work out twice a day. Immediately after that, they show he is arrested again, and leave vague the exact details. We then cut to him basically coming out and wrestling David Arquette. There's nothing about how he started making up for his mistakes, and if you want to show someone's fall from grace and subsequent rise again, it is imperative that you show the part where he actually atones. As it is, the episode just came across like a guy who was lying to his friends and doing drugs, went to jail and as soon as he came back, immediately went right back to climbing the deathmatch ladder and becoming the most famous deathmatch wrestler on the planet. Of course he went to jail, so you cannot say they did not show him facing the consequence of his actions, but for a feel-good story, they really needed to show more details than simply doing prison time and going back to what he was doing, as if prison was a blip. 

[MoS]

I did find it interesting though that so many wrestling reporters and fans who have no issues (rightly) criticising promotions and wrestlers with being unprofessional seemingly had no issues with Gage taking liberties with Arquette in the ring and doing shit that Arquette specifically asked him to not do. Arquette seems like a really cool dude who has never deserved the hatred thrown his way - as always, the real villain there was Russo - and he didn't seem like he had a grudge against Gage, but he specifically said that when Gage cut him with the pizza cutter, he felt he no longer could trust Gage in the ring. I cannot think of something more damning a wrestler could say about a fellow worker. 

[Robert S]

I felt there was a lot of stuff not said in the docu. Gage was sentenced to five years for (if you watch the episode, I don't know what was really the case) a first time offense of a single armed robbery (without even using a gun, which I would suppose, should reduce the sentence; also he turned himself in) and only got out after more than four years. Booker T was involved in something like 15 armed robberies and got the same sentence but was out after 2.5 years. So either Gage had a shitty, shitty lawyer, or there was more going on. And just a quick look at Wikipedia already tells me, that Gage was already sentenced once in 2005 for possession of stolen property.

And not to play psychologist, but I am sure there was more to his childhood than "he loved his mother, he and his brother did backyard stuff on their trampoline and they loved hardcore wrestling".

[Migs]

I think my favorite part of the doc was listening to Mox tell stories; I could listen to that dude for hours.

[WrestlingPower]

I finally watched the Pillman doc and yeah, the family stuff was rough.  Seeing Melanie was shocking.  I did some Wikipedia research and assuming it’s all true, she and Brian were in the early stages of a divorce when he died.  He had adopted 2 kids of hers before they were together (these kids weren’t mentioned) and then they had 2 together (the one that was unborn at the time of his death, also not mentioned on the show, may or may not be his).  Apparently one of Melanie’s daughters got into wrestling as a valet and died in a car accident so yeah Melanie has been thru A LOT.

I was really surprised Les Thatcher wasn’t all over this show.  Wonder if he was contacted.  There was no mention of the Pillman memorial shows.  Les also seems a saint in hindsight for keeping those shows going for 4 years and taking the high road when they ended only saying that Melanie had remarried and moved on.  I’m sure he could have buried her with stories of how F’d up things probably were in those 4 years.  I heard second hand from people that live near Cincy that the kids were in & out of legal troubles too probably due to treatment from the mom.  I can only hope she’s no longer with the guy that abused Brian Jr.

Yeah, rough stuff but it appears most have come to terms with everything and Melanie clearly is reaping what she’s sown physically.

Also surprised we didn’t at least get some B-roll at least of the Hart Foundation stuff in 97.  Seems like this easily could have been a 3 hour show.

[blueminister]

I feel like the record has been muddled by the Pillman doc. People seem to be conflating a dislike with Bischoff with the idea that the "release" couldn't have been a work (of course it was a work, otherwise Pillman wouldn't have been ordered to come back to WCW before Uncensored) or that Bischoff got worked on Pillman's way out (no, he wouldn't waive the 90-day clause because Pillman had just been in a major car wreck.) I've found Bischoff to be evasive on Pillman in the past but nothing he claims in the documentary seems all that inconsistent with the historical record. Pillman's a tough case where people that you expect to know better get caught up in the narrative.

[sek69]

Watching the Collision in Korea episode and all I can think of is how close we may have been to World War III because WCW sent some wrestlers to North Korea. 

[El-P]

Seven months away from it, actually.

[PeteF3]

WCW only sent one wrestler and one boss. Everyone else was working for New Japan or another Japanese promotion. It was a NJPW card the whole way.

[sek69]

Still, sending  pro wrestlers to North Korea just seems like a bad idea no matter what company they work for. The one time I don't blame the Hulkster for pulling a "that doesn't work for me brother". 

Was surprised to see they got Inoki for the show, and loved how he basically said he knew Hogan would be to smart for this shit. 

[Enforcer]

Listening to Scott Norton’s story about being threatened at gun point for badmouthing Korea, it’s a miracle that Scott Steiner didn’t manage to get himself killed... 

[sek69]

Chris Benoit being the voice of reason preventing 2 Cold Scorpio from stabbing Hawk with a shiv is horrifically ironic in hindsight.

[Robert S]

9 hours ago, sek69 said:

Chris Benoit being the voice of reason preventing 2 Cold Scorpio from stabbing Hawk with a shiv is horrifically ironic in hindsight.

If you believe the story, that is.

[El-P]

They really spent way too much time on the whole Scorpio vs Hawk stuff, like there wasn't anything more interesting to say about being in North Korea than a bunch of anecdotes that you'd hear on an RF Video Shoot interview from 2005. Like, it's where Sasaki & Hokuto met and got together ! That's more interesting folklore ! It really feels they were struggling to tell a focused story, going into Rikidozan for a while then going back and forth with the Scorp/Hawk stuff. Very cool that they got Inoki at least. Norton was interesting but the best one was Bischoff. As much as he came off like a good in the Pillman episode, I thought he was the star of this show. As a matter of fact, his Conrad podcast about that show is really awesome and I'd recommend it to everyone who wants to hear more about this surrealistic story. He told the "running in the streets" story there, and he manages to convey the eerie feeling it must have been. I love his conclusion too, about how he can say he was at a bigger wrestling show than Hogan ever was, too bad no one paid to be there ! Overall an ok episode but a bit disappointing honestly.

The Gage episode was a waste of time. The guy comes off like a mark for himself and fancies himself as some kind of tough dude because he cuts forehead of guys with a pizza cutter *without their consent* in the middle of a pro-wrestling match ? Ok. Whatever. Mox was really funny, but I couldn't care less about that Gage dude (whom, from the few times I've watched him, always displayed exactly zero in term of compelling working ability).

The Pillman episodes were awesome. Right there with Benoit and Owen as the best of the series. Pillman Jr. stories about his childhood after his dad passed were heart-wrenching. That Kim guy was maybe the best interview of the entire series thus far (and he was incredible on Meltz's show too). 

The next three episodes should be really, really interesting, but I dread the Grizzly Smith one.

[sek69]

10 hours ago, Robert S said:

If you believe the story, that is.

Well, the individual pieces all seem to be believable. I can see Hawk picking a fight with someone smaller, I can see Scorp beating his ass and making a shiv for protection. I can see Benoit talking him out of it if for no other reason to not cause an international incident that would get them all sent so some NK prison camp forever.