Shadow Fire Promotions, Inc. is the ONLY authorised vendor of this set, as Heartland Wrestling Association (HWA) no longer owns the rights to the shows, and we have bought out their remaining stock.

The Brian Pillman Memorial Show was a unique concept for its time, as it was one of the first "memorial shows" ever presented for a deceased wrestler, much like Pillman himself was a unique individual for his time.

Trained out of the Hart Family Dungeon by the legendary Stu Hart in Calgary, alongside other greats such as Chris Benoit and Chris Jericho, Pillman, who started his career as "Flyin' Brian" had a series of memorable crusierweight matches in WCW against the best wrestlers on both sides of the ocean. Pillman later turned rulebreaker, forming the Hollywood Blonds with another mid-card guy by the name of Steve Austin. The team clicked instantly, and the duo would defeat Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat and Shane Douglas for the WCW World Tag Team Championships. Although neither man was initially interested in forming a tag team, instead interested in singles success, they quickly formed a lasting bond. After the break up of the team, Pillman joined the most famous rulebreaking clique of all time, The Four Horsemen.

Pillman was a visionary, light years ahead of his time, creating the so-called "shoot angle". It was at this time that Pillman, billed now as "The Loose Cannon", would stay in character 24/7, leading everyone to believe that he had truly gone off the deep end, living his gimmick to an extreme. As part of the storyline, Pillman was supposedly fired, freeing him to show up in ECW (orchestrated by then-Head Booker Kevin Sullivan, with the aid of his then-wife, Nancy, known as Woman, who helped pass the word to ECW, where she was working at the time). All this time, Pillman was even working the bookers who assisted him in the angle. Since it was Pillman's idea from the start, he pulled the wool over the eyes of even those who knew about it, convincing WCW to legitimately terminate him to make it look more real to everyone. At this time, the situation played out right into Pillman's hands, freeing him to sign a guaranteed deal with the WWF.

Unfortunately, Pillman crushed his ankle when he fell asleep behind the wheel of his car, setting back his in-ring debut by many months. However, even on crutches, Pillman continued to work, now calling himself "The Ticking Time Bomb", and getting a huge push against his former tag team partner, Steve Austin, who was on his way to becoming the hottest commodity in wrestling. However, the constant stress of walking on his injured ankle, even on crutches, caused it to not heal properly, requiring it to be re-broken, and fused into a walking position, leaving Pillman in intense pain, and taking numerous painkillers to deal with the injury and still work. Pillman's final feud was against Goldust, where Pillman claimed to have had sex with Marlena, revealed to be Dustin Runnels' wife, Terri, before she was married to Goldust, even going so far as to have claimed that their child, Dakota was actually Pillman's. Pillman's final story had him "winning" Marlena in a match for "thirty days and thirty long, long nights".

Pillman was supposed to have a match at In Your House: Badd Blood, but died hours earlier in his hotel room, from a combination of painkillers and alcohol, along with a heredity heart condition that was so minute, it was not diagnosed until later. The official ruling of the cause of death was arteriosclerotic heart disease, but the condition can be exacerbated by drug and alcohol abuse.

A year later, Heartland Wrestling won the rights to produce the Brian Pillman Memorial Show, featuring top stars from all of wrestling. The proceeds for the event went to the future education of Pillman"s children. The final show was in 2001.

This card, having taken place when Heartland Wrestling Association was still a WWF Developmental Territory was able to take advantage of that cooperation to get several WWF stars to volunteer their time to appear on the card. This also features several current WWE stars as well as some past legends, and additionally, one of the exceedingly few times you will ever see WCW and WWF talent on the same card (although interpromotional matches were still forbidden). Look for some of the top independent talent in the world here. This is a must for fans of independent wrestling.

Here is the card (all wrestlers are listed under the names and promotions they were active in during the show):

Five VHS

Ordering info here

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