Brian Pillman is one of the great innovator’s in wrestling history, from his first match to his last match.
He blurred the lines between real and fake, with his most memorable moment (“Pillman’s got a gun!”) causing fans to actually call the police in horror at what they’d seen.
Sadly, injuries ruined his later years, caused by a car crash. It limited his mobility in the ring and caused a downward spiral for the star.
Brian Pillman’s last match was a bad one, and did not accurately reflect himself as one of the finest professional wrestlers of the 1990s.
Brian Pillman’s Last Match
The last match of Brian Pillman’s career was against Goldust at the Civic Center in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA.
Pillman was locked in a feud with Goldust at the time, mainly due to his manager Marlena being a former manager of “The Bizarre One”.
The pair were sent on a house show loop of matches against one another, with the babyface Goldust winning every single one.
Little is known about Brian Pillman’s last match, other than the fact it took place on October 4th, 1997 and saw Goldust picking up the victory.
Brian Pillman was meant to face off with Dude Love at the WWF pay-per-view In Your House 18: Badd Blood the next night.
Sadly, he was discovered dead in his hotel. He died from the same heart defect that killed his father, and passed away just one day after Brian Pillman’s last match, aged 35.
Brian Pillman vs Owen Hart
While his final match was an untelevised house show, Brian Pillman’s last match shown on TV was a clash with Owen Hart on Monday Night Raw.
The match was on the September 22nd, 1997 episode of Raw, and saw two of the Hart Foundation members coming to blows in the ring.
However, they didn’t want to fight.
Owen Hart vs Brian Pillman was booked for the semi-finals of the WWF Intercontinental Championship tournament.
The pair didn’t want to face each other, so Brian Pillman tried to get out of his final RAW match by faking an injury to his arm.
Sadly, WWF Commissioner Sgt Slaughter saw right through this, and forced the star to wrestle against his stablemate anyway. He tossed a microphone to Pillman, who easily caught it and exposed his fake injury.
The match was pretty bad. They wrestled at half-speed, neither man wanting to hurt the other. Goldust ran in about four minutes in, hitting Owen Hart over the head and ending the match by DQ.
It was quite a sad way to remember Brian Pillman. “Flyin’ Brian” had so many great matches in his career, but his final WWE match simply wasn’t one of them.