Crazy Like A Fox: The Definitive Chronicle of Brian Pillman 20 Years Later Paperback – November 5, 2017

One of the best wrestling books I've ever read. There's plenty of stories that will make you both love and hate Brian Pillman scattered throughout this book. It's fitting for a man with so many sides to his personality and contradictions and tensions throughout his career, which helped make him such a captivating individual. Liam's research and the depth of it deserves a huge amount of credit. For instance, this is the best recounting of the Loose Cannon I've ever read. And, there are other bits--the Bill Kazmaier stories are almost worth the price of the book alone--where you'll learn more than ever about Brian's background and his early days in wrestling and football with details that you'll usually never encounter. Plus, this book contains the best recounting of the blow by blow from the dirt sheets of the Loose Cannon "gimmick" and how Pillman worked the sheets and manipulated Bischoff, and how Meltzer may have been slow to figure things out, which you won't get in most histories.Pillman was a trend-setting figure in numerous ways. Additionally, this book's insight into the politics of the pro-wrestling business from focusing on one career in a pivotal part of the Monday night wars between WCW and WWF the early to mid 90s is second to none. And spoiler alert: it'll be hard for you to look at many of people in the Pillman family, particularly Melanie Pillman, the same ever again after reading. This book is consistently well-written, entertaining, informative, detailed, and captivating throughout. I'd strongly recommend it to all wrestling fans of the 90s, of Brian Pillman, the backstage politics to success and trying to push boundaries within a network that wants you to be mediocre.

I've long been familiar with Brian Pillman's tenacity, toughness, and ability, but I would never say he was one of my favorite wrestlers. That said, I do find his life story very interesting. Although, I was VERY hesitant to spend $15+ on a paperback. The practical side of me wanted to wait until it eventually came out on Kindle at a discount. For whatever reason, with only one review to guide me, I decide to take the plunge and buy the book.The first thing I noticed is the lack of fluff. When a book is 300+ pages, you will often receive super large print; excessive pictures; pages that are 90% blank, etc. I'm pleased to say, that isn't the case with this book; it is all meat with little in the way of garnish - just the way I like it! Even after reading the Introduction, I could tell that Liam O'Rourke is a very talented author, as I was immediately hooked. O'Rourke expressed the importance of not only revealing the humorous and inspiring stories involving this charismatic man, but also the dark side of living life in the fast lane - as Pillman did. In this book, the author admits his fondness for Pillman as a wrestler, but (thankfully,) doesn't attempt to turn him into a deity. We see a truly objective overview of the subject, and that's all you can ask for from a biography. This is truly the best-written book (and notice I didn't specify wrestling book..) I've read in quite a while. I can't emphasize enough how good of a job Mr. O'Rourke does with this book, and I would highly recommend it to anyone with even a passing interest in Pillman's life story. From the Introduction on, I'm guessing - like me - you will be hooked.

it's a shame that injuries, drugs, and alcohol took Brian Pillman from us too early. He had a lot of potential, and never reached it. Good read. Very interesting stories about his pre- wrestling life, like college and pro football, making an impact even though he was undersized. One of Brian's favorite quotes was "It is not the size of the dog in the fight, it is the size of the fight in the dog!" and that sums up Brian Pillman perfectly!

Excellent biography of the late Brian Pillman. One of the best wrestling books I've read (and I've read countless).Very in-depth, well-researched coverage of Pillman with great insight from some of the folks that knew him best - Ken Wood, Bruce Hart, Dave Meltzer, Alex Marvel, and others.I'd go as far as to put this on the short list of all-time great wrestling books, along with Mick Foley's first two books, Bret Hart's autobiography, and the Death of WCW, all of which are must-reads. Too many wrestling books "talk down" to the reader - believing that wrestling fans have reading levels that max out around 6th grade. This book doesn't. It also doesn't read like the "money grabs" that WWE published throughout the late 90s and 00s (see The Rock's ghostwritten book for maybe the worst example or even Flair's relatively shallow one). This one is an obvious work of passion by an intelligent wrestling fan. Highly recommended.

I read the book for free via Kindle Unlimited. My initial expectations were low; it’s going to be a mildly interesting book with a bunch of reference articles, sleaze and bad editing.I was wrong. That’s a good thing.The book is simply excellent. It pulls no punches about Brian Pillman the celebrity and Brian Pillman the man. It’s the tragic story of a man who busted his ass to make it. There is no sugar coating or spinning in the story and that’s what made it great. Brian Pillman was an exceptional man and he did exceptional things, but in the end, he was human like the rest of us.It is, unfortunately, a fantastic story of what could have been.Great book. Read it.

I was looking for a quick read and was somewhat familiar with Brian's story. After watching a documentary that delved deeper into his life's story, I had questions and was compelled to learn more through reading this book. It did not disappoint. It is wll-researched and thorough. He changed the wrestling profession in a lot of ways. This was a riveting account that helped you to better understand the obstacles he faced and his quest to think outside every box he was ever confined to.

I Finally got to sit down and finish this during the holiday break and was tremendously pleased with how much I enjoyed and learned from this book. This book was well worth the money and was so well put together and well written compared to some wrestling books I've read and I've read a whole lot of them.The amount of stories and viewpoints from the people who knew Brian best from all different eras of his life both personally and professionally really helped paint the picture of who he was with both the amazing admirable qualities and the sometimes disturbing faults. Brian was by no mean a perfect person but his spirit and overall intentions when not clouded by his own demons or faults seemed to still shine through.The pacing of the book was great as it didn't drag but also wasn't rushed and gave fair weight to all the milestones and periods of Brian's career that sometimes get glossed together in previous tellings of Brian's life and career especially his WCW struggles. Also the amount of obvious suffering and struggle the man went through as a child with the throat issues was explained in a way that I really could sit and take in how much of a struggle something like that had to be to endure, which I hadn't gotten before when talked about in other reflections of Brian's life.The parts I enjoyed most were the bits of Brian's thirst for learning wrestling history and the funny story of him calling and riling up Lou Thesz by questioning of him on some the accuracy of his book after consulting Stu Hart. The amount of books on conmen and research he did in crafting the Loose Cannon character really was fascinating and makes me want to seek out and read those books and check out the film House of Games. And the list of quotes of Brian's wit on commentary with JR in his WWF announcing stint had me rolling in laughter all these years later.Overall the sentiment of a lot of the folks making the point of not feeling guilty for Brian's untimely death but rather sad and terrible about it happening is the same way I felt about his story and the fallout of what happened to his kids. It was sad and terrible that they were left without Brian and left with a mother and "step father" to use the term loosely that also were plagued by demons of addiction that made the whole family suffer in life in a way that Brian probably would've been devastated to see if he had lived.I'd strongly recommend this book to any fan of pro wrestling especially of that era because the honesty and gems of information and sobering lessons are such valuable knowledge in truly gaining an understanding of the wrestling business as it was and what it can be without the proper checks and balances. How such a talented and intelligent person can with some terrible choices anyone can make destroy and jeopardize their entire body of work and livelihood and the methods taken to attempt to remedy and salvage it can cause their own self fulfilling prophecy and untimely demise and also leave those they hold most dear susceptible to those same demons in their absence.

Purchased this book because I consider Brian Pillman a wrestler you could never quite figure out. So I thought this book would help and it did! He’s a great man and a mind for the business that was light years ahead of anyone else. Truly underrated wrestler. This book was excellent

The life and unfortunately the death of Brian Pillman. Loose Cannon or Flying Brian Pillman is one of the most fascinating wrestling "modern" (I mean:from the '90s) wrestler stories that had to be told. Thanks to Liam O'Rourke, the author: this is one of the best wrestling books i've read, and I read about 50 books about the issue. In a wrestling world and era dominated by the WCW vs WWE monday night war (of course we don't forget ECW: Brain appeared also in this federation during his short career) the character of Pillman as I said is one of the most fascinating. If you like "beatiful loosers" (winners to me are people like the egomaniac Hulk Hogan, or late in the '90s wrestler likeShawn Micheals, Steve Austin and Mick Foley for example) you have to read this book. The only complain I have is the page dedicated to Bruiser Brod as a "model" to Brian: maybe I'm biased because Brody he's my fave wrestler, but it seems to me he's portrayed as a total bully. Anyway: 5 stars and a must read for every wrestling fan.

Finally finished Liam O'Rourke's book "Crazy Like A Fox: The Definitive Chronicle of Brian Pillman 20 Years Later". I recommend it highly. It's excellently written, as you'd expect from Liam's previous work in print and on his podcasts. It's an excellent biography that tells the story of Pillman as an underdog in the American Football world through college and into the professional leagues well but excels as it chronicles his wrestling career in great detail. Half of it awakened great memories that led me to WWE Network and Youtube to relive them and the rest things I've never known half the story on.It's meticulously researched and contains some excellent insight from people who knew Pillman first hand and great brains in the wrestling industry. Aside from the hilarious summation of Pillman's WWF Shotgun Saturday night commentary my favourite part was almost the prologue. Liam brilliantly sums up Pillman and the dirtiness of the wrestling industry with a particularly good contibution from Raven on the pitfalls and inevitabilities of the industry.In terms of wrestling books I've read, this is right up there in terms of quality of writing and subject matter.

Interesting man - great read. I would recommend to any fan of the 90s era wrestling. Good luck to his son Brian Jr.