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00:30What he loved was creating.
00:35Born into professional wrestling, Eddie Gilbert's vision and ambition had a profound impact on the business he loved.
00:42This is not wrestling, this is a street fight.
00:44He would see the shift before the shift.
00:47Eddie said, this is wrestling, you can do anything.
00:50This is getting out of hand.
00:51Sure enough, Eddie was right without anything. There's no ECW.
00:55You're the king of Philadelphia.
00:56He would have gone on to be one of the most influential minds in wrestling.
01:02But it didn't happen that way.
01:04A rising star with undeniable charisma, Eddie's demons threatened his career from the start.
01:10I've worked too hard and too long.
01:12Eddie could burn a bridge better than anybody.
01:14He has a history of going to territories and just leaving.
01:18A small thing could set him off.
01:20I have been run out of any wrestling organization I've ever been in.
01:25For Eddie, coping with the chronic pain from a life-threatening injury came at a devastating cost.
01:31Night after night of putting your body through that abuse, I don't think that pain ever left him.
01:40We just want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to a real warrior.
01:45You know, Eddie passed away 30 years ago.
01:48And he's still missed.
01:50But this is a story of what if.
01:54What if this didn't happen?
01:56What if this didn't happen?
01:59What if?
02:00I think what the wrestling business lost was a great worker and a mind that was about a generation ahead of what anybody else's at the time.
02:27But I look at what my brother did and his angles and pushing the limits and the guys that he helped in his short life.
02:37It's you and me, brother!
02:38He lived 32 years.
02:41He done more in that 32 than most people would do in 70.
02:44He made the best out of all of them.
02:47And to me, that's where you tell the character of a person.
02:50I'm Dangerous Doug Gilbert, and I've been in the wrestling business about 36 years.
02:55My brother is hot stuff Eddie Gilbert.
02:57Tell him hot stuff!
02:58I looked up to Eddie.
03:01I mean, he was an idol of mine also.
03:04He was a fun guy.
03:06I mean, he was my best friend.
03:09And Eddie looked out for me.
03:10And I was lucky enough to have that.
03:13That's when we was partners in Memphis and everything.
03:15To me, that's really cool.
03:16That's history.
03:17It's like a museum.
03:19His life and obsession was wrestling.
03:22He thought about it all the time.
03:24Let's kick some ass and draw some money.
03:27That was a big one.
03:28When he was a kid, he would make cards out with his friends' names on it.
03:31And I think that's when my dad realized he was actually really serious, serious about the business.
03:37Eddie's father, Tommy Gilbert, was one of the most popular wrestlers in the Tennessee territory from the late 60s through the early 80s.
03:44Eddie grew up watching that.
03:45And that was what Eddie had his sights set on.
03:49I'm Jim Cornette, and I was friends with Eddie Gilbert even before he began his pro wrestling career.
03:55We started in wrestling in the same way.
03:57Eddie began taking ringside pictures of the matches in Memphis at the Mid-South Coliseum.
04:02And at the same age, I started doing it in Louisville.
04:05And we ran into each other at the matches and just instantly developed a friendship.
04:10Eddie, I think, was 16.
04:12Instead of saying, oh, I'm Tommy Gilbert's son,
04:15he would walk in with a tripod.
04:18So that was how he was getting access to the dressing room.
04:22He was slowly, slowly working his way in.
04:25He loved, loved the wrestling business.
04:28My name is Dutch Mantell, commonly called Dirty Dutch.
04:32And I've been in this wrestling business for over 50 years.
04:35And I used to work with Eddie Gilbert.
04:38You better watch your big, fat lip, Gilbert.
04:40He would watch Memphis live television on Saturday morning at 11 o'clock.
04:45He would study how it was produced.
04:48He would study when the commercials came on.
04:51When Eddie turned 18, that's when he started his major league wrestling career
04:56as partners with his father, Tommy.
04:59From Lexington, Tennessee, the Gilberts, Tommy and Eddie.
05:02Tommy and Eddie Gilbert, father and son champions.
05:05My brother was thrilled any time to do anything like this with my dad.
05:10My dad was both of our heroes, and he wanted my dad to be proud of him.
05:14What teamwork by the Gilberts?
05:16I mean, the real idol of my life was my dad.
05:19So I got to have a lot of good matches with him.
05:21I still have him take, I really enjoy watching back forth
05:23and remember how it looked 10 years ago.
05:26Maybe 12 now.
05:27When he was training Eddie, it was for you to really be, to say that you're great.
05:33You've got to be able to work with any style.
05:35Oh, the bloody Tommy Gilbert in the ring right now.
05:38Tommy Gilbert had been trained by the old timers.
05:41The way that they laid the blows in,
05:44you could hear the smack of the meat and the flesh
05:47from the cheap seats in the arena.
05:50Tennessee wrestling is about brawling, fighting, blood and guts,
05:54personal issues, hatred, rivalries, animosity.
05:59Hey, you guys save that for the ring.
06:02And Eddie Gilbert fit right into that.
06:04Here comes Eddie. Look at that.
06:07I just never got that chance, even up to 81,
06:09that I could show that I had any kind of character at all.
06:11So Ricky Moore and I had this chance to go to Tupelo.
06:14And they went into the concession stand of the Tupelo Sports Arena
06:17and had a knock-down, drag-out brawl
06:22involving furniture and concessions and hot dogs and mustard.
06:26Bucci nailed with mustard and blood all over it.
06:30It was a very believable fight
06:31because I think even the people involved in it believed it.
06:35They were knocking the shit out of each other.
06:37Oh, Nita's head busted wide open.
06:40We was just hitting each other in the head
06:42with pots and pans and chairs.
06:45Rick Morton hammered with a garbage can top.
06:48I mean, that shit hurts, buddy.
06:51I'm Ricky Morton, one half of the Rock and Roll Express,
06:54one of the greatest babyface tag teams ever.
06:59And I was best friends with Eddie Gilbert.
07:03You see, it was a hardcore match, really.
07:06But at that time, we didn't understand that.
07:08As a matter of fact, that night is where Atsushi Onita
07:12got the idea for hardcore wrestling
07:15that he took back to Japan
07:17and in the 90s made a fortune with.
07:20It came from that night in Tupelo, Mississippi.
07:23What a ball.
07:25Yeah, keep shooting it.
07:26We're not going to be able to show a lot of it.
07:28Just keep shooting it.
07:30He was always on fire.
07:33Thank you very much.
07:34I'd like to say hello to all my friends and family
07:35and everyone out there.
07:36Let's face it, he was a good-looking kid.
07:40My name is Darla Staggs,
07:42and I met Eddie Gilbert when he was 17 years old.
07:46We were just good, good friends.
07:48He went on to work for WWE.
07:52It was a dream for him,
07:54and it was his road to stardom.
07:57Memphis was great,
07:59but WWF, you know, it's Madison Square Garden.
08:04I mean, I mean, what are you going to say?
08:06No?
08:07Making his Madison Square Garden debut,
08:11Eddie Gilbert.
08:13My brother brought me with him to New York.
08:15I guess I was 12 or 11.
08:17Doug and Eddie were close, very close.
08:20Eddie was 18 years old,
08:22and he's hanging out with his 11-year-old brother.
08:25That says something to me.
08:26Being two small-town country boys,
08:30seeing him in Madison Square Garden,
08:32I was really proud of that.
08:34Eddie wasn't a big guy,
08:36and that actually helped him.
08:38That was beautiful.
08:39He had great timing.
08:41You see, that was Eddie getting his foot through the door.
08:45Right back on his feet with a good-up.
08:46You see that? You believe it?
08:48Fans are loving that.
08:49En route to a meeting with WWF's patriarch,
08:53a tragic series of events is triggered.
08:57Went to my room, got a shower, dripped.
09:00It was already like 12 o'clock, so I was tired,
09:03and I started driving.
09:05And all of a sudden,
09:06a truck went right on the back of the truck.
09:12We got a phone call at my house.
09:14It was like 1 to 2 in the morning.
09:16And they said,
09:18Mr. Gilbert, it's your son, Eddie?
09:20And she said, yes.
09:21And they said, he's been in an accident.
09:23They didn't even know that they could keep him alive.
09:27He's in critical condition,
09:28and it broke his neck.
09:29The steering wheel, I think, hit him right here
09:32in the solar plexus, like, about over his heart.
09:35They said he will never wrestle again.
09:37His heart was like jello.
09:39It would never heal.
09:41He wasn't even 22 years old yet.
09:43And suddenly, his career may be over.
09:47That was not acceptable.
09:48It wasn't an option for Eddie.
09:51No matter how catastrophic the injury was,
09:53he was going to get back in the ring.
09:55When something like that happens to you,
09:57it takes a long, long time to get over that.
10:00It takes years.
10:02Put yourself in that situation.
10:04You still want that opportunity.
10:06So that's why you keep going.
10:10Ladies and gentlemen,
10:11let's welcome back the very popular
10:14Eddie Gilbert.
10:18Three months later,
10:19able to start back wrestling again.
10:22Such is the tenacity of this young man,
10:24Eddie Gilbert, who has made it all the way back.
10:26I can speak for myself.
10:28You know, it was a hard, long road in our business.
10:31Ooh, you wonder if blows like that
10:33if it would affect the neck.
10:34Apparently not.
10:35When you have a car wreck and break your neck,
10:37they don't send you home with Tylenol Plus.
10:41You understand me?
10:42I'm sure he would be back in the ring
10:45if he was not ready.
10:51It takes a tremendous amount of courage
10:53for a man that had a broken neck
10:56to come back into wrestling.
10:59Eddie came back to wrestling probably too quick,
11:01but he wanted to get back before he lost his spot.
11:05They did an angle based on the fact that the fans knew
11:08that he'd had a serious neck injury,
11:10and they used the masked superstar
11:12to allegedly re-injure the broken neck.
11:16And unfortunately, that is where Eddie met Dr. George Zahourian.
11:31I'm presently evaluating Eddie Gilbert following a traumatic accident
11:36to the vertebrae of his neck.
11:38Dr. George Zahourian was a doctor in Pennsylvania,
11:42was also appointed by the Athletic Commission to be the doctor
11:45to give physicals and et cetera to all the wrestlers.
11:47Anything that the wrestlers wanted, drugs, substances, whatever that he could prescribe,
11:53there was your guy.
11:55Now you've got Eddie Gilbert, who's had a severe neck injury.
12:01What do you think is going to happen?
12:02He was in a lot of pain from the wreck,
12:05but if the doctor was prescribed or something,
12:07he would definitely take it.
12:09When he was doing it to be able to work,
12:12I guess that was our justification.
12:14Eddie!
12:16As Eddie steps back into the ring,
12:18the WWF charts a new direction, jeopardizing his climb to the top.
12:23WWF at the time was like superheroes.
12:26That was the Hulk Hogan starting there.
12:28Everybody that was up there got bigger.
12:30Oh, look at that!
12:32I didn't want to go that bodybuilder path,
12:34and Eddie didn't want to either.
12:36Now, we might have did a little something-something to tone you up,
12:41but you get caught up in that circus act.
12:45I think Eddie thought that some of the stuff they do in WWE
12:49was too much show business and not enough realism.
12:52I knew that meant that I was probably going to be probably buried.
12:56And I thought to be the best career move was to leave
13:00and go back home to Memphis to be a heel,
13:03because I knew that when I started the business,
13:05that's all I wanted to be, and I thought that was my calling.
13:08Returning to the Southern Territories,
13:11Eddie reinvents himself as a villain
13:13and creates his most iconic persona.
13:21Eddie knew that in the 80s,
13:23the people expected more excitement, more action, more life, more talking.
13:28I am the greatest wrestler, the prettiest face,
13:31and the greatest set of brains of professional wrestling.
13:33He had the flashy sequined jacket, frosted the hair blonde,
13:37and he was wearing sunglasses.
13:39Now he's this guy that looked like he just stepped off this new thing called MTV.
13:45A cocky heel that really thought he was hot stuff
13:49and was better than everybody else.
13:51Listen to me, boy, when I'm talking to you!
13:54He came up with a patter and a style that was all of his own.
13:58Heaven won't take me, and hell's afraid I'll take over.
14:01My grandmother said to me,
14:03he's so mean and dirty, I just hate him.
14:06If you hate him, that means he's doing his job well.
14:10But you know what?
14:11He's still the same sweet guy that he's always been.
14:14No, he's not either.
14:16It was an amalgamation of all of the heels that Eddie had watched over the years,
14:22and it worked.
14:23One of his idols was Jerry the King Lawler.
14:26Who's the greatest wrestler in the world, and why am I?
14:28He was the undisputed king of Memphis wrestling.
14:31Jerry Lawler from the top rope, he gets it!
14:33I am in rare form, and I guess you saw it right there, didn't you?
14:36The first chance he got, he went to wrestle Jerry Lawler.
14:39Lawler, I want to tell you something, brother.
14:41You're not hungry anymore.
14:42I am.
14:43He ultimately wanted to follow in Jerry Lawler's footsteps as the king of Memphis wrestling.
14:48Jerry Lawler, look what you've done to me!
14:53When opportunity comes, you've got to chase your dream.
14:56Hey, stop Eddie Gilbert!
14:58You're going to be real hot, brother!
15:00Eddie had that in his mind.
15:03He knew that.
15:04That's why he was successful down south.
15:06Already a star in Memphis, Eddie gets his first shot at fulfilling his dream
15:11of becoming a company's booker in Louisiana, working for Bill Watts Mid-South Wrestling.
15:17The booker is basically the matchmaker.
15:19Even from the time he was a teenager, Eddie already had that in his sights.
15:23I knew I was 17, and no one was going to listen to me, so I had to wait until I was 25,
15:28which I was still one of the youngest.
15:30Ever get a chance.
15:31That's Eddie Gilbert doing out there.
15:33They're getting ready to find out, I think, here.
15:35Wrestling is more than just doing the moves.
15:37Wrestling is telling a story.
15:39I really think I need to set the record straight because I am not a communist, ladies and gentlemen.
15:43And Eddie, Eddie was very good at that.
15:45You can do whatever you want to with this flag.
15:47I'd like to give it to you.
15:49That's the burden.
15:51Everybody loved Bill Watts.
15:52He's in the big cowboy babyface down there.
15:55And everybody thought Eddie was going to do something tricky or low down.
15:59Hold on!
16:00That's the Cole-Offs!
16:01The Cole-Offs!
16:02The Cole-Offs!
16:03And they've got Watts down!
16:04There she goes!
16:05They've got that chain!
16:06When a great heel has a great babyface, they can tell a story that's unbelievable.
16:11But they put the flag over the Cowboys!
16:13Look at that!
16:14Look at that!
16:15The fans are getting out of their seats!
16:17This place is mayhem!
16:18You've really got to work to get that feeling when you walk out that the people hate you.
16:21What does the people want to pay to see?
16:23They want to pay because they don't like you.
16:26And they want to see the good guy eat the crap out of you.
16:33If you had heat like that, he was usually drawing good money.
16:37Listen to this crowd!
16:38They love it!
16:39Eddie had some great guys there that went on to be superstars like Steam.
16:45Rick Steiner was there.
16:46Ultimate Warrior.
16:47Dr. Death's Steve Williams.
16:49All these guys were there under the guidance of Eddie Gilbert.
16:53In his mind, he was saying, where can I take this guy?
16:56Who can I book this guy with?
16:59Because his mind never stopped.
17:01And this is all of everyone.
17:02I'm thinking things are finally falling in place here.
17:04We were successful.
17:05The gates were good.
17:06And the TV was turned around.
17:08But then the buyout came right after him.
17:13Bill Watts sold the company to Jim Crockett Promotions.
17:17And about a year and a half later, Crockett Promotions had sold to Turner Broadcasting.
17:22They're kind of personal.
17:23I love the UWF.
17:25I hated seeing the people lose jobs they did.
17:28And I never forgot it when we got to WCW.
17:31Eddie's booking success lands him on WCW's creative team,
17:36trading sole control for a seat on a committee.
17:39Weighing in at 220 pounds, Eddie Hot Stuff Gilbert!
17:44One of the worst things to be is be on a friggin' booking committee.
17:49Because you have no control.
17:51And that's when Ric Flair got involved.
17:54Ric Flair was the top star for world championship wrestling.
17:59And he demanded to be made the Booker.
18:02Ric Flair made the power play to get the booking job.
18:04Got it.
18:05And it was real appreciate in their attention.
18:08I felt like it was being real, real, real kind of a little dizzy.
18:10Ric Flair didn't know that much about Tennessee wrestling.
18:13Ric Flair didn't know that much about Eddie Gilbert.
18:15He wanted people to carry out what he was asking them to do.
18:19They go to Memphis one night.
18:21Eddie Gilbert is booked to wrestle against Ron Simmons.
18:24So Flair sends the finish.
18:26Ron Simmons beat Eddie Gilbert.
18:28There must be some mistake. This is Memphis.
18:31You can't beat me in a preliminary match in Memphis.
18:34So Eddie changed the finish.
18:39Within a week, I got a phone call from Ric Flair.
18:42So he changed the finish.
18:44Who the is this guy?
18:46I'm going to have to move him out.
18:49And that's when he told me,
18:51I'm fixing to have an opening on the creative team.
18:54Would you like to fill it?
18:56I had had aspirations of one day being a Booker,
19:00but here was an opportunity right in front of me
19:02to start doing what I'd always wanted to do.
19:05But it was at the expense of Eddie losing the chance
19:08to do what he wanted to do.
19:15After overriding Ric Flair's planned finish to a match,
19:19Eddie is dismissed from the creative committee,
19:22his spot taken by a childhood friend.
19:25Ladies and gentlemen, Jim Cornette will have a lot to say.
19:28We never had a face-to-face disagreement.
19:31However, Eddie told the story that,
19:34well, I showed up at the booking meeting
19:37and there was Jim Cornette sitting in my chair.
19:40Actually, no.
19:42Eddie never came in to see me there
19:44because he already knew he was done,
19:46regardless of whether I got the job or not.
19:48But I've heard it said by people close to him
19:51that that demotion pretty much broke his heart.
19:54I just wanted to get out.
19:56Jim Cornette let me out on a contract
19:57and I came back in November since 1990.
19:59That's when I got my first full-time booking job in Memphis.
20:03Hot stuff, Eddie Gilbert.
20:05Surprise, surprise, surprise.
20:06What a surprise.
20:07Yes, indeed.
20:09Returning to his home territory in Memphis,
20:12Eddie solidifies his legacy as an innovator,
20:15pushing the boundaries between reality and fiction even further.
20:19He knew the fans were getting smarter
20:22and he was trying to do cutting-edge stuff.
20:28And the Lawler was shooting at an angle.
20:30Jerry Jarrett said, well, what have y'all not done to him?
20:33Eddie said, well, I hadn't run over him.
20:36Wait a minute. Eddie, you gonna do what?
20:38Now, you may think I'm crazy.
20:40If I came at you with a car,
20:41do you think you could jump and tie me all the way?
20:44It looks good. It looks good.
20:45Lawler says, man, I love it.
20:48Dang, he actually wants to do this.
20:50The only problem was we was going way too fast.
20:53Hey, look out.
20:55Whoa.
20:56Oh, holy shit.
20:58Excuse my language.
20:59And what I said to Doug is, do you think he's okay?
21:02Thank goodness.
21:03No, I don't think he's okay.
21:05Calling for some help from there.
21:06Well, there's Jerry Calhoun.
21:08The fans at home called the police department
21:11and said they had a hit and run.
21:13They was gonna arrest us,
21:15so Lawler had to come out
21:17and actually tell the police it's not their fault.
21:20And I even said that even if I had to go to jail for a week,
21:22you didn't get a wrestle angle over,
21:24you had to just about do anything to do business.
21:26People hated us for that.
21:28And, I mean, we wanted them not to like us.
21:31But that goes into where you're getting to the point
21:33where it's almost went too far.
21:35One night, me and Eddie, we went to get in the car,
21:37and I heard Eddie say,
21:39hurry up, a guy's coming with a knife.
21:41What?
21:42He had a butcher knife, and he's running.
21:44And so I start trying to get the key in the car.
21:46And I heard Eddie say, hurry up, hurry up.
21:49And he got right almost to Eddie.
21:51There was cops at the fence,
21:53and a police officer saw that.
21:55He got them before they got to us.
22:00Here's the thing, and a lot of people don't understand this.
22:02Look at your TV today, and then go back and see what we did.
22:07He was ahead of his time for so many years.
22:09Oh, come on!
22:10And it was stuff that he thought about all the time.
22:13Rotten, despicable, devious mind.
22:15He's a perfectionist at work,
22:17and he was a perfectionist at booking.
22:19And a lot of people will say,
22:20well, that's why you wind up with burnout.
22:24I don't think he was the booker at one spot
22:28more than six months at anywhere.
22:30Most of the time that I was successful,
22:32I didn't really know what.
22:33We saw Memphis jump back up again,
22:35so went to Alabama.
22:36Changed everything there.
22:38But there's always those few
22:39that think they can do the job a little bit better.
22:42The power stroke goes on from day one,
22:44and the booker takes over.
22:45And then after a while, he's frustrating,
22:47and it's not worth it.
22:49You know, it's worth it.
22:51Yeah.
22:54As Eddie bounces from promotion to promotion,
22:56he enters a romantic relationship
22:58with WCW star Missy Hyatt.
23:02Meow.
23:04Missy Hyatt was one of the first women
23:07in wrestling that was both attractive
23:09and used as the valet slash manager slash confidant
23:14of many of the top heels.
23:16And then, of course, we got adorable Eddie Gilbert.
23:19And then Eddie and Missy became a couple in real life.
23:22After he got off the booking committee in WCW,
23:25I bought him a boat, hoping that, you know,
23:28maybe he could go fishing and relax.
23:30He took it out maybe twice.
23:32He didn't have a hobby.
23:33His hobby and his work and everything was wrestling.
23:36I remember my dad looked at his own room.
23:39Good luck.
23:40How long did he last?
23:42The whole marriage and everything,
23:43maybe a year and a half or something like that.
23:45I hate you, and I hate everybody.
23:48He liked beautiful ladies.
23:51From Milan, Italy, the AWA Ladies World Champion.
23:57I got the opportunity to be in the ring with Eddie.
24:02And that's when everything started between him and I.
24:05Hi, I'm Medusa, M-A-D-U-S-A.
24:08Made in the USA, baby.
24:09And I've been in this business, hmm, over 40 years.
24:13And I was married to Eddie Gilbert.
24:16It was Eddie and myself against Mick Foley and Luna Vachon.
24:23Right then and there, I'm like, God,
24:25there's something about this guy and his cockiness.
24:28We just hit it off.
24:30One thing led to another and he's like,
24:33do you want to get married?
24:34And I'm like, what?
24:36What?
24:37Yeah, let's just do it.
24:39And we did.
24:40His family was so loving and so open to me.
24:45What do you got there?
24:46Oh, do you know how to do that?
24:48Not at all.
24:49And I felt welcomed.
24:51His dad.
24:53There's more action going on over there.
24:56You know, you're the only one that's opening up.
24:58And his mom was his world.
25:00And little Dougie at the time.
25:02Look, what are you doing over here yesterday?
25:04My neighbor or two got me.
25:06Oh, he loved his family.
25:08Goals, Ralph Henry book.
25:11They got all the shirts, sweatshirts.
25:13It was healthy.
25:14That's how I felt.
25:15I owe you, Peter.
25:17My marriage overall was wonderful from the beginning.
25:21And towards the end, I knew it wasn't the Eddie that I grew to love and was in love with.
25:29If it was because of the pain of the business physically and his choices to get rid of the pain, then, you know, that's what he did.
25:37And it just changed him.
25:40I just got done making dinner.
25:42We sat down to eat.
25:43And he fell asleep at the dinner table and his food.
25:48I did see him fall asleep at the table one time.
25:52I mean, I tried to talk to him about it.
25:55He kind of shut it down like, it's none of your business.
25:59And it wasn't my business.
26:01I didn't really see too much wrong with it, which I look at it today and I can see that maybe it was a little bit wrong.
26:08But now I see so much other stuff so much worse than anything that was going on with Eddie.
26:15So I guess I just took that as everything was kind of normal.
26:20It wasn't just being a rock star that caused him to do this.
26:25It was trying to overcome serious injuries to get back in the ring.
26:30The pills taken over Eddie.
26:33That wasn't who Eddie was, though.
26:37He wanted to get better.
26:41It just didn't happen.
26:43The
26:49Cactus Jack and Eddie Gilbert.
26:50They probably know what physical punishment.
26:52They're both going to endure.
26:54Eddie and I had the best feud of the independent scene.
26:58Oh, I almost ripped his head off of him.
27:01The bulls and maxes of Cactus were to solve an error for him.
27:03To make this legal, we have to hurt each other.
27:06We knew that we couldn't go out there and do any less.
27:09We take too much pride in what we do.
27:11What he loved was bringing excitement to the television screen.
27:16They just laid our bodies alive for each other.
27:19The ball wire around his face.
27:21Gotta stop this match right now.
27:23Stop it now.
27:24Our business brings with it constant pain.
27:30I did not know that he was having trouble with pills.
27:34Eddie was part of an era where not as much was known about pain medication.
27:39It wasn't really frowned upon at that time, but it's easy to abuse.
27:47He would say he was in pain, but I never knew the severity.
27:52He kept everything so inside.
27:58The hardest thing he did was sign those divorce papers.
28:01He told me straight out, I need to fix this.
28:04I need to get myself better.
28:07And it was Eddie's choice.
28:12I guess what I told myself at that time, the only thing I could say is that I found my way to say okay and let go.
28:21She's a really good person.
28:24I think she deserves getting out of business when she can.
28:27At that time, you know, the early 90s, a lot of things were falling apart for Eddie.
28:34Almost all the territories had gone out of business.
28:37So at that point, he really didn't have a lot of options of the old-fashioned territories, places to go anymore.
28:43Here we are at the ECW Arena in the heart of South Philadelphia.
28:47It's June 19th.
28:49Facing setbacks in his personal and professional life, Eddie Gilbert moves to Philadelphia, betting on a new promotion led by a virtual unknown in the business.
28:59We're ready to go. Tonight's the night.
29:01I grew up watching the WWWF, and there was something called believability.
29:06What happened was, as time went on, it became a cartoon.
29:10Hi, my name is Todd Gordon, and I am the founder and originator of Extreme Championship Wrestling, ECW.
29:18I worked side-by-side with Eddie Gilbert to get this promotion off the ground.
29:22Jimmy Stuck on the top, run the leap!
29:23I just wanted to see something that I would enjoy so that I could believe it.
29:26This is getting out of hand, fellas!
29:28My goal was to put on a believable, hard-hitting product.
29:31A great night, and it's going to get even better as we go on week to week.
29:35Stick with it, Jay Sully.
29:36You know, Philadelphia, they are the meanest people I ever seen.
29:42These people don't even like ice cream. I'm not bullshitting you.
29:47So when you bring that part of Eddie Benahill to them, well, they just eat that shit right up.
29:53Eddie brought in a lot of big names and put together the matches. He was very good at it.
29:58How are you, Eddie Gilbert?
29:59He wanted to be the king of Philadelphia, as Jerry was the king of Memphis.
30:03Yes, me! Hot stuff, Eddie Gilbert, the king of Philadelphia!
30:07We were doing that kind of hardcore stuff. He took it to another level.
30:10Oh! Oh, my heart!
30:13Somebody called me!
30:14And he would say, this is wrestling. You can do anything.
30:17I carried that over years later. So when Sam came out smoking a cigarette, what are you, crazy? What are you, you can't do that?
30:25Who says you can't?
30:27He did it. He became an icon.
30:30That was Eddie. Eddie gave us that ground floor to build on.
30:35Without Eddie, there's no ground floor.
30:36Without Eddie, there's no ECW, really.
30:39Eddie brings ECW to new heights, but it's his friend, Paul Heyman, who will have the biggest impact on wrestling's future.
30:52Ladies and gentlemen, or you people of Philadelphia.
30:57Today, Paul Heyman is the most brilliant manager on the professional wrestling scene.
31:02In those days, Paul Heyman always wanted to be the booker, so he started shadowing Eddie Gilbert.
31:09Paul was a photographer, did interviews with me when he was like 13, when I was at WWF.
31:14You know, Paul is like me a lot of times. He'll say things that maybe he shouldn't, but he does.
31:19That's enough.
31:21Back then, Eddie Gilbert and I were thick as thieves.
31:23You know, he was my brother. He was my mentor. He was my best friend.
31:28And he was so magnificent as a booker.
31:33They were together in Alabama. They were together in Georgia. They were everywhere.
31:37It was a good combination. It worked.
31:39It was probably six, seven months in when all of a sudden it was, you know, where's Eddie?
31:46It was near 2 o'clock and he was rolling around 3 through 30.
31:49He wasn't kidding around and carrying on.
31:52It definitely changed his whole demeanor.
31:54I wasn't that familiar with what drugs, painkillers, the effect they had on people's personalities.
32:03You get in the ring with anybody and if he wasn't bleeding, his opponent was.
32:08Those things don't just end when the show ends.
32:11They all turn to painkillers for that.
32:13It is very easy to fall into that trap.
32:16He had lost that joe de vie. He had lost that fun side.
32:20This was not the same Eddie that had contributed so much to the business.
32:25So it was falling apart for Eddie. Bad.
32:29As Eddie spirals into addiction, Paul Heyman pushes forward with plans to take ECW National.
32:37Paul was working with Jim Crockett and he was very excited about it.
32:41Eddie thought that me, Paul and Crockett were going to go off and leave him in the lurch.
32:45At this point, he was really in the depth of his despair, paranoia.
32:51He said, yeah, well guess what? We quit.
32:54We had a huge show coming up, Ultra Clash. It's our big, big, big event.
33:00It's going to be the biggest, hottest show in the history of Philadelphia wrestling.
33:03That's right.
33:04Even though he's going to still be on the show.
33:05But it didn't matter.
33:07Sometimes you're that high or that buzzed.
33:09You think reality is completely different than what reality is.
33:12And he had his own reality at that point.
33:20Welcome to a very special Ultra Clash preview edition of Eastern Championship Wrestling.
33:25Fearing that he's losing control of ECW,
33:28Eddie Gilbert storms out of the company just days before a major show.
33:33Two days later, Eddie calls me up and he said,
33:35Hey boss, I'm sorry. I'm being stupid.
33:38So I'll be there Saturday night.
33:40I had to tell him, Eddie.
33:41At Ultra Clash, there will be a major change.
33:46That's correct.
33:47You quit five days before the show.
33:49I had to do something. I had to replace you.
33:51That man who will be the partner on September the 18th with Abdul the Butcher is none other than Kevin Sullivan.
33:59He said, okay, can I come to the show, Saturday night anyway, and say goodbye to everybody?
34:05I said, sure.
34:06He told me he was going to come and cut a promo, which nobody else knew that.
34:11He told the people that he wanted to thank them for coming out and supporting ECW and supporting him and everything.
34:24And all of a sudden, they started hollering in the back, cut the mic, cut the mic, cut the mic.
34:29Paul lost it in the locker room.
34:32He said he tried to screw me, but it was just a long goodbye.
34:35Why would you want to cut the mic on a guy that's just telling the people, thanks for supporting the company and him?
34:42And that's what kind of pissed me off.
34:44So there was a bat there.
34:46So I thought I'd tell them what I had to say.
34:49I just swung the bat, and I hid everything in there and broke it.
34:56A couple people come up that was my friends.
34:58I said, man, everything okay?
35:00I said, man, everything's fine.
35:04He left, and Paul and Eddie really never spoke again after that.
35:09That was the end of the relationship.
35:10They were best friends.
35:12Made no sense.
35:12It was, I think, in the end, Haleed learned too well.
35:21Haleed was definitely.
35:22Oh, my goodness.
35:24It's Eddie Gilbert.
35:25After Eddie Gilbert's departure, Paul Heyman propels ECW to heights few wrestling companies will ever reach.
35:33This is wrestling the way it's going to be and the way we know that you like it.
35:38Rebranding Eastern Championship Wrestling into the iconic Extreme Championship Wrestling.
35:46With nothing left to lose, Eddie taps into his fan base, once again setting a trend that will influence the future.
35:54Eddie wanted recognition.
35:57He wanted to be able to plead his case.
35:59Eddie had been especially popular with the hardcore, smart fans, the ones that knew the behind the scenes, the ones that knew how everything worked.
36:07A lot of this stuff is going to be out of order and stuff because later on.
36:11One of them basically sat Eddie down in a hotel room and shot the first shoot interview.
36:19First off, why don't you give a...
36:21Where one of the personalities involved in wrestling sat there and told inside stories of how it was done.
36:27I did a few angles with John, I'd like to tell you about...
36:30In those days, believability in the ring was the most important.
36:33If the people know how they're being tricked, it'll kill the business.
36:38It got some people raising their eyes at, you know, Eddie Gilbert did that.
36:43What's been your relationship with Waller?
36:45Yeah, I think it's probably the best guy who's looking.
36:49It was about time that he did.
36:51Because everybody out there thought they know everything about our business and they don't.
36:55When he saw an opportunity, he took advantage of it before anybody else.
37:00About 10 years after he'd done it, everybody and their brother started doing it.
37:05Laid the Russian flag on Bill Watson.
37:08Eddie hated Kevin Sullivan.
37:09Bravo.
37:10Marker.
37:11Eddie was the first one in the business to recognize that.
37:15But this was 1994.
37:18People in the business didn't do that.
37:20But that was all that Eddie had left.
37:22The smart fans loved his booking.
37:24But the upper echelon in the major companies, they didn't really know or care.
37:33I was running Smoky Mountain Wrestling out of Knoxville, Tennessee.
37:36...backed hour of Smoky Mountain Wrestling.
37:38I called Eddie.
37:40I said, Eddie, you've got a great mind.
37:44Let's see if we can put this thing together.
37:45I can't believe what I'm seeing here.
37:48Hot Stuff Eddie Gilbert is here.
37:50And what are you doing here in Smoky Mountain Wrestling?
37:53I didn't know you were going to be here.
37:55Well...
37:55He came to the TV taping.
37:57Just to be honest with you, I didn't really know I was going to be here either.
38:00But...
38:00Came out and had a match with Ricky Morton.
38:03Reversal of the Irish whip.
38:05And he brought him out of power slam.
38:06He looked great.
38:07He was ready to go.
38:10And he told me, we're going to shoot this angle tonight.
38:13We'll be right here next week.
38:14Show us what you got.
38:15Hot Stuff.
38:16Eddie, we won't go through with it.
38:18Because I have an opportunity in Puerto Rico to do what I love.
38:25And that's booking.
38:26I was proud for him.
38:28And I said, go for it.
38:30If you don't come back, I'll cover it up.
38:33And bless my heart, he never came back.
38:35After that first TV taping, I never saw Eddie Gilbert again.
38:40He was dead three months later.
38:42Looking to make a fresh start and leave his demons behind, Eddie Gilbert heads to work in Puerto Rico.
38:55He looked at it as a great opportunity to turn it around.
38:59Carlos Colon had offered him a deal.
39:02Carlos was wanting somebody with different ideas, something fresh.
39:05He was real excited.
39:10This is the briefcase that my brother carried around all the way to his Puerto Rico days.
39:17It was February 18, 1995.
39:22Eddie Gilbert vs. Ted the Bear.
39:24So that's the bear that my brother wrestled.
39:27I'm going against a bear.
39:28I'm going against a bear.
39:31Yeah, you ought to be against a bear.
39:32I can't go against a bear, no!
39:34He was trying to get it popped again and where everybody could make money and everybody would be happy.
39:39He asked me, he said, you want to come?
39:41I said, give me a minute to think on it and I'm sure it won't be too long.
39:46But it would be the last territory that he ever built.
39:52The next day, somebody called and told me, they found your brother in his apartment laying across the bed with earphones on and music.
40:06Just laying back like he'd laid back to go to sleep and rest.
40:10Really peaceful.
40:13Weeks after arriving in Puerto Rico, tragic news arrives back home.
40:19The wrestling world was saddened by the death this past week.
40:21of Eddie Gilbert.
40:23We were notified that on February 18th in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Eddie had passed away of apparent heart failure.
40:30When you know somebody in his early 30s, the first thing you're going to think is, was it drugs?
40:36Especially in Puerto Rico.
40:38In Puerto Rico, you don't have to have a script to do nothing.
40:42All you have to do is walk into the drugstore.
40:45Get anything you want.
40:47So the first thing they don't say, oh, you know what he was doing?
40:51Well, no, you don't know what he was doing.
40:53Of course, there's speculation on drugs, ODing, but he had a bad heart, too.
40:59And they list the cause of death as the heart attack.
41:02Anybody could have made up anything.
41:03It spreads like it's gospel through the entire industry.
41:06But I really learned to take everything I hear like that with a grain of salt.
41:10And I'm there to protect Eddie first before I start believing rumors and speculations.
41:16We ain't going to say we was choir boys.
41:18We probably did some things we shouldn't have done.
41:21But I'm not making an excuse.
41:23I'm just telling you, he had the car wreck.
41:26Half of his heart, it would never work again.
41:30And if it wasn't working right, it had to have a strain on it.
41:33And that never quit until he passed away.
41:38If Eddie was still alive, he'd be one month older than I am sitting here right now.
41:43We kept in contact.
41:50We wrote letters to each other.
41:53And this one here that I kept was probably one of the end ones.
41:58He starts off with Deborah Ann.
42:03Deborah, you have been a terrific friend, lover, companion, and most of all, best and wonderful wife.
42:14I just wish I had realized that before it got too out of hand.
42:21I have nothing but the most respect for you as a person.
42:25And your abilities in the ring and also in the...
42:29If you need someone to talk to at any time, night or day,
42:36please don't hesitate to give me a call.
42:40I mean that.
42:41And that was one of the last letters that I received from Eddie.
42:47He was a good person.
42:51He meant well.
42:54You know, Eddie passed away 30 years ago.
42:57And he's still down.
42:59He's one of the best.
43:01And he died loving what he did.
43:04So when you step in that ring, it's like we're on Broadway.
43:11And we can give you part of our soul.
43:15He gave his heart and soul to you people.
43:17Remember him for that.
43:22Eddie never really wanted much in return.
43:26He just wanted this business.
43:27I was born to be the king.
43:30This year, it would be 30 years since my brother's passing.
43:36I wish he could be here.
43:38And I love him.
43:39And I know how really proud he was of me.
43:45And he had a huge heart.
43:47He'd done what he loved to the last day of his life.