Original subtitles

Tonight I'm going to prove,

when you mess around with Hot Stuff,

you're gonna get burned.

Eddie Gilbert knew what he needed to do

to attract attention to himself.

Get that camera up here on me just a second.

He was a sneaky, conniving, dirty backstabber.

He really thought he was Hot Stuff.

Egotistical. Arrogant.

Conceited. Self-confident.

He loved ----ing with the crowd.

You cowards in Dothan, Alabama!

Eddie, himself, was the complete opposite of that.

What he loved was creating.

[Narrator] Born into professional wrestling,

Eddie Gilbert's vision and ambition had a

profound impact on the business he loved.

This is not wrestling. This is a street fight!

He would see the shift before the shift.

Eddie said, "This is wrestling."

"You can do anything."

This is getting out of hand.

Sure enough, Eddie was right.

Without Eddie, there's no ECW.

Your king of Philadelphia!

He would have gone on to be one of the

most influential minds in wrestling.

But, it didn't happen that way.

A rising star with undeniable charisma,

Eddie's demons threatened his career from the start.

I've worked too hard and too long!

Eddie could burn a bridge better than anybody.

He has a history of going to territories

and just leaving.

A small thing can set him off.

I have been run out of every wrestling organization

I've ever been in!

For Eddie, coping with the chronic pain from a

life threatening injury came at a devastating cost.

♪

Night after night of

putting your body through that abuse...

I don't think that pain ever left him.

We just want to take this opportunity

to pay tribute to a real warrior.

You know, Eddie passed away 30 years ago,

and he's still ----ing missed.

But this is a story of what if.

What if this didn't happen?

What if this didn't happen?

What if?

♪

♪

Hey, we're on. Eddie!

Oh. Oh, okay. Hello, everyone.

I 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.

But I look at what my brother did in his angles

and pushing the limits...

[Screaming]

And the guys that he helped in his short life.

It's you and me, brother.

He lived 32 years.

He done more in that 32 than most people will do in 70.

He made the best out of all of them. And to me,

that's where you tell the character of a person.

I'm "Dangerous" Doug Gilbert,

and I've been in the wrestling business

about 36 years.

And my brother is "Hot Stuff" Eddie Gilbert.

Tell him, Hot Stuff. [Laughing]

I looked up to Eddie.

I mean, he was an idol of mine also.

He was a fun guy.

I mean, he was my best friend, and...

Eddie looked out for me,

and I was lucky enough to have that.

That's when we was partners in Memphis and everything.

To me, that's really cool. That's, that's history.

His life and obsession was wrestling.

He thought about it all the time.

"Let's kick some ass and draw some money."

That was a big one.

When he was a kid, he would make cards out

with his friends' names on it,

and I think that's when my dad realized

he was actually really serious-serious

about the business.

Eddie's father, Tommy Gilbert,

was one of the most popular wrestlers in the Tennessee

territory from the late 60s through the early 80s.

Eddie grew up watching that...

and that was what Eddie had his sights set on.

I'm Jim Cornette, and I was friends with Eddie Gilbert

even before he began his pro wrestling career.

We started in wrestling in the same way.

Eddie began taking ringside pictures of the matches in

Memphis at the Mid-South Coliseum, and at the same age,

I started doing it in Louisville,

and we ran into each other at the matches and

just instantly developed a friendship.

Eddie, I think, was 16.

Instead of saying, "Oh, I'm Tommy Gilbert's son,"

he would walk in with a tripod.

So, that was how he was getting access

to the dressing room.

He was slowly, slowly working his way in.

He loved, loved the wrestling business.

My name is Dutch Mantell,

commonly called "Dirty" Dutch,

and I've been in this wrestling business for over

50 years, and I used to work with Eddie Gilbert.

You better watch your big fat lip, Gilbert.

He would watch Memphis live television

on Saturday morning at 11:00.

He would study how it was produced.

He would study when the commercials came on.

When Eddie turned 18, that's when he started

his major league wrestling career

as partners with his father, Tommy.

From Lexington, Tennessee...

The Gilberts, Tommy and Eddie!

Tommy and Eddie Gilbert, father and son champions.

My brother was thrilled any time

to do anything like this with my dad.

My dad was both of our heroes,

and he wanted my dad to be proud of him.

What teamwork by the Gilberts!

When he was training Eddie, it was,

"For you to really be able to say that you're great,

you've gotta be able to work with any style."

Oh!

The bloody Tommy Gilbert in the ring right now.

Tommy Gilbert had been trained by the old timers.

The way that they laid the blows in,

you can hear the smack of the meat and the flesh

from the cheap seats in the arena.

Tennessee wrestling is about brawling, fighting,

blood and guts, personal issues...

[Screaming]

Hatred, rivalries, animosity.

Hey, you guys, save that for the ring.

And Eddie Gilbert fit right into that.

Here comes Eddie! Look at that!

And they went into the concession stand of

the Tupelo Sports Arena...

Into the concession stand!

And had a knock-down, drag-out brawl

involving furniture, and concessions,

and hotdogs, and mustard.

Nailed with mustard and blood all over him!

It was a very believable fight,

because I think even the people involved in it

believed it.

They were knocking the shit out of each other.

Onita's head busted wide open!

Oh, we was just hitting each other in the head

with pots and pans, and chairs.

Rick Morton hammered with a garbage can top!

I mean, that shit hurts, buddy.

I'm Ricky Morton, one half of the

Rock 'n' Roll Express.

One of the greatest babyface tag teams ever.

And I was best friends with Eddie Gilbert.

You see, it was a hardcore match, really.

But at that time, we didn't understand that.

As a matter of fact, that night...

is where Atsushi Onita got the idea for

hardcore wrestling that he took back to Japan...

and in the 90s made a fortune with.

It came from that night in Tupelo, Mississippi.

What a brawl.

Yeah, keep shooting it.

We're not gonna be able to show a lot of it,

but just keep shooting it.

He was always on fire.

Thank you very much. I'd like to say hello

to my friends and family and everyone out there.

Let's face it, he was a good looking kid.

My name is Darla Staggs, and I met Eddie Gilbert

when he was 17 years old.

We were just good, good friends.

He went on to work for WWE.

It was a dream for him,

and it was his road to stardom.

Memphis was great.

But WWF, you know, it's...

It's Madison Square Garden.

I mean, what are you gonna say, no?

Making his Madison Square Garden debut...

Eddie Gilbert!

My brother brought me with him to New York.

I guess I was 12 or 11.

Doug and Eddie were close. Very close.

Eddie was 18 years old, and he's hanging out

with his 11-year-old brother.

That says something to me.

Being two smalltown country boys,

seeing him in Madison Square Garden, you know,

I was really proud of that.

Eddie wasn't a big guy,

and that actually helped him.

-Oh, that was beautiful. -He had great timing.

You see, that was Eddie getting his foot through.

Right back on his feet.

Did you see that? Can you believe it?

En route to a meeting with WWF's patriarch,

a tragic series of events is triggered.

♪

[Screeching tires & thudding impact]

♪

We got a phone call at my house.

It was like 1 to 2 in the morning.

And they said, "Mrs. Gilbert, your son, Eddie,"

and she said, "Yes?" And they said,

"He's been in an accident."

They didn't even know if they could keep him alive.

He's in critical condition. And it broke his neck.

The steering wheel, I think, hit him right here

in the solar plexus, like about over his heart.

They said, "He will never wrestle again."

His heart was like jello.

It will never, it will never heal.

He wasn't even 22 years old yet.

And suddenly, his career may be over.

That was not acceptable,

that wasn't an option for Eddie.

No matter how catastrophic the injury was,

he was gonna get back in the ring.

When something like that happens to you,

takes a long, long time to get over that.

It takes years.

Put yourself in that situation.

You still want that opportunity.

So, that's why you keep going.

Ladies and gentlemen, let's welcome back

the very popular Eddie Gilbert.

[Cheering]

Three months later,

he wanted to start back wrestling again.

Such is the tenacity of this young man, Eddie Gilbert,

who has made it all the way back.

I'll just speak for myself.

You know, it was a hard, long road in our business.

Oh, you wonder if blows like that,

if they would affect the neck. Apparently not.

When you have a car wreck and break your neck,

they don't' send you home with Tylenol Plus.

You understand me?

I'm sure he wouldn't be back in the ring

if he was not ready.

It takes a tremendous amount of courage for a man that

had a broken neck to come back into wrestling.

Eddie came back to wrestling probably too quick,

but he wanted to get back before he lost his spot.

They did an angle based on the fact that the fans

knew that he'd had a serious neck injury,

and they used the Masked Superstar to,

allegedly, re-injure the broken neck.

-Oh, no! -Oh!

Ah!

Now there's no need for anything like that.

See those scars there on the...

Yeah, on the throat.

That was from the automobile accident.

And unfortunately, that is where Eddie met

Doctor George Zahorian.

I'm presently evaluating Eddie Gilbert following a

traumatic accident to the vertebrae of his neck.

Doctor George Harrison was a doctor in, in Pennsylvania,

was also appointed by the Athletic Commission to be the

doctor to give physicals and etc. to all the wrestlers.

Anything that the wrestlers wanted- drugs, substances,

whatever that he could prescribe...

there was your guy.

Now you've got Eddie Gilbert,

who's had a severe neck injury.

What do you think's gonna happen?

He was in a lot of pain from the, from the wreck,

but the doctors prescribed him something.

He would definitely take it.

When he was doing it to be able to work,

I guess that was our justification.

As Eddie steps back into the ring,

the WWF charts a new direction,

jeopardizing his climb to the top.

The WWF at the time was like superheroes.

That was the Hulk Hogan starting there.

Everybody that was up there got bigger.

Oh, look at that.

I didn't want to go that bodybuilding path,

and Eddie didn't want to either.

Now, we might have did a little something something

to, to tone you up...

But you get caught up in that circus act.

I think Eddie thought that some of the stuff they do

in WWE was too much show business and

not enough realism.

Returning to the southern territories,

Eddie reinvents himself as a villain,

and creates his most iconic persona.

Hot Stuff Eddie Gilbert!

[Cheering & booing]

Eddie knew that in the 80s,

the people expected more excitement,

more action, more life, more talking.

I am the greatest wrestler, the prettiest face and the

greatest set of brains in professional wrestling.

He had the flashy sequined jacket,

frosted the hair blond,

and he was wearing sunglasses.

Now he's this guy that looked like

he just stepped off this new thing called MTV.

A cocky heel that really thought he was hot stuff

and was better than everybody else.

Listen to me, boy, when I'm talking to you!

He came up with a patter and a style

that was all of his own.

Heaven won't take me and hell's afraid I'll take over.

My grandmother said to me, "He's so mean and dirty.

I just hate him." If you hate him,

that means he's doing his job well.

But you know what?

He's still the same sweet guy that he's always been.

"No, he's not either!" [Laughing]

It was an amalgamation of all of the heels that

Eddie had watched over the years.

And it, it worked.

One of his idols was Jerry "The King" Lawler.

Who's the greatest wrestler in the world and why am I?

Who was the undisputed King of Memphis wrestling.

Lawler from the top rope! He gets him!

I am in rare form and I guess

you saw it right there, didn't you?

The first chance he got,

he went to wrestle Jerry Lawler.

Lawler, I want to tell you something, brother.

You're not hungry anymore. I am.

He ultimately wanted to follow in Jerry Lawler's

footsteps as The King of Memphis wrestling.

Whoa!

Jerry Lawler, look what you've done to me!

When opportunity comes, you got to chase your dream.

Stop, Eddie Gilbert!

You're gonna be real hot, brother!

[Screaming]

Eddie had that in his mind. He knew that.

That's why he was successful down south.

Already a star in Memphis,

Eddie gets his first shot at fulfilling his dream

of becoming a company's booker in Louisiana,

working for Bill Watts' Mid-South Wrestling.

The booker is basically the matchmaker.

Even from the time he was a teenager,

Eddie already had that in his sights.

What's Eddie Gilbert doing out there?

We're getting ready to find out, I think, here.

Wrestling is more than just doing the moves.

Wrestling is telling a story.

I really think I need to set the record straight because

I'm not a communist, ladies and gentlemen.

And Eddie, Eddie was very good at that.

You can do whatever you want to with this flag.

I'd like to give it to you.

-[Cheering] -Let's burn it.

Everybody loved Bill Watts,

the big Cowboy babyface down there.

And everybody thought Eddie was gonna

do something tricky or low down.

Hold on! [Indistinct shouting]

Kolov... Kolov!

[Indistinct shouting]

They've got that chain!

When a great heel has a great babyface,

they can tell a story that's unbelievable.

That guy put the flag over the cowboy!

Look at that!

The fans are getting out of their seats!

This place is mayhem!

What does the people want to pay to see?

They want to pay because they don't like you,

and they want to see the good guy

beat the crap out of you.

A little bit too cocky there.

If you have heat like that,

you was usually drawing good money.

Listen to this crowd! They love it!

Eddie had some great guys there that went on

to be superstars, like Sting,

Rick Steiner was there, Ultimate Warrior,

Dr. Death Steve Williams.

All these guys were there

under the guidance of Eddie Gilbert.

In his mind, he'd say, "Where can I take this guy?"

"Who can I book this guy with?"

Because his mind never stopped.

Bill Watts sold the company to Jim Crockett Promotions,

and about a year and a half later,

Crockett Promotions had sold to Turner Broadcasting.

Eddie's booking success lands him on

WCW's creative team...

trading sole control for a seat on the committee.

♪

One of the worst things to be is be on a frigging

booking committee because you have no control.

And that's when Ric Flair got involved.

Flair was the top star for

World Championship Wrestling...

and he demanded to be made the booker.

Ric Flair didn't know that much about

Tennessee wrestling.

Ric Flair didn't know that much about Eddie Gilbert.

He wanted people to carry out

what he was asking them to do.

They go to Memphis one night.

Eddie Gilbert is booked to wrestle against Ron Simmons.

So Flair sends the finish.

Ron Simmons beat Eddie Gilbert.

Well, there must be some mistake.

This is Memphis. He can't beat me

at a preliminary match in Memphis.

So Eddie changed the finish.

[Match bell ringing & cheering]

Within a week, I got a phone call from Ric Flair.

"He changed the finish! Who the ---- is this guy?

I'm gonna have to move him out."

And that's when he told me,

"I'm fixing to have an opening on the creative team.

Would you like to fill it?"

I had had aspirations of one day being a booker,

but here was an opportunity right in front of me

to start doing what I'd always wanted to do.

But it was at the expense of Eddie losing the chance

to do what he wanted to do.

After overriding Ric Flair's planned finish to a match,

Eddie is dismissed from the creative committee.

His spot taken by a childhood friend.

We never had a face to face disagreement.

However, Eddie told the story that,

"Well, I showed up at the booking meeting,

and there was Jim Cornette sitting in my chair."

Actually, no. Eddie never came in to see me there

because he already knew he was done,

regardless of whether I got the job or not.

But, I've heard it said by people close to him

that that demotion...

pretty much broke his heart.

Hot Stuff Eddie Gilbert!

Surprise, surprise, surprise!

Bit of a surprise, yes, indeed.

Returning to his home territory in Memphis,

Eddie solidifies his legacy as an innovator,

pushing the boundaries between reality

and fiction even further.

He knew the fans were getting smarter,

and he was trying to do cutting edge stuff.

But, ah... Hey!

Him and Lawler was shooting that angle.

Jerry said, "Well, what have you not all done?"

You know, Eddie said, "Well, I haven't run over him."

Wait a minute. Eddie, you're gonna do what?

Lawler says, "Man, I love it."

Dang, he actually wants to do this.

The only problem was, we was going way too fast.

Oh, look out. Whoa!

Oh, holy shit. Excuse my language.

My goodness.

No, I don't think he's okay.

Calling for some help from, well, there's Jerry Calhoun.

The fans at home called the police department,

and said they had a hit and run.

They was going to arrest us.

So, Lawler had to come out and

actually tell the police, "It's not their fault."

People hated us for that.

And I mean, we wanted them not to like us.

But that goes into where you're getting to the point

where it's almost went too far.

One night, me and Eddie, we went to get in the car,

and I heard Eddie say, "Hurry up.

A guy's coming with a knife." "What?"

He had a butcher knife, and he's running.

And so I start trying to get the key in the car,

and I heard Eddie say, "Hurry up, hurry up."

And he got right almost to Eddie.

There was cops at the fence,

and a police officer saw that.

He got him before they got to us.

♪

Here's the thing,

and a lot of people don't understand this.

Look at your TV today

and then go back and see what we did.

[Screaming]

He was ahead of his time for so many years.

Oh, come on!

And it was stuff that he thought about all the time.

Rotten, despicable, devious mind.

He's a perfectionist at work.

And he was a perfectionist at booking.

And a lot of people will say,

"Well, that's why you wind up with burnout."

I don't think he was the booker at one spot...

more than six months at any, anywhere.

-You know, whatever. -Yeah.

♪

As Eddie bounces from promotion to promotion,

he enters a romantic relationship with

WCW star, Missy Hyatt.

Meow.

Missy Hyatt was one of the first women in wrestling

that was both attractive and used

as the valet, slash, manager,

slash, confidant of many of the top heels.

And then, of course,

we got adorable Eddie Gilbert.

And then Eddie and Missy became a couple in real life.

The whole marriage and everything,

maybe a year and a half or something like that.

I hate you! And I hate everybody!

[Laughs] He liked beautiful ladies.

From Milan, Italy...

the AWA Ladies World Champion...

I got the opportunity to

be in the ring with Eddie,

and that's when everything started between him and I.

Hi, Madusa. M-A-D-U-S-A.

Made in the USA, baby, and I've been in this business...

hm, over 40 years.

And I was married to Eddie Gilbert.

It was Eddie and myself

against Mick Foley and Luna Vachon.

[Cheering]

Right then and there, I'm like, alright,

there's something about this guy and his cockiness.

[Laughing] We just hit it off.

One thing led to another, and he's like,

"Do you want to get married?"

And I'm like, "What? What?

Yeah, let's just do it!" And we did.

His family was so loving and so open to me.

What do you got there?

Oh, do you know how to do that?

Not at all.

And I felt welcomed.

His dad...

There's more action going on over there.

No, you're the only one that's opening 'em.

And his mom was his world.

And little Dougy at the time.

Doug, what you got?

My Game Boy that you got me.

Oh, he loved his family.

[Indistinct speaking] I got it all.

Shirt, sweatshirt.

It was healthy, that's how I felt.

-Ah! -Oh, you wiener.

My marriage overall was wonderful from the beginning.

And towards the end, I knew it wasn't

the Eddie that I...

grew to love and was in love with.

If 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 and it just changed him.

I remember I just got done making dinner.

We sat down to eat, and he fell asleep

at the dinner table in his food.

I did see him fall asleep at the table one time.

I mean, I tried to talk to him about it.

He kind of shut it down like...

it's none of your business, and it wasn't my business.

I didn't really see too much wrong with it,

which I look at it today, and I can say that

maybe it was a little bit wrong, but now...

see so much other stuff so much worse than anything

that was going on with Eddie, so I guess I just

took that as everything was kind of normal.

It wasn't just being a rock star that

caused him to do this.

It was trying to overcome serious injuries

to get back in the ring.

The pills, they had taken over Eddie.

That wasn't who Eddie was, though.

He wanted to get better.

It just didn't happen.

Cactus Jack and Eddie Gilbert.

They probably know what physical punishment

they're both going to endure.

Eddie and I had the best feud of the independent scene.

Oh! Almost ripped his head off of him.

What he loved was bringing excitement to

the television screen.

Cactus, the barbed wire around his face.

Gotta stop this match right now.

Stop it now.

Our business brings with it...

constant pain.

I did not know that he was having trouble with pills.

Eddie was part of an era where not as much

was known about pain medication.

It wasn't really frowned upon at that time,

but it's easy to abuse.

[Cheering]

He would say he was in pain,

but I never knew the severity.

He kept everything so inside.

♪

The hardest thing he did was sign those divorce papers.

He told me straight out, "I need to fix this.

I need to get myself better."

It was...

Eddie's choice.

I 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.

At that time, you know, the early 90s,

a lot of things were falling apart for Eddie.

Almost all the territories had gone out of business.

So at that point, he really didn't have a lot of options

of the old fashioned territories,

places to go anymore.

Here we are at the ECW Arena

in the heart of South Philadelphia.

It's June 19th...

Facing 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.

They're ready to go! Tonight's the night!

I grew up watching the WWWF,

and there was something called believability.

What happened was, as time went on,

it became a cartoon.

Hi, my name is Tod Gordon, and I am the founder and

originator of Extreme Championship Wrestling,

ECW.

I worked side by side with Eddie Gilbert to

get this promotion off the ground.

Jimmy's Snuka on the top rope! Oh!

I just want to see something that I would enjoy,

something that I can believe in.

This is getting out of hand, fellas.

My goal was to put on a believable,

hard hitting product.

A great night, and it's going to get even better

as we go on week to week.

Stick with it, Jay Sulli.

You know, Philadelphia...

they are the meanest people I ever seen.

These people don't even like ice cream.

I'm not bullshitting ya.

So, when you bring that part of Eddie being a heel

to them, well they just eat that shit right up.

Eddie brought in a lot of big names and put together

the matches, and he was very good at it.

I'm coming for you, Eddie Gilbert!

He wanted to be the king of Philadelphia

as Jerry was The King of Memphis.

Yes, me, Hot Stuff Eddie Gilbert,

The King of Philadelphia.

We were doing that kind of hardcore stuff.

He took it to another level.

Whoa!

Oh, my word!

Eddie would say, "This is wrestling.

You can do anything."

I carried that over years later.

When Sandman came out smoking a cigarette,

"What are you crazy? What are you-

You can't do that." Who says you can't?

We did it, and he became an icon.

That was Eddie.

Eddie gave us that ground floor to build on.

Without Eddie there's no ground floor.

Without Eddie, there's no ECW really.

The King, "Hotstuff" Eddie Gilbert.

Eddie brings ECW to new heights,

but it's his friend Paul Heyman who will have

the biggest impact on wrestling's future.

Ladies and gentlemen...

or you people of Philadelphia!

Today, Paul Heyman is the most brilliant manager

on the professional wrestling scene.

In those days, Paul Heyman

always wanted to be the booker.

So, he started shadowing Eddie Gilbert.

That's enough.

They were together in Alabama.

They were together in Georgia.

They were together everywhere.

It was a good combination, and it worked.

It was probably 6, 7 months in when,

all of a sudden, it was, you know,

"Where's Eddie?"

He was supposed to be here at 2 o'clock

and he's rolling in around 3, 3:30.

He wasn't kidding around and carrying on.

Everything changed, his whole demeanor.

I wasn't that familiar with...

what drugs, painkillers, the effect they had

on people's personalities.

He'd get in the ring with anybody,

and if he wasn't bleeding, his opponent was.

Those things don't just end when the show ends.

They all turn to pain killers for that.

It is very easy to fall into that trap.

He had lost that joie de vivre.

Lost that fun side.

As Eddie spirals into addiction,

Paul Heyman pushes forward with plans

to take ECW national.

Paul was working with Jim Crockett,

and he was very excited about it.

Eddie thought that me, Paul, and Crockett

were gonna go off and leave him in the lurch.

At this point, he was really in the depth of his...

despair, paranoia.

He said, "Oh, yeah, well guess what? We quit."

We being he and Doug.

We had a huge show coming up.

Ultra Clashes, our big, big, big event.

It's going to be the biggest, hottest show

in the history of Philadelphia wrestling.

That's right.

Even though he's gonna still be on the show.

But it didn't matter.

Sometimes when you're that high or that buzzed,

you think reality is completely different than

what reality is, and he had his own reality at that point.

Welcome to a very special Ultra Class preview edition

of Eastern Championship Wrestling.

Fearing that he's losing control of ECW,

Eddie Gilbert storms out of the company

just days before a major show.

Two days later, Eddie calls me up and he said,

"Hey boss, I'm sorry. I was being stupid.

So I'll be there Saturday night."

And I had to tell him, "Eddie..."

At Ultra Clash, there will be a major change.

That's correct.

You quit five days before the show.

I had to do something, I had to replace you.

That man who will be the partner

on September the 18th

with Abdullah The Butcher is none other than...

Kevin Sullivan.

He said, "Okay...

Can I come to the show? I'm there anyway,

and say goodbye to everybody."

And I said, "Sure."

He told me he was gonna come and cut a promo,

which nobody else knew that.

What's this?

That's Hot Stuff Eddie Gilbert!

What's he doing here?

He's not scheduled to wrestle!

He told the people that he wanted to thank them

for coming out and supporting ECW,

and supporting him, and everything.

And all of a sudden, they started hollering

in the back, "Cut the mic, cut the mic, cut the mic!"

♪

Paul lost it in the locker room. He said,

"He's trying to screw me by doing such a long goodbye!"

Why would you want to cut the mic on a guy

that's just telling the people,

thanks for supporting the company and him?

And that's what kind of pissed me off.

So, there was a bat there.

So, I thought I'd tell 'em what I had to say.

♪

I just swung the bat and

I hit everything in there and broke it.

A couple people come up that was my friends,

said, "Man, everything okay?"

And I said, "Man, everything's fine."

He left, and Paul and Eddie

really never spoke again after that.

That was the end of their relationship.

And they were best friends.

It made no sense.

Oh, my goodness, it's Eddie Gilbert.

After Eddie Gilbert's departure,

Paul Heyman propels ECW to heights

few wrestling companies will ever reach.

This is wrestling the way it's gonna be,

and the way we know that you like it.

Rebranding Eastern Championship Wrestling

into the iconic Extreme Championship Wrestling.

♪

With nothing left to lose,

Eddie taps into his fan base...

once again, setting a trend

that will influence the future.

Eddie wanted recognition.

He wanted to be able to plead his case.

Eddie had been especially popular with

the hardcore smart fans,

the ones that knew the behind the scenes,

the ones that knew how everything worked.

I've done- A lot of the stuff is gonna be

out of order and stuff because...

One of 'em basically sat Eddie down in a hotel room,

and shot the first "shoot interview."

Well, first off...

Where one of the personalities involved

in wrestling sat there and told inside stories

of how it was done.

I did a few angles with John I'd like to tell you about.

In those days, believability in the ring

was the most important.

If the people know how they're being tricked,

it'll kill the business.

It got some people raising their eyes at,

you know, "Eddie Gilbert did that?"

What's been your relationship with Lawler?

Yeah, I think, I think, I think it's probably

best described as love-hate.

It was about time that he did...

because everybody out there thought they know

everything about our business, and they,

they don't.

When he saw an opportunity,

he took advantage of it before anybody else.

About ten years after he died,

everybody and their brother started doing it.

Gilbert laid the Russian flag on Bill Watts.

Eddie hated Kevin Sullivan.

Call it. Marker. Beautiful.

Eddie was the first one in the business

to recognize that.

But, this was 1994.

People in the business didn't do that,

but that was all that Eddie had left.

The smart fans loved his booking,

but the upper echelon in the major companies,

they didn't really know or care.

♪

I was running Smoky Mountain Wrestling

out of Knoxville, Tennessee.

...of Smoky Mountain Wrestling!

I called Eddie.

I said, "Eddie, you've got a great mind.

Let's see if we can put this thing together."

I can't believe what I'm seeing here.

Hot Stuff Eddie Gilbert is here, and...

Wow. What are you doing here in

Smoky Mountain Wrestling?

I didn't know you were gonna be here.

He came to the TV taping.

Just to be honest with you, I didn't really know

I was going to be here either, but...

Came out and had a match with Ricky Morton.

Reversal of the Irish..

and he brought him out with the power slam!

He looked great.

You know, he was ready to go.

And he told me,

"We're going to shoot this angle tonight."

We'll be right here next week.

Show us what you got, Hot stuff.

Maybe we won't go through with it because

I have an opportunity in Puerto Rico...

to do what I love.

And that's booking. I was proud for him.

And I said, "Go for it."

"You know, if you don't come back up, I'll cover it up."

And bless my heart, he never came back.

After that first TV taping,

I never saw Eddie Gilbert again.

He was dead three months later.

Looking to make a fresh start and

leave his demons behind,

Eddie Gilbert heads to work in Puerto Rico.

He looked at it as a great opportunity

to turn it around.

Carlos Colon had offered him a deal.

Carlos was wanting somebody with different ideas,

something fresh.

He was real excited.

[Spanish commentary]

Hot Stuff! Ha-ha-ha!

This is the briefcase that my brother carried around

all the way to his Puerto Rico days.

But February 18th '95.

Eddie Gilbert versus Ted the Bear.

So that's the bear that my brother wrestled.

I'm going against a bear?

I'm going against, I'm going against a bear?

Yeah, you are against a bear.

I can't go against a bear! No!

He was trying to get it popped again where everybody

could make money and everybody would be happy.

He asked me, he said, "You want to come?"

I said, "Give me a minute to think.

I'm sure it won't be too long."

But...

It, it would be the last territory

that he ever booked.

The next day...

Somebody called and told me, "They found your brother

in his apartment laying across the bed

with earphones on and music,

just laying back like he'd laid back to go

to sleep and rest." Really peaceful.

Weeks after arriving in Puerto Rico,

tragic news arrives back home.

Eddie Gilbert has passed away.

The wrestling world is saddened by the death

this past week of Eddie Gilbert.

We were notified that on February 18th

in San Juan, Puerto Rico,

Eddie had passed away of apparent heart failure.

When you know somebody in his early 30s,

the first thing you're going to think is, was it drugs?

Especially in Puerto Rico.

In Puerto Rico, you don't have to

have a script to do nothing.

All you have to do is walk into the drugstore,

get anything you want.

So, the first thing they done, say,

"Oh, you know what he was doing."

Well, no, you don't know what he was doing.

Of course there's speculation

on drugs, OD'ing.

But he had a bad heart too.

And they list the cause of death as the heart attack.

Anybody could have made up anything,

and it spreads like his gospel

through the entire industry.

But I really learned take everything I hear like that

with a grain of salt.

I'm there to protect Eddie first...

before I start believing rumors and speculations.

We ain't gonna say we was choir boys.

We probably did some things

we shouldn't have done, but...

I'm not making an excuse, I'm just telling you.

He had the car wreck.

Half of his heart, it would never work again.

And if it wasn't working right,

it had to have a strain on it.

And that never quit until he passed away.

If Eddie was still alive, he'd be one month older

than I am sitting here right now.

♪

We kept in contact.

We wrote letters to each other.

And this one here that I kept was probably...

was one of the end ones.

He starts off with, "Deborah Ann."

[Sighing]

"Deborah, you have been a terrific friend,

lover, companion, and most of all,

best and wonderful wife.

I just wish I had realized that

before it got too out of hand.

I have nothing but the most respect for you as a person

and your abilities in the ring and also in the..."

[Laughing]

If you need someone to talk to at any time,

night or day, please don't hesitate

to give me a call.

I mean that."

And that was one of the last letters

that I received from Eddie.

He was a good person. [Chuckling]

And he meant well.

You know, Eddie passed away 30 years ago,

and he's still down...

as one of the best.

And he died...

loving what he did.

[Cheering]

See, when you step in that ring,

it's like we're on Broadway.

And we can give you part of our soul.

He gave his heart and soul to you people.

Remember him for that.

Eddie never really wanted much in return.

He just wanted this business.

I was born to be the king.

This year it will be 30 years since my brother's passing.

I wish he could be here.

And I love him. And...

I know how really proud he was of me, and...

He had a huge heart.

He done what he loved...

to the last day of his life.