Pillman Jr. voices his thoughts about not being in the Owen Hart Foundation tourney.
At AEW Double or Nothing, the first-ever Owen Hart Foundation tournament concluded with Adam Cole and Britt Baker winning respectively. Martha Hart delivered a speech in front of the live audience and handed Baker and Cole their championship belts in honor of winning.
Brian Pillman Jr. spoke about the tournament when he guest appeared on ‘Counted Out With Mike & Tyler’. Pillman Jr. says there was a lot of great talent in the field, but he wishes he was in it. He brought up his connection to Hart family and said to his knowledge, there was no one in the tournament with that direct connection.
Being in the next one is motivation for Pillman Jr. and stated that if he’s not in the next tournament, it’ll be a mistake.
I mean I’ll just go ahead and say it straight up that I wish I was in it, you know what I mean? [Pillman Jr. said about the Owen Hart Foundation tournament] I wasn’t too upset about it at first. Obviously there’s a lot of great talent in there. A lot of people that I like. They’re on a whole other level than me and I know that Tony [Khan] just wanted to put on some great, great matches and stuff but looking back, I just wish that he had viewed me in a better way to want to use me for it because you know, would’ve been a no-brainer in my opinion so I guess I’d take that a little bit to heart that maybe I should’ve worked harder or maybe been a better singles athlete at the time for him but, unfortunately that was not the case and it is kind of a shame because there was no one in the tournament to really represent that connection to the family. I mean it wasn’t anybody at least that I can think of that was of a direct connection so, I think it just makes me hungrier and more ready for the future. I’ll train — I’ve been training every day just for the next year’s tournament. I’m so beat up about not being in it, that I wanna do everything I can to be in it next year because — and I just got back from wrestling in Calgary for Bret Hart and his son’s Dungeon Wrestling. They’re just starting back up, wonderful little promotion and just the amount of people that were there to see me and meet me just made me feel so proud to be connected to that city, so proud to be connected to Calgary and its people and that family and in a way, I felt like I sort of let ‘em down by not being in the tournament, and a lot of people did ask me that, you know, in the meet-and-greet. They’re like, oh, you know, ‘Why weren’t you in the tournament?’ And stuff and I can’t really blame anybody but myself. Maybe I wasn’t ready for it. I don’t know. But again, it’s pro wrestling and everything is sort of put out there to tell a story and entertain people and that’s what the Owen Hart tournament did this year. It was incredible, the matches were incredible. It was very entertaining, very prestigious. I can’t be too selfish about not being in it but, I will say that it is a huge goal of mine going forward and I don’t wanna be left out next year. I think that would be a mistake on anybody’s part; my part or the company’s part to exclude me from it next year.
Pillman Jr. is one-half of The Varsity Blonds alongside Griff Garrison. Julia Hart was a member of the group until she was added to House of Black (Malakai Black, Brody King & Buddy Matthews).
There was more that Pillman Jr. wanted to do with the trio of Varsity Blonds. He feels that they were gaining traction when AEW was based in Jacksonville but shortly after hitting the road, it was decided that a different direction was going to be taken.
I wish we could’ve done more with the gimmick. I wish there was more time to hit the road with Julia [Hart] and do fun spots because when we were in Jacksonville, we used to do all kind of fun spots where she would have a cheerleading sign, like ‘Go Blonds’ and then the heel would break the sign and then we come out, do a dropkick through the ropes. You know, beat up the heel. There was so much we did with it and in that small, little town — not that Jacksonville’s a terribly small town but in that little bubble that we were in, it was getting over man, it was really fun and I wish we got to do more but, it wasn’t long after we hit the road that they wanted to split us up and try some new things.
Pillman Jr. and Griff Garrison are scheduled to be in action at AEW Fyter Fest week two. They’ll be taking on Christian Cage and Luchasaurus.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit ‘Counted Out With Mike & Tyler’ with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
