Editor's note: Yesterday marked 20 years since the passing of Brian Pillman. To pay tribute to him, Dave Meltzer and Chris Jericho discussed Pillman's life and career on the episode of Talk is Jericho that was released today.

Below is the October 13th, 1997 edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and Dave's obituary of Pillman.

**********

Even though this is the first thing you are reading, this is actually the last thing I'm writing. As you all know, a very good friend of mine passed away a few days ago. You all knew of him. Some of you knew him. This is not the first person that I've known fairly well in this business that died at a young age. Friend is a word that I'm not very liberal with, particularly when it comes to wrestling because in many cases it depends on the last word you've written about someone. But it is one that I'd use in this instance without reservation. The shock that I personally felt when Vince McMahon went on the free-for-all segment with that cut-in was like a knife going through me. But the shock was nothing compared to the sadness when the reality set in the next day. The sadness is largely for those who loved him and needed him in their daily lives and have to do without him. From a selfish standpoint, he was one of the funniest people I knew and someone, almost no matter how bad his or my situation was, he would find a way to be both humorous and entertaining.

We had a lot of strange similarities, particularly when it comes to sense of humor and being students of the wrestling business and the insanity that surrounds it, yet in other ways we were complete opposites. His insanity reminded me of my high school days. We were at different ends of the business with different pressures. The business contributed to his craziness. Dealing with the craziness of this business forced me into the other direction. Whenever one of those weird things that somehow always happens in wrestling, and can only happen in wrestling, he'd say about how if we were in baseball, football or basketball, that none of this could ever happen and we'd never have all these entertaining stories to joke about. There are a lot of people who knew him and were very sad this weekend that had to perform, and a lot of decisions that had to be made under a lot of pressure. If things seemed strange or if people seemed distracted while performing, I hope everyone understands. I expect there will be a lot of criticism of several people and decisions that were made, and under other circumstances I'd probably agree with a lot of them and can't say I disagree with them now. There will be a lot of people very critical of themselves and their own decisions. Usually in life if you make a mistake, you have the chance to rectify it. But sometimes mistakes have absolute results that can't be rectified. Those are the ones hardest to deal with. I've been doing this for 15 years, and this was the hardest issue I've ever had to write.