THE HOLLYWOOD BLONDS
Stunning Steve Austin & Flyin' Brian Pillman
1992-1993
WCW World Tag Team Champions
Written by Adam Zimmerman
There have been a few tag teams known as the Hollywood Blonds over the years. The first one was the duo of Jerry Brown and future Freebird member Buddy "Jack" Roberts who were the Blonds from 1970-1977. "Hustler" Rip Rogers and Ted Oates came along as the next incarnation, in the early 80s, in the Mid-Atlantic Territory. After that, Dusty Wolfe and Ken Timbs were the Hollywood Blonds in Florida, but they didn't amount to much there. Finally, we have arguably the most famous version of the team and the version of the team that we're spotlighting here today: Steve Austin and Brian Pillman.
I'm never one to be able to pick a favorite anything. If you ask me what my favorite movie is, I can list off five quickly but not one that I'd stand behind as my absolute favorite. I'm the same with wrestlers and tag teams so I can't say that the Hollywood Blonds are my absolute favorite team -- but they are in that top five.
They didn't last particularly long but they were fun to watch nonetheless. Funny on the mic and exciting in the ring; I couldn't get enough. "Stunning" Steve Austin was my favorite Austin persona. I never saw myself as a "working man" type (although, obviously I work) or a "redneck" so Stone Cold was someone I could never really get behind. The arrogant heel antics of "Stunning" Steve Austin, though, was something I always enjoyed (even if his hair was getting pretty thin during those last couple of years). Also, Brian Pillman coming off of his "Flyin'" gimmick and easing into his "Loose Cannon" gimmick, always commanded attention.
Austin and Pillman were sort of just "thrown together" as a team during what was probably one of the lowest points in the WCW tag team division. At the time, all of the teams seemed sort of thrown together; there were teams like Ricky Steamboat & Shane Douglas and Scott Steiner & Marcus Bagwell. It's almost as if someone was forming teams in WCW by playing a video game and pressing "random" for the wrestler select.
Instead of becoming one of those random teams that time forgot, Austin and Pillman decided to REALLY become a team and make the best run of it that they could.
With help from Raven, they came up with the gimmick of the Hollywood Blonds (or they remembered having seen the gimmick before and decided to rip it off... whichever way you want to phrase it). Regardless of borrowing an already existing idea or not; they really made it their own.
They started by getting what every great team needs; matching ring attire. They also came up with one of my all time favorite taunts. While either Austin or Pillman were in the ring, working over an opponent, the other would be on the ring apron, miming turning the crank on an "old-timey" film camera.
While a team, they had some good matches with the "randoms" and were able to win the WCW World Tag Team titles from Ricky Steamboat & Shane Douglas on an episode of WCW Worldwide. After the Steamboat/Douglas feud subsided; the Blonds were put into an angle working against a returning Ric Flair and the newly-reformed Four Horsemen. This led to some funny promos by the Blonds in which they mocked Flair and Arn Anderson as being "too old". You know Ric Flair is pretty old if he's been "too old" since 1993. Eventually the focus of the feud was shifted to Arn Anderson and Paul Roma. Anderson and Roma unsucessfully challenged for the titles but some time afterwards, Pillman injured his ankle so Austin and William Regal teamed together in order to drop the titles to Anderson and Roma at Clash of the Champions.
Once Pillman recovered and returned to action, he and Austin teamed together a few more times before splitting up for good when Col. Robert Parker (Robert Fuller of The Stud Stable) chose to be Austin's manager while choosing not to manage Pillman. This led to Austin turning on Pillman and having the inevitable feud with him. Despite not being a team for very long, Steve Austin and Brian Pillman not only became the top team in WCW at the time but also elevated each other's careers to another level farther down the road.