"I broke his nose. He chipped one of my teeth. We went and played the next day in Georgia and it was great": How Poison's career imploded

Bret Michaels and CC DeVille at the 1991 MTV Music Awards in Los Angeles.

It's 1991. MTV are at their peak, and the annual Video Music Awards show is the hottest ticket in Los Angeles. Joining host Arsenio Hall at the Universal Amphitheatre in Hollywood are a stellar cast of live performers, including Van Halen, Metallica and Guns N' Roses.

And then there's Poison. The previous year's Flesh & Blood album had shifted more than seven million copies and spawned two Top 10 hits in the US, so they were on a high. They were also fighting, as success and substance abuse took their inevitable toll. Indeed, frontman Bret Michaels and guitarist C.C. DevIlle had already come to blows at a sports bar in New Orleans belonging to NFL legend Archie Manning.