"Pulling off" means succeeding at something hard or unlikely, often with skill. It can also mean removing an item by tugging it away, like a sticker or a hat.
I always felt mean, jogging back over the logging road, As if I had broken the natural order of things in that swampland; Disturbed some rhythm, old and of vast importance, By pulling off flesh from the living planet; As if I had committed, against the whole scheme of life, a desecration. Theodore Roethke
So please don't think I have a 'down' on the MVS people. I'm just pulling off their arms to beat other people over the head with. Larry Wall
I started doing all kinds of weird stuff on the guitar, which became part of my playing. I started doing harmonics and tapping on the guitar and pulling off strings and doing all this weird stuff that no one had ever done before. Eddie Van Halen
I think pulling off, pulling off a kind of fake documentary of me being a, you know, actual dictator would have been extremely difficult, if not impossible. Sacha Baron Cohen
Once people see you pulling off one role, they think youre a safe bet to do a similar role. Margot Robbie
Making films is sort of like you're pulling off a magic trick. It's sort of like an illusion. It's not real but you want it to appear real, and all kinds of things go into that, from the clothes you're wearing to the make-up, to the light. Jeff Bridges