It's been 10 years since the death of Roddy Piper, but the stories about him will still make you laugh and cry.
The D'Amore Drop is a weekly guest column on Uncrowned written by Scott D’Amore, the Canadian professional wrestling promoter, executive producer, trainer and former wrestler best known for his long-standing role with TNA/IMPACT Wrestling, where he served as head of creative. D’Amore is the current owner of leading Canadian promotion Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling.
The end of July marked 10 years since the one and only “Rowdy” Roddy Piper left us. A decade gone, and I still tell Piper stories like they happened yesterday.
Roddy could have you ready to strangle him one minute — he could be relentless when he targeted you for a ribbing — but leave you inspired and speechless the very next day. We crossed paths in WWE, WCW and TNA, but it’s two small moments in 2007 that really stick out when I think of him a decade after he left us.
First was in the summer of ’07. I had one foot out the door of wrestling at that time, but Violent J (Joe Bruce) reached out and said he wanted me to come to the Annual Gathering of the Juggalos for the Insane Clown Posse’s JCW Wrestling. He wanted me to do a segment on “In the Pit with Piper,” which was what Roddy had to call his segment then, as WWE owned the copyright on “Piper’s Pit.”
This took place in this awesome makeshift outdoor stadium, purpose-built, in the middle of a camp ground.
The ICP has built an amazing subculture out of nothing, based on accepting everyone and anyone, no matter what they look like, sound like or sleep with. On this night, though, the fans were so fired up, it was crazy.
I’d worked in WCW when Eric Bischoff all but encouraged fans to toss trash and beers into the ring. (EZE felt it looked cool on TV, then a glass was thrown and they stamped down on it.) But these ICP fans were hurling beer bottles, large batteries, even fish that they’d grabbed out of a pond on the campsite.
Minutes before I was due to go out and appear on Piper’s Pit — I mean the Pit with Piper — wrestler Mickie Knuckles got knocked silly by a battery to the head. She was then pelted with more batteries and other projectiles while she lay there trying to regain her senses.
I witnessed that and thought, "I don’t know if I want to go out in that."
I was literally crossing the room to talk with JCW boss Violent J when Roddy clapped me on the shoulders, grinned, and said: “Let’s go! We got a wild crowd! This’ll be fun!”
I wasn’t going to tell Roddy Piper, of all people, that, nah, actually I don’t want to do this now. So Roddy went out first. He was supposed to say, “I was a Juggalo before there was even the name for being a Juggalo,” and babyface himself to the crowd. Instead, he took a fish to the face and started cutting a promo on the fans.
“I’ve been stabbed! I’ve been shot! You guys can’t scare me,” he said. And the fans began to turn on him. They started throwing more crap at him.
Violent J grabbed me and said, “You’ve got to go out right now and become the heel.”
He pushed me out there right away — no music, no nothing — with a microphone. I had to get Piper’s attention.
“I know what you were going to say,” I told Piper in the ring. “You were going to say you are the original Juggalo, but let me tell you …”
And Piper locked in. We went back and forth, Piper spitting out zingers like it’s MSG in 1985. What a pleasure to work with one of the best of all time.
He was eyeing me up and down — totally back in character. I then hit my lines and did the finish we’d worked on, riffing on Roddy’s famous line from “They Live” (a John Carpenter film you’ve got to see if you haven’t already, if only for the fight scene in the alleyway).
“I came out here for two reasons: to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I am all out of bubblegum.” Then — as Roddy had instructed me to do — I spat my gum in his face. Roddy did not flinch. He just stood there with spit on his face, staring straight at me.
Then a battery, one of those big fat ones, came flying through the air. I was inches from Roddy’s face and I saw it graze his right eyeball. Roddy didn’t even react at all. His eyes remained locked on mine. What a pro!
Then my minions hit the ring. Piper laid them out. And then he got me in his classic Roddy sleeper, and we called it a night.
What an experience!
Maybe six months later we were booked for another show and, after we did our spots, we shared a taxi back to the hotel, which was about 20 miles away. We talked a bit. We got out of the taxi. It was late and really cold.
From across the street came a guy running and flipping out that Roddy Piper was in front of him. He was so excited to meet Roddy. He told Roddy he’d been through it in life. Wrestling, and especially Roddy, had really brought him joy during the bad times.
He said he had Roddy’s “Hot Rod” shirt at home and wore it when he needed a boost.
The fans asked Roddy about the new, non-WWE branded shirt and where it was for sale. He took out his phone to make a note of a website, but Roddy was already handing me his leather jacket.
There and then, in the freezing cold, Roddy took off his T-shirt and handed it to the guy. He hugged him, and thanked him for making his day.
The fan went away with the memory of a lifetime.
When we reached the hotel we walked inside without saying a word until the elevator doors closed. Roddy was clearly emotional and finally, just before we reached his floor, he looked over to me and said, “Sometimes we forget how blessed we are to be able to touch people like that. That really made my day.”
That was Roddy Piper. Fearless in the ring. Generous and gracious outside of it.
Now 10 years gone. There will never be another one like him.
Back in the early days of TNA, when I was known as the “coach” of Team Canada, I found myself in a program with the legendary Dusty Rhodes. It was a highlight of my career. And it happened not because I pitched it, but because Dusty himself decided he wanted to work with me. For a kid who grew up idolizing the man, wow, it was an honor.
Before we began the program, Dusty sat me down and was laying what he wanted out of me in the first promo.
(Make sure you read this in Dusty’s voice, a voice everyone on Earth can do a spot-on impression of.)
He said: “Baby, I want you to go out there and don’t you hold back on anything. Say that I’m old, say that I’m fat, say I’m all puffed up like a horse that needs to be put down. Hit me with it, baby!”
I listened, but finally said: “Dusty, if you don’t mind, I’d rather go another way. I’m not comfortable running you down like that. I’d rather talk about how you were my idol, how you were the reason I wanted to be in wrestling. You’re a three-time world champion, one of the all-time greats. Nothing can erase that. But I have the honor of being the guy who’s finally going to take you out, because you stand for the NWA tradition and for America, and I stand for the new wrestling and Canada.”
Dusty thought about it and said, “All right, baby, whatever you want.”
Then he asked, “But why don’t you want to say that other stuff?”
That’s when I told him something I’d learned a long time ago. You don’t run the older babyfaces down in that way. And not just out of respect, but out of good business and self-preservation.
As I told Dusty, I had no doubt at all that this feud of ours would end with me flat on my back, taking a bionic elbow, and then Dusty laying on top of me for three seconds.
So I had a choice. Get pinned by a legend, or get pinned by a fat, old has-been. I preferred to be beat by a legend.
Dusty looked at me. He smiled, then he squeezed my knee and said, “Oh, baby! You get it, kid!”
I don’t get how WWE can claim AEW isn’t competition when it competes so hard with them. You don’t counter-program a promotion you don’t see as competition, and WWE apparently is looking to counter AEW’s big All Out card in London with John Cena vs. Brock Lesnar.
You only compete with competition. It’s in the name, right?
Put another way, does UFC — WWE’s sister company — give a moment’s thought to counter-programming other MMA organizations?
Of course not.
Bron Breakker’s call back to the immortal “Steiner Math” promo on Raw the other night was outstanding.
I love these callbacks to previous eras. Longtime fans just eat it up. Bron’s was especially effective, as it was almost an aside.
I was a witness to the historic original in TNA, when Bronn’s uncle, Scott, did one of the funniest promos of all time — and he did it all in one take!
Category: General Sports
