For every great hero there has to be a great villain. That
being said in the world of professional wrestling the villain eventually
becomes the hero and those heroes go on to Chew Bubblegum and Kick-Ass…and are
all out of Bubblegum.
I have mourned the death of many wrestlers over the years
and well this one hurts the most. Not only am I a wrestling fan but I am also a
genre fan and my career in pro wrestling as brief as it was I have spent the
past 10 years working in the movie industry and they say that you can’t met
your heroes…They are wrong.
I was a child of the 1980s and was introduced to
professional wrestling as a fan of the A-Team and one night I saw Mr T on stage
with Cindy Lauper and the man that Stallone faced off against in Rocky III who
I soon found out that this man was Hulk Hogan and the man that attacked Lauper
was Rowdy Roddy Piper.
A fighter all his life!
Despite The character being Scottish Roderick Toombs was born in Canada on April 17th 1954 of Scottish family Heritage and
after a falling out with his Mountie father Toombs left home at the age of 14
and stayed at Youth Hostels and soon acquired bagpipes that he soon became
efficient at playing and after being told of the path that his life was taking
he was offered a way out beginning his career as a professional wrestler.
Due to his talent on the pipes which he would play before
his matches he was named Roddy the Piper and eventually he was christened Roddy
Piper.
After losing his first match in 10 seconds and paying his
dues , Piper soon worked all of the territories in North America and around the
world and building a reputation and talent as a heel performer. He often told
stories of angering the crowds and how he and Ric Flair had to be taken out of
cities to avoid being killed by angered crowds.
Along the way Vince McMahon started approaching talent
across the territories to work for his new Federation that was to utilize video
and bring national exposure and eventually worldwide.
While originally brought in as a manager Piper was far more
known as a Mouthpiece with his interview style and was used to both get his
charges over as well as to rile the crown and make him hated at the same time.
This was the beginning of Piper having his own interview
“Talk Show” segment on WWF television titled Piper’s Pit where Roddy would have
a guest that he would ask “Tough” questions and often the program ended with
Piper pummeling his guest off the stage.
The legacy of Piper’s Pit remains today and was utilized by
many of the greats and while often imitated it was never duplicated.
Due to this and the fact that Piper had become a full time
wrestler aside He was given his own “Bodyguard” in the form of Cowboy Bob Orton
and the two were in seperatable both onscreen and off.
It was around this time that the Rock and Wrestling
Connection began with MTV and while Dick Clark, and David Wolf were in the ring
to attend a ceremony of Captain Lou presenting Cindy Lauper a gold album for
Girls Just want to Have Fun that Piper crashed the festivities and smashed the
album across the head of Captain Lou and to add insult to injury while Lauper
tried to shield Lou with her bode Roddy delivered a kick to her sending her across
the ring and soon manhandled David Wolf.
It was not till Hulk Hogan ran to the ring that Piper would
leave and the two would soon face off in The War to Settle The Score on
National television.
It was during this match that Mr. T became involved sparking
their feud and leading us to the inaugural Wrestlemania in 1984.
Piper and Hogan would go on to feud and would face off in a
Tag Team Match to main event the first
ever Wrestlemania. That is one feat that can never be taken away by anyone.
Piper would be the primary antagonist on Hulk
Hogan’s Rockin Wrestling cartoon show on Saturday mornings while continuing to
feud with Mr. T. Now what I didn’t know was that there was real heat between
Piper and T resulting in Piper facing against Mr. T in a boxing match which ended
in Roddy Being disqualified after body slamming the TV star. This is where it
all changed for Hot Rod!
Roddy Piper soon became a face and soon after Orton turned
on him and Piper found himself in a feud with Adrian Adontis and made the
decision to announce his retirement at Wrestlemania 3.
Piper made this decision as a way to keep himself on top of
his game and despite the fact that he was “Retired” he still came back for sporadic
appearences such as his special segment of Piper’s Pit at Wrestlemania V where
he attacked Morton Downy Jr with a fire extinguisher.
Hot Rod would often find himself in minor feuds with wrestlers
also around this time and one of the most infamous was his fight against at Bad
News Brown at Wrestlemania VI where he wrestled in Black Make-Up as “The Hot
Scott”.
Soon after Wrestlemania VI Jessie Ventura departed the WWF
to pursue his own ventures and Roddy Piper became the new commentator alongside
McMahon on WWF Superstars providing the Blow by Blow…and frequently finding himself
involved in storylines eventually finding himself in a feud with Ric Flair.
On the eve of the 1991 Royal Rumble Roddy Piper found
himself involved against the Mountie who after winning the Intercontinental
Championship from Bret Hart challenged Piper to face him In a title match at
the PPV resulting in one of Piper’s only title reigns in WWF history.
Throughout his entire WWF run Piper always found ways to not
let himself be pinned and this was one of the reasons that he would never allow
himself to have a title and did the job to his friend at Wrestlemania VIII and
granting him one of the best pushes of his career.
With the exception of a brief appearance playing his Bagpipes
at Summerslam 93 this was when Piper disappeared from the WWF for a couple of
Years while he pursued his movie career.
Roddy Piper did one thing that Hulk Hogan could not do and
that is have a more successful movie career.
Around the time of Wrestlemania III Roddy was approached by
John Carpenter to star in his next film.
They Live is a Sci-Fi/Action flick about an alien invasion
where the invaders had integrated themselves into our society and take it over
using subliminal advertising and taking over our economy.
Roddy Piper stars as a vagrant the acquires a pair on sunglasses
that allow him to see the aliens and he must stop them.
They Live is chock full of One-Liners including “Mamma Don’t Like Tattle Tales”, “Life’s a Bitch…and She’s Back in Heat”
and finally “I have come to chew
Bubblegum and Kick-Ass…and I’m all out of Bubblegum”.
The flick also features one of the best fight scenes in
movie history as Roddy fights Keith David trying to get him to put on a pair of
Sunglasses.
They Live though not a great hit in the theatres achieved a
cult following and cemented Piper’s place in pop culture.
Roddy Piper also starred in Hell Comes to Frog Town,
Immortal Combat, Tough and Deadly, Sci-Fighters, and Body Slam.
He also made appearances on many television shows including
Highlander, and Walker: Texas Ranger.
In 1994 Piper made a brief return to both Referee the title
match between Bret Hart and Yokozunna at Wrestlemania X and had a match with
Jerry Lawler and Refereeing Bret’s match with Bob Backlund at Wrestlemania XI all
while keeping in touch with his Bottom Line segment on WWF Mania on Saturday
mornings.
When WWF President Gorilla Monsoon was attacked by Vader
after the Royal Rumble in 1996 He appointed Roddy Piper as the acting president
until he returned at Wrestlemaina XII and Piper was the one that (Kayfabe)
created the Iron Man match between Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels at the event.
Roddy found himself in a Hollywood Backlot Brawl against
Goldust at the event which was a precursor to the violent Hardcore matches that
were frequently seen on WWF/E Programming in the coming years.
After defeating Goldust Piper waved goodbye to the crowd and
would not be seen again in the WWF for years.
That summer in WCW, Hulk Hogan turned heel and formed the NWO
and after feuding with the likes of Randy Savage and Ric Flair Hogan was confronted
by Roddy Piper at Halloween Havoc effectively reigniting their classic feud in
a series of matches with the score staying between the two in victories.
After this feud Piper remained in WCW though he was not
utilized like he should have been used and was eventually fired resulting in a
lawsuit to get the rest of the contract that he was owed.
Piper soon wrote the book In the Pit with Piper, Roddy Gets
Rowdy. In the book Piper laments on his life and breaks his silence on many
subjects in the industry and warns us about “The Sickness” which is responsible
for the death of many of his “Frat Brothers”.
Due to the fact that Piper went off on many subjects
including McMahon many thought that he would never again be seen again in the
WWF.
Hulk Hogan and Vince McMahon were facing off at Wrestlemania
XIX when a man in a black coat and hat
charged into the ring with a lead pipe. When he ripped off the hat and coat it
was revealed to be none other than Piper himself to the shock and amazement of
the crowd.
Piper had recently been in a car wreck and as a result had
put on some pounds which adds to the reason that he was able to sneak into the
event un noticed.
Roddy soon began to make his presence felt managing Sean O’Haire
and bringing back Piper’s Pit and once again resuming his feud with Hogan
trying to unmask him as Mr. America.
However none of this lasted long as Piper before Piper had
done an Interview for HBO and one of their documentaries and a down and bitter
Piper spoke about his dead friends in a time where they were dropping like
flies and soon McMahon was confronted in a separate interview and soon enough
WWE severed ties with Piper for a couple of years.
Piper then had a brief run
in TNA.
Alongside Hulk Hogan, Iron Sheik, Jimmy Hart, and Mr
Wonderful, Roddy Piper was inducted in to the WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2005
and in his speech he refused to make his induction into a period and that is
the last thing that he did.
Piper’s Pit returned with a vengeance and Piper also soon
returned to the ring in a limited capacity when the WWE Universe saved his
life.
In 2006 at WWE’s Cyber Sunday Ric Flair was to seek out the
Tag Team titles with a partner chosen by the WWE Universe from a list of three
choices. Roddy Piper was the choice in a landslide and He won the belts with
Flair that night. The next night on Raw Piper and Flair suffered a major loss
and beatdown at the hands of Edge and Randy Orton resulting in Piper being
taken to the hospital.
There he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in it’s early
stages which he quickly sought treatment thanking the fans for choosing him so
that he would discover this and be soon treated.
Soon after this I had the pleasure of meeting him on the
convention circuit and I saw him again two years later at the 25th
Anniversary of Wrestlemania where he faced Chris Jericho in an elimination
match.
I had the pleasure of meeting him again at the 2012 Texas
Frightmare Weekend where he reunited with Keith David and Meg Foster for the
They Live Reunion which was a special treat for the fans.
He even served as the introducer to my video of the
convention as well as the humorous outtakes.
Roddy Piper continued his appearances for WWE usually making
run-ins and special episodes of Piper’s Pit. It was as if he had never left.
Roddy Piper even joined the cast of Legend’s House for airing
on the WWE Network.
I at times felt that he was far too qualified to be on
the show as many of the talent seemed to be parodies but Roddy made the show
far more entertaining and was the big draw seeing him spark up a close
friendship with Hacksaw Jim Duggan all while dealing with his personal Demons.
If you tuned into Podcast One you would have heard him
hosting Piper’s Pit where he interviewed both other wrestlers as well as
musicians and celebrities and even John Carpenter. Sadly the podcast ended due
to a conflict with fellow podcaster Steve Austin.
Piper was also making more movies in these years and sold
Tshirts and his own Bubblegum flavored soda pop off his website and his
youngest son Colt became a professional wrestler further establishing his
legacy for a new generation.
On July 31st 2015 Roderick Toombs aka Rowdy Roddy
Piper passed away peacefully in his sleep of Cardiac Arrest. A man who spent
his life fighting went in piece.
As I write this now I still struggle with the words as it
has not yet sunk in seeing him receive a 10 Bell salute that I had seen so many
of his “Frat” Brothers receive and having the tribute video played for him and
the image of the empty chair with a Kilt and the music Hold on Tight by Greg
Holden and in listening to the music I can’t think of a better song for Piper.
Roddy Piper never took his life for granted. It can be said
that he lived to the fullest and held on tight to what he had been handed
because he never knew when he would not have it.
I had the pleasure of meeting him and calling him friend and
the lesson he taught me was to enjoy what you have because you can be gone
tomorrow.
Go On to the Mountain Young Son for your work here is Done
