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WWE Hall of Famer Roddy Piper was interviewed by videogame website IGN.com today regarding a number of topics. Highlights include:
Piper's Health: "The fans saved my life, I truly believe that. There was this pay-per-view called Cyber Sunday and the fans voted between myself, Dusty Rhodes, and Sgt. Slaughter, some pretty good company there, and it was for who was going to be Ric Flair's partner going for the tag team titles. Kindly, the fans voted me in, we won the titles, then we're over in Europe and something goes wrong with my legs…they're not working. They fly me back to the States, put me on the slab, cut open my back and they discover I have cancer. Lymphoma. But there's a really happy ending to it. First off, they picked the wrong guy to bully; I'm going to kick its butt. Also, they caught it at its very early stage. They put me on the rotisserie every day now, I'm going to be on radiation for the next 4-5 weeks, and they think they can clear it up. I'm going to be walking down that hall again, Jon. If the fans didn't vote me in, I wouldn't have went to Europe, I wouldn't have had a reason to have my back checked, and from what has been explained to me, in two to three years, this would have been all throughout my body and I would've had to go out that day. But you know what, the fans have been taking care of me all my life. What can I even say to them for that? It's pretty special for me."
His Wrestlemania Dream Match: ..."You have Wrestlemania coming up this year, 70,000 people in Detroit, and I would love, love to be in the ring against Vince McMahon. By that time I will have killed that cancer and I'll be ready to roll. Wouldn't you love to see me in there against Vince? I'd do it for free."
His WWE Hall of Fame Induction: "I need to tell you some inside on this. McMahon had fired me for this HBO interview I did (Real Sports), and I had no idea what I was going to say. That night was the first time I'd seen McMahon since he fired me, I got a hello, and that was it. I'm on next and Flair comes up to me and says: "Pipe, just tell my you'll go for it." What that means to Ric is, c'mon, entertain me. I wasn't sure what I was going to say, but I'm standing there with my chest out and Vince is sitting down on my right hand side, he's got the headphones on and he's watching the monitor. They edited it for Spike TV, I don't know how they did it so fast, but there's Flair and he's talking about how we used to get the flight attendants and take them up to Puerto Rico. My family is in the audience and as I'm listening to Flair, my shoulders start dropping, and Vince McMahon, maybe you had to be there to see it, but snot came pouring out of his nose, he was drooling and he just about fell out of his chair as he watched me get destroyed in a minute with Ric Flair doing an induction for me. So from that time, we shook hands, and it's the same love/hate relationship, he loves to hate me. That's why I said, is HBO here. I thought I was going to get fired again."
Living a Normal Life: "I don't know what normal is anymore. I do movies, so I still only come home in spurts. I like to come home and stay for a couple of months and then I'll go when the kids are in school. I'm kind of a go-get'em kind of guy. I live up on a mountain, a little ranch we have here, and I have cancer, so I'm dealing with that now. I have Born to Controversy, and John Carpenter is talking to me about They Live the television series."
To read the complete interview, which includes discussion of Piper's legacy, never winning a World championship, the top WWE heels of today, and more, click here.
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