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The news that Roddy Piper passed away on Friday broke my heart. It broke a lot of people's hearts, because Roddy Piper wasn't a man, not to the general public. Nope. He was, depending on the time and the era, a menace to society, a loud mouth, a tough guy, a force of nature and later, an elder statesman.
He was the best at what he did, drawing money. Sure, Hulk Hogan got the credit and Mr. T brought the media buzz, but how would Wrestlemania have done if they didn't have Roddy Piper breaking records over the heads of people, menacing Cyndi Lauper and being an outright son of a bitch, getting true, genuine heat in a way that no one, in any wrestling organization today either has the ability or the permission to create? Nowhere near the level of notoriety or success. I don't care who you replace Piper with in that era and scenario - not even Ric Flair...it wouldn't have worked. Roddy was the spark that exploded pro wrestling. Hulk Hogan got the media attention. Piper, not Vince McMahon, was the one that gave it to him.
Every great hero needs their villain. Superman needed Lex Luthor. Batman needed the Joker. Somewhere in between those two villains, with aspects of each, was Roddy Piper, the greatest comic book villain for the greatest comic book hero ever seen in pro wrestling, Hulk Hogan.
Roddy Piper had the perfect persona for being the great villain. Part charisma, he was the cocksure SOB almost as if Han Solo had walked off the screen. He knew he was smarter than everyone in the room and wasn't shy at telling everyone, because he was Roddy Piper. Part motor-mouth, he could captivate someone with what came out of his mouth and Lord knows what fueled his rants, because they certainly could never have been scripted. Piper spoke and screamed and ranted and whispered with an intensity that made you say, "This guy can't be all there." No one, with the possible exception of CM Punk in the Straightedge Society era, ever hit upon that visceral "I want him to die" level the way Piper did in the WWF.
That's because Piper was also a strategic genius. He never had the best body compared to the muscle-bound stars of the era but he knew how to make them shine. He was never the best wrestler from a scientific finesse point of view, but he could rock an Arena and make them want to kill him just by walking out in a kilt, dropping to one knee and making the "I Love you" sign with his hands as he raised his arms in the air.
Roddy Piper knew how to play to the audience, whether it was TV or live. He knew how to push their buttons and bring them up and down and to lather them up, just right, so that when it came time for a Jimmy Snuka or a Hulk Hogan or an Andre the Giant or a Mr. T to start firing up with the comeback, the crowd came unglued. He knew how to carry himself in public, so that no matter what was going on and whether he won or lost, the aura of who he was and how he was presented was never, ever damaged. The attitude was perfect. A former runaway street kid (as the legend goes...) Piper had no fear of anyone, because anything that could be done to him was already done over the course of his life. There was no fear.
The legend of who Roddy Piper was had already eclipsed the man Roderick Toombs in life and Lord knows what that legend will become over time, but if there was one defining factor to Piper and what made people love and hate him - it's that he made wrestling cool. He was the gateway drug into professional wrestling for people, because he was so outrageous and verbose. He was the little guy promising that he could kick the giant's ass and he vowed it with some believable, off the wall venom that you couldn't help but stop and ponder, becoming more interested by the second.
For me, Roddy Piper was the White Rabbit I followed down the hole into the wonderland known as professional wrestling. In 1986, 12 year old Mike Johnson attempted, as I often-did, to stay up and watch Eddie Murphy, then in his heyday, on Saturday Night Live. Well, like the best laid plans of many a kid who wants to stay up all night, I fell asleep. Lucky for me, the TV was still on.
I was woken up by the sound of who every kid thought was the toughest man in the world - Mr. T. He had beat up Rocky and he was BA Baracas. He could crush people with his hands! Well, here was Mr. T going back and forth on a "movie set" with someone, but it wasn't a movie. It was...real life? I watched in awe as not only did Mr. T not kick the bad guy's ass but the bad guy certainly was the best person on TV. I recall Piper beating up and lashing T as well, but that could be my memory playing tricks on me. Either way, I was now up and watched the rest of this spectacle, becoming fast friends with all the other stars of the era. I had discovered the first vestige of what is now known as reality TV and it was The World Wrestling Federation.
I figured out pretty quickly what was really going on in terms of wins and losses but didn't care. I saw Piper as the coolest guy, who always had the answer and when he didn't, he could fight. When he couldn't win the fight, he knew when to throw it all out the window and head for the hills. He was never, ever, really beaten and he was the guy you could point to and say, "This is why I like wrestling" and people, if they were open-minded especially, understood.
The one thing I always liked about Roddy in the WWF is that he never turned good. He went away for a while and then when he returned, he was still the same guy, just now the villains, all of whom forgot their place in the hierarchy while he was away, were now the ones facing the Wrath of Rod. His feud with Adrian Adonis was awesome from start to finish and while everyone celebrates Ricky Steamboat vs. Randy Savage and Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant, Wrestlemania III, was, to me, the Roddy Piper show.
It was win, lose or draw, he would never fight again. The last time anyone would ever see Roddy Piper (I hadn't learned what a wrestling retirement was yet) and I was both amazed and saddened by it. The match is a fun brawl, but there are three aspects of the scene that I loved. One, thanks to a cart designed to take the wrestlers to the ring, Piper decided to walk it. There were no Titantrons or big-league productions in that era. It was a guy walking the Green Mile, ready to face his maker, as he made his way to the ring. Then, when it was all said and done and finished, a fan hit the ring to embrace Piper before being taken down. Then, as Piper left, he grabbed Howard Finkel, the ring announcer who is and always will be the best of all time, and kissed him on his bald head. Then, Piper rode off into the sunset. It was brilliant.
Of course, the sunset in wrestling rises again and again, so Piper had all sorts of other adventures, everything from becoming the Intercontinental champion to reprising his feud with Ric Flair when Flair came to the WWF to feuding once again with Hulk Hogan in WCW to returning and being fired and returning to WWE and beyond. There were lots of good and bad angles and matches and stories, but still, he was Roddy Piper, so I enjoyed them all and dismissed the stuff I didn't like. This column isn't to celebrate every Piper moment but to celebrate who he was as a performer and why he was so cool.
For me, personally, beyond everything I witnessed as a fan, here's why Roddy was so awesome:
I interviewed Roddy a few times and he was kind enough to come, unannounced, to the Rocks Off Pro Wrestling Film Festival my partners and I put together, to promote his movie "Pro Wrestlers vs. Zombies", which was closing our festival. We just couldn't let anyone see him before he went on stage.
We had to bribe the comedy club next to the theater to sneak him in, he went through the club to an alley, climbed the fire escape and hid in the locker room. We had the Director of the film, Cody Knotts come out and say, he was happy to screen it and that he brought a guest. We sent out a zombie to stumble on stage as the crowd sat there, unimpressed...and then Piper walked out with a female zombie, arm in arm. Everyone sat there stunned, then screamed and went ballistic. I have chills the size of Montana thinking about it now.
After the film was over, Piper did a really great Piper's Pit segment with Knotts, grilling him about what he didn't like about the movie. How meta is that? He's the star of the movie asking the audience about what didn't work and then giving crap to the Director. I don't think Harrison Ford ever did that to Steven Spielberg. It was awesome...and he did it all, for free, just to do it, because he wanted to.
That was the kind of guy Roderick Toombs was in my dealings with him. He was a star that could have demanded a limo and all sorts of stuff and came for free, climbed up a fire escape and when he was told he could have anything he wanted for dinner as we'd send someone to get whatever he wanted from anywhere in NYC, he wanted a ham and cheese sandwich on a roll.
I'm sure he was a pain in the ass for promoters, but he was amazing in every dealing I ever had with him. I don't know that I'd say Roddy Piper was my hero growing up, but certainly he was one of the most influential performers of my life and I enjoyed the hell out of getting to meet him and not having those rosy memories destroyed by bad attitudes and piss-poor behavior. If anything, my few interactions (and don't get me wrong, there were NOT many) only served to enrich how I felt about him as I grew up.
In the era of digital media, Piper will live on forever. 50 years from now, someone will be watching his promos from Portland. They're going to hear the stories of how he was so loyal to promoter Don Owens that he wouldn't work WWF shows in the Portland area out of respect for what Owens had done for him. (Let's see SOMEONE, ANYONE try to pull that on WWE today...ain't happening!) Fans are going to see him rescue Gordon Solie from Don Muraco in Mid-Atlantic. They are going to find out that indeed Piper "scares Flair", they are going to chew bubblegum and kick ass, they will be beside him when Hell Comes to Frogtown and they are going to hear all the stories about how he was hazed, ribbed, embraced, and made a star by those he worked with in pro wrestling.
If they are lucky, really, really lucky, they'll get to be enraptured by Piper the performer the way I was at 12 years old. I can say that without a shadow of doubt in my mind, that had I not seen Piper that night, not only would I not be writing for a living professionally, but I probably wouldn't have become a wrestling fan. Hulk Hogan wouldn't have caught my attention (It didn't when I saw him in Rocky 3) but Roddy Piper...he changed all the questions just when I had the answers, and my life was beyond blessed for it.
No fear folks. If there's a philosophy that one can learn from the life and times of Roddy Piper, that's it. That was the secret to his success and it would be the secret for lots of others if they could find a way to replicate it.
No fear. Let's all try and live life that way.
Mike Johnson can be reached at MikeJohnsonPWInsider@gmail.com and suggests Roddy Piper singing "For Everybody" for your listening pleasure:
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