|
 Although many times I may not show it, I'm a Rowdy Roddy Piper fan. Sure, I'm not one of those die hard 'Hot Rod can do no wrong' type fans, but the fact is that most of my favorite memories of watching wrestling in the 80s involves The Icon. I've always favored the smart-mouthing heels, and nobody talked a bigger game than Roddy. I learned last week while skimming for pointless news to cram into my recap that Piper would be coming to the next town over from me (St Catherines, Ontario) for a 'one man show'. I had no idea what it would entail, but I knew there was a good chance that it would be crammed full of children, idiots and marks. I weighed my options and decided that the effort to call someone to go then scrounge up some tickets wasn't worth it. Sure, there was a good chance of a classic Piper meltdown, but there was also a chance of a family friendly WWE sanctioned bore-fest recalling his greatest in ring moments and not much else. Fast forward to 9am Sunday, the day of the event. My phone rings, and it's my good friend Jef Leppard. Since he doesn't hide himself in the house stewing away as life passes by (like yours truly), he actually found it rather convenient to pop by the theatre and snag some tickets. So with little effort (and a mere 25 bucks) on my part, Disco Dave was going to the theatre. We arrived at about 4:30 for a 5:30 start time. The line up wasn't too bad, maybe 60 people in front of us. The line consisted of my worst fears: kids, retards and marks. We mocked people walking by (including some dead ringers for Milli Vanilli), as people filing in and out of the theatre looked down on us. Someone behind us corrected a few facts we were discusing, such as was Steph 12 or 13 when Macho Man fucked her. Pretty much your typical local wrestling crowd. At 5:30 we filed into the theatre and waited for the guest of honor. Your typical local radio dickweeds tried to get the crowd amped up by passing out t-shirts to kids that did the world's worst Hot Rod impersonations. Famous fat fuck (at least in Canada anyways) Carl DeMarco was there to watch out for Vince McMahon's interests. The show was led into by a replay of Ric Flair's Hall of Fame induction speech for Piper. Even WWE employees found this boring, and you could see an obvious edit jump to where Ric introduces Piper. Local radio douche talks over Flair as he introduces the man live. Piper walks out to 'Roddy' chants and looks semi-stoned as usual. He removes that five dollar leather jacket he has and reveals a Blue Jays uniform with Piper 24/7 on the back. He thankfully takes that piece of shit off and reveals another crowd pandering shirt, a bright red Canada shirt. Before I get too far into it, I will point out that the show as scripted is fairly family friendly. There are no stories of hard core drug use and most of what he recalls about his life is wrestling related. Of course, being Hot Rod, he is prone to wander off the beaten path a bit. His first recollection is about being lonely and homeless in his early teens. While wandering the streets, he is befriended by a priest (who also happens to wrestle a bit on the side). Roddy spends a few months living in a youth hostel run by the priest until the father moves on. Without the padre there to bend the rules for him (such as letting him in after the allowed return time) he was pretty much back on the streets. This segues into the closest he came to a drug story all night. Roddy recalls meeting a woman at a shelter with a cat. The cat would just go batty knocking around this little bag of catnip. Piper picks up the bag and notices something familiar. Smells like Mary Jane, looks like Mary Jane, might as well pass it off as Mary Jane. Hot Rod made his early living selling off bags of catnip as quarter bags. In short order, Piper had worn out his welcome in Toronto and headed back west. The padre had given him the name of a small promoter and in turn told the promoter that young Roddy was a kid that could probably lend a hand. He recalls his introduction into the business. The promoter pointed out a mountain of a man named Larry 'The Ax' Hennig, who took one look at skinny little Hot Rod and quickly proclaimed 'dinner'. Those of you who have read your history know that Piper lost in ten seconds flat. His bounty for the night was a cool $25, which is more than TNA pays now. Piper moves on with some more stories of his early days in the ring, then gets to his travelling time with a wrestler he calls 'Igor'. Admittedly I'm not exactly a wrestling historian, so when Roddy jokingly quipped that 'the names have been changed to protect the guilty' (immediately before invoking Booker T's name in a tangent about SmackDown), I am not sure if Igor is a real and recognizable wrestler or not. Piper's Igor story could be a dalliance into folklore, as it sounded awfully familiar. Piper talks about he and Igor going into a restaurant where the older wrestler was treating him to a big fancy dinner. Around the time of dessert, Igor starts screaming at Piper about taking advantage of him then drops to the floor foaming at the mouth. He mumbles for Hot Rod to drive him to the hospital, so Piper drags him to the car and speeds off. In the car Igor does 'The Undertaker sit-up', wipes the Alka Seltzer off his face and laughs hysterically at young Roddy's reaction. More wrestling tales quickly lead to Piper discussing his debut in Mexico. In his first promo against one of the Guerreros (he couldn't remember if it was Gory or Chavo), he sat on a donkey painted with stripes, wearing a sombrero and dangling a carrot in front of it's face. This one promo almost got the entire show thrown off of nationwide syndiction in the US. They told Roddy he had to go on the air and apologize, so the next week Roddy made his apology. He tells the fans that as a gesture of good faith, he will learn the Mexican national anthem on the bagpipes and play it for the crowd. The next week, the promoter made a big spectacle of the whole event. The crowd was asked to rise to their feet, hats in hand and hand on heart, to listen to the national anthem. Hot Rod proudly plays 'La Cuccaracca' for the event, inciting a riot. I was pretty sure I heard this story before as well, probably at the hall of fame dinner or some other tribute. Regardless, Hot Rod's storytelling ability made it enjoyable, except the man really needs to learn how to end a story. He either just meanders on (almost his version of yadda yadda yadda), or comes out and states that we've reached the end of the story. His next story about wrestling a 600lb bear was like that. It's a well narrated story about the bear who drinks wild turkey chased by Coca Cola, while the trainer matches it step for step. In the ring, they only manage to get the bear to stand on it's hind legs by poking it in the ass with a long stick. Very much like how Dana White gets Chuck Lidell to stand upright before his matches. The story has it all. Action, drama, even comedy with the bear giving Roddy a rim job (I am not making that up). Roddy is on a roll until he hits the end of the story and just proclaims 'And that's the bear story.....' Roddy recounts how a rib from Freddie Blassie pretty much fucked his career in New York before it started. Piper was supposed to introduce himself to the territory by playing the bagpipes for the crowd (again I think it was the national anthem). The crowd quieted down and focused on Piper, who tried to play but got nothing. He blew until his face turned red and still nothing. Finally he gave up dejected, rushed through his match and left. The promoter told him he sucked and not to bother coming back. Roddy looks somewhat upset still to this day as he talks about it, yet goes out of his way to say that he still respects Freddie Blassie. I'm pretty sure he doesn't like him too much, but he respects him enough to not bust off into one of his tangents about the old man. Piper recounts that for the next ten years he used his anger and bitterness about being rejected in the east to hone his loud mouthed personna on the left coast. It was only when Vince McMahon Sr started gathering all the big names together in New York to try and create a national promotion that he would return. Roddy is quick to put over the old man while taking a jab at Junior just being a goofy faced announcer at the time. Piper remembers his reception in New York last time, so he suggests that they hand him a microphone and five minutes to try and make a name for himself. And this is how Piper's Pit was formed (pause for applause). Piper discusses his first Pit with Andre the Giant. He says that whenever anyone asks him if wrestling is real, he recalls his encounter with Andre. 'When you have a man with one hand on your throat, and the other on the family jewels high up in the air, then you start falling but still have time to think before you hit the ground......' (this is maybe the only time Roddy yelled during his speech) 'YOU DO THAT AND TELL ME THAT IT'S FAKE!!!!' Piper's Pit of course brings us to the Jimmy Snuka segment. Most of us have heard by now (whether we buy it or not) that Jimmy Snuka really wasn't aware of what was going on. Piper did his whole schpiel running Jimmy into the ground while fondling and tossing coconuts aside. Piper is looking from a clue from Jimmy as to whether it's OK to crack him upside the head or not. Finally Jimmy speaks and asks Piper if he is making fun of him. Piper takes this as his cue to go ahead and swing, so we get the classic Piper moment. Jimmy didn't move for a couple of minutes and just chose to stew in his own anger. This gave Roddy the time to barricade himself behind a steel door before Jimmy raged after him and almost busted his way through. Piper then gets to WrestleMania. He recalls being almost dumbstruck at the variety of celebrities there. Liberace asked him what was up his kilt, to which he replied 'Probably some of your girlfriends lips..... AH, forget it'. Little Richard, Geraldine Ferraro and the rest all run him down just knowing that he'll lose to Hogan. Suddenly Piper slips into kayfabe mode here. He claims that Vince asked him to take a dive, which he refused to do. Piper is apparently the only one who 'realizes' that he isn't gonna take the dive. The match starts and Piper talks about going balls out against Hogan until people start interfering. It all starts going downhill (at this point I wish I remembered more about the match, as Piper himself is really glossing over how it went and I'd like to fill it in). In the confusion he catches out of the corner of his eye someone with blonde hair entering the ring. Instinctively he reacts and goes to kick the shit out of them, as his rule on fans entering the ring is to nail them as they are crossing the ropes. He is at full wind and swinging when he realizes that it is Cindy Lauper. He tries to pull the kick, but he connects hard enough to 'launch her a couple of feet'. (Again, I don't recall enough to remember if that is an accurate portrayal, but this whole deal sure sounds kayfabe.) The next thing he feels is a hand on his arm, which he hip tosses past him. This turned out to be a beat cop entering the ring to 'calm the riot', and from there it was really a clusterfuck. Roddy ends this with 'And that is how WrestleMania all started...' Piper did tangent off a bit here when someone mentioned Mr T and the boxing match. He made a crack about 'T' being black yet having a mohawk. He didn't figure those people were down with that. He recalls that T thought he was bigger than shit and didn't care much for Roddy. Piper remembers a press conference where he showed up late, and all of the big stars were already seated and waiting. As he entered the room, Mr T stands up in his face, flexes his arm and says 'Feel that, sucka!' Piper squeezed his head like a cantelope and responded 'seems a little soft'. This lead to the boxing match between T and Piper. Roddy complains that he would have liked to hurt T, but they insisted on taping his hands in a fist and then putting on the gloves, meaning that his fist wouldn't be in the punching end of the glove and no damage would occur. He seems bitter about this and cuts a bad segue to his closer. Roddy musters up some tears and starts talking about how the old family of wrestlers is dying. They start to play Johnny Cash's Hurt in the background, and I think at first that the radio guys have fucked up. Roddy continues on about how 43 wrestlers under the age of fourty have died in the pst few years. Eddie Guerrero being the last of them. Apparently he never heard of Johnny Grunge either. They ring the bell ten times as Roddy reminds us that these wrestlers gave their blood, sweat, tears and even their lives for the fans. He gushes about how the fans make it all worth it. They have been his family for the past few decades. He calls out a pipe band (with a little drummer boy) and gets on the pipes himself. He struggles a bit at first with some sour notes, then they get it going smoothly and play Amazing Grace. The drummer goes all rock and roll on the drums as Roddy practically orgasms over the kid's playing. This breaks into Piper's theme and the show closes. After the crowd chants Roddy and it dies out, radio guy asks for more applause and chants so Roddy can come back out. It's time for the good old Q&A. I came to this event hoping that there would be a question and answer period. Throughout the day I struggled with what question to ask Hot Rod. I could go all AWC like and just start shouting out stupid questions that would get me tossed out on my ass. "Do you have any coke you can share?" "What does Vince's cock taste like?" "Do the black people here scare you?" "Why are you still here when 1984 was so long ago?" I'm not there to make the crowd and all the organizers hate me, but I wouldn't mind it if I could come up with a question that would invoke a response from Roddy. An angry tangent would be nice, an all out meltdown would be better. On my way into the theatre that day I settled on the question I would ask Hot Rod if the occasion arose. Q&A starts off with some typical marks and their questions. Two guys are running around different areas of the room getting people with their hands up. "Roddy, what clan does your kilt represent?" "What was your favorite WrestleMania?" "What was your best match ever?" Radio guy comes up my aisle and I signal that I have a question. He crouches down beside me as Roddy is still explaining his match with Golddust at WrestleMania where he got hot by the Cadillac. Jeff leans over and says something to the effect of "Please don't be a dick to him when you ask the question'. I say 'No worries, it's just a harmless question that I wanted to get his thoughts on." Piper finishes and radio guy directs his attention to me. "Hey Rod, since I know you're from the Portland area and all, I was wondering if you have ever had any dealings with Johnny Fairplay and his group..." Piper gives his little laugh and says, "Yeah, I know Johnny Fairplay. In fact, he tried to kill me..." At this point I expected Roddy to just dismiss Fairyplay as a dickhead, call him a few names and quickly usher on to the next question. Instead, he actually elaborated and we got one of the better stories of the night out of him. Piper says that he had fired Fairyplay. One day he receives a call from Johnny to talk things over. They go for a drive (and Piper asks us if we know Hollywood - I am not sure if he meant California, or some street in Portland) with Fairyplay at the wheel. They approach an intersection and Johnny asks Piper if he should hit it. Piper, assuming that he means 'hit the gas and fly on through', says 'Yeah, go ahead and hit it...' Fairyplay cranks the wheel to the right and slams the car into a wall (or a guardrail or post, Piper can kinda gloss over things). He says that they 'get run over by a couple of Suburbans', which I assume means that they got bounced around by a couple of SUVs. Piper describes the accident scene and how he just wanted someone to take him to the hospital because his chest was crushed. Piper says he spent a couple of weeks in the hospital, and things got much worse once they had to cut him open. He says that things got bleak, but he remembers the doctor saying that Piper was a fighter, so he can recover from this. He quickly talks about how he fought back to get better and the crowd applauds him. I think this is the first time he had a good finisher to a story all night. A few more questions are asked, including the guy right behind me asking Piper what he thought about the TNA product, on Spike TV Saturdays at 11pm. Carl DeMarco liked that question, I'm sure. Piper didn't slag them but he said his loyalty is to the WWE. He says that TNA has something but they're not big time yet. The show ended for good and we get another appearance from radio / prize guy. Jeff goes out with our ticket stubs and gets the 'free autographs' they were handing out. However, the night was not over yet. After the Piper performance, we were treated to a big screen showing of No Way Out, before which radio guy explained why Piper chose St Catherines to have this show. Apparently that particular theatre usually sells the most seats consistently for the big screen showings of the pay per views. Yeah, that's right. I live in Canada's mark capitol. Not Calgary, not Toronto, not even Montreal. St Catherines Ontario is Canada's stupid mark capitol. Is it a coincidence that we also have the highest unemployment rate in the country, aside from The Maritimes? There was about an hour before the pay per view, in which they showed Heat and gave out more shirts. I chose to endulge in a $5.75 bag of popcorn, while Jeff volunteered to put the autographs in the truck, them being so valuable and all. Jeff returns after five minutes with the autograph cards still in hand. "Uh, Dave? You better come outside with me." "Why?" I'm thinking that somehow he is getting ejected or that some sort of fight is happening. "I can't find the truck......." We walk outside and wander down the row I think that we parked on. They aren't very long, maybe 10 cars per row in this section, so there isn't much to look for. We look up and down a few rows to make sure, passing by similar looking trucks. We return to the original row, and I point out that we were definately parked beside that Dynatsy. We go inside, and back out. "We better check and make sure before calling the cops". Check number two. Nothing. "That's the fucking car, man! I'm sure of it!" Trip number three. Nothing. We ask security and they pretty much tell us to call the cops, then they get the smart idea to actually assist Jeff in his truck dilema. I retrun to the theatre and watch the first two matches. Jeff arrives and says that they caught the theft on tape. He was able to watch the security footage showing two guys walk up to the truck (which was locked, we returned to the truck to do it), pop the doors open and make it disappear. This happened a mere fifteen minutes after we left it. Broad daylight! The truck was 18 years old, and Jeff is probably more worried that the insurance company won't give him shit for it. We laughed about the incident all night and enjoyed a suprisingly decent pay per view. I must say that I was more impressed with the Angle / Undertaker match than I expected to be. And I learned a few things that night. 1) Diesel can't wrestle his way out of a paper bag. 2) Vince McMahon thinks that Rowdy Roddy Piper is just a dumb cracker 3) The next generation of face-hating little brats (specifically some Randy Orton Marks) is alive and well 4) Apparently a 1988 GMC pickup is incredibly easy to steal The show came to an end and I was suddenly transformed back to when I was a kid. Was it the nostalgia of seeing Rowdy Roddy Piper in person? Was it the fact that I hadn't watched a wrestling event with a crowd since SummerSlam 2004? No, that wasn't it. Here we are, two guys at 32 years old, standing outside the theater at 11 o'clock at night, waiting for Daddy to come drive us home. What a couple of losers! Disco Dave - Next time I'm gonna ask Hot Rod if he even knows the meaning of the word 'hypocrite' |