Piper Roddy - Rowdy: the Roddy Piper story

Its 1986 and Roddy has seen enough of this guy.

Mr. T, a celebrity drop-in recruited to sell tickets and pay-per-view to the first ever WrestleMania at Madison Square Garden in 1985, had been dining out for months on some choice moments from that groundbreaking show. The day after the biggest main event in the history of professional wrestling, newspapers around the world ran a photo of Rowdy Roddy Piper, the most hated villain in wrestling, suspended over Ts shoulders in a classic firemans carry. The audience that night slavered for what followed: the mouthy, cheating bad guy bouncing hard off the mat and receiving his just desserts for all the pain and aggravation he had caused Hulk Hogan, the champion, and Mr. T, Hogans famous tag-team partner.

Though Mr. T had acted as the mouthpiece himself opposite Sylvester Stallone in Rocky III, as a guest wrestler he stuck more to the strong, silent type of role hed been playing recently on TVs The A-Team. His choice was part necessity. Caught in the middle of the expertly improvised bombast of the worlds most famous professional wrestling feud, actor Laurence Tureaud was without a script and in danger of leaving audiences cold.

Roddy Piper had been wrestling professionally for over a decade. Hed learned the art of antagonism from masters of the business, and hed taken knives, cigarette butts, and even the threat of bullets for his trouble. WrestleMania promised to vault him and his peers to fame and fortune, so Roddy pushed his boss, the World Wrestling Federations Vince McMahon Jr., his peers and everyone involved not to blow this chance. He argued that letting Mr. T pin him for the win would diminish not just his own reputation, but the reps of everyone in the business.

Fans bought tickets because they believed wrestlers were the toughest of the tough (often they really were). If you could just borrow a TV star and let him beat up the seasoned trash-talker who was biting mercilessly at the ankles of the beloved All-American champion, Hulk Hogan, how would wrestlers of lesser fame look? If Roddy lost to T, the smallest guy in the ring, or even to the enormous Hogan himself, there was a lot less reason for the audience to come back.

In the end Roddy didnt losenot exactly. Mr. Wonderful did. Paul Orndorff, Roddys tag-team partner, was pinned by Hogan, not by T. The crowd got their cathartic victory over the bullies, but it took their favourite wrestler to beat them. The good guys still hadnt gotten Piper, not shoulders-down for a three count, fair and square. Now, a year later, Roddy and T find themselves in New York again, on Long Island this time, at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale. The success of WrestleMania has made pop culture icons of the WWFs top performers, Roddy and Hogan foremost among them. Yet Roddy still has a real chip on his shoulder about the TV star who landed in his world. Roddy respects his peers. He knows intimately the work, stress and pain they have all gone through to survive in their business. Every time Mr. T is mentioned in the same breath as pro wrestlers, that chip grows bigger. McMahon, has a promoters intuition for guessing which scores the audience will pay to see settled, so hes given T a chance to knock that chip off for goodor for Roddy to put an end to the celebritys dalliance with professional wrestling.

WrestleMania 2 plays out in three locations around the US, each with its own main event. In New Yorks finale, Roddy and Mr. T step into the ringto box. Arriving in a plaid robe in place of his usual kilt, Roddy berates T, reminding the actor hell be on his own this time. While the two literally but heads, the crowd is so loud its impossible to say which competitor theyre cheering on, but the commentators assumption holds: Mr. T is the good guy here and everyone hates Roddy.

In a postWrestleMania grudge match, Mr. T had boxed Roddys real friend and bodyguard, Cowboy Bob Orton (a wrestling lifer and the son and, later, father of wrestling stars). T was getting the better of himuntil Roddy crashed the ring, setting up tonights fight at WrestleMania 2. T is announced as eleven pounds heavier than he was the year before, and his fuller chest and shoulders seem to bear that out. He also weighs exactly one pound more than Roddys announced 235. Roddys boxing backgroundand his martial arts trainingdont get a mention from the commentators. Its T who is portrayed as being at home in a boxing ring. But the fact remains that Roddy is a pro wrestler at a pro wrestling main event. Week after week, he is the reason people watch. Even if convention demands that fans hate him for the role he plays, theyre smart enough to know hes the one who gives them what they want.

In the first round, Roddy is aggressive while T plays peek-a-boo, waiting for his opponent to abandon his defenses and then cutting loose on Roddys midsection. When Ts gloves find their mark, low or high, Roddy sells it. His head snaps back and forth. Sometimes his reactions to head shots look comical up close on television, but tonight hes doing it for the guy in the back row who cant even see Ts reactions when Roddy returns fire.

They break dirty, they keep fighting after the round is over, Roddy pushes the referee out of the way so he can kick T when hes downthe match is a lot of what youd expect, and if youre a wrestling fan, its a lot of what you pay to see.