1
00:00:00,300 --> 00:00:01,360
I'm going to take my phone.

2
00:00:01,600 --> 00:00:02,600
Sure.

3
00:00:05,540 --> 00:00:06,540
Roddy.

4
00:00:08,060 --> 00:00:09,260
Yeah, I'm doing great. How are you?

5
00:00:10,340 --> 00:00:11,960
We're just getting ready to do an
interview about you.

6
00:00:13,920 --> 00:00:15,280
A little warm down there, huh?

7
00:00:16,180 --> 00:00:17,180
You what?

8
00:00:18,200 --> 00:00:21,480
I... Yeah, not anytime soon, though.

9
00:00:22,520 --> 00:00:24,080
You're holding a place for me.

10
00:00:24,540 --> 00:00:26,780
Right next to you at the table. Great.

11
00:00:28,480 --> 00:00:29,480
No, I...

12
00:00:29,980 --> 00:00:32,259
I'm just going to talk about you. All
good things, not to worry about it.

13
00:00:33,420 --> 00:00:34,420
Great.

14
00:00:35,100 --> 00:00:36,100
Thanks, Roddy.

15
00:00:40,860 --> 00:00:42,240
Roddy's in heaven. Roddy's not in hell.

16
00:01:01,040 --> 00:01:06,060
Coming to the WWE, I really wanted to
make sure that every single time that I

17
00:01:06,060 --> 00:01:09,020
walked out there, everyone remembered
Rowdy, Rowdy Piper.

18
00:01:10,040 --> 00:01:13,300
Rowdy is the only name I could have
taken on.

19
00:01:13,760 --> 00:01:18,240
I wanted to make sure that that next
generation of kids knew who he was and

20
00:01:18,240 --> 00:01:21,140
respected his memory and what he's
contributed to the business.

21
00:01:22,440 --> 00:01:27,100
When I ran into Piper, he's the one that
made everything else possible.

22
00:01:28,060 --> 00:01:29,260
He was the key.

23
00:01:29,820 --> 00:01:33,060
The cog in the wheel that's without
Piper, we could have never launched into

24
00:01:33,060 --> 00:01:37,740
stratosphere. It's as simple as this.
When RP talks, brother, he won't listen.

25
00:01:37,900 --> 00:01:39,240
He was the ultimate bad guy.

26
00:01:39,480 --> 00:01:40,500
How you doing, Faxel?

27
00:01:41,060 --> 00:01:44,200
He sold it, he packed it, he was good at
what he did.

28
00:01:45,620 --> 00:01:49,980
Just when they think they got the
answers, I change the question.

29
00:01:50,220 --> 00:01:54,580
Even if you had never heard of Roddy
Piper, you could tell you didn't like

30
00:01:54,580 --> 00:01:56,360
guy. Nobody messes with Piper!

31
00:01:56,560 --> 00:01:57,560
He was riveting.

32
00:01:57,660 --> 00:01:58,880
I've seen a lot of it!

33
00:01:59,280 --> 00:02:03,360
A really good -hearted guy, a really
tough son of a bitch.

34
00:02:05,060 --> 00:02:06,920
He was not like any other wrestler.

35
00:02:07,140 --> 00:02:11,000
He was, in his own world, a real strong
family man.

36
00:02:11,320 --> 00:02:18,260
He kept his family completely out of it,
and I think he took too much of it on

37
00:02:18,260 --> 00:02:19,260
himself.

38
00:02:21,060 --> 00:02:24,280
Everything he did from the moment he
walked out of the ring rubbed people

39
00:02:24,480 --> 00:02:27,820
You're going to see something you've
never seen in your life before.

40
00:02:28,080 --> 00:02:32,720
Whatever it was, he went against the
grain and he just lived in that glory.

41
00:02:50,760 --> 00:02:52,800
You know, God takes care of fools and
babies.

42
00:02:55,280 --> 00:02:59,680
Before I was a pro wrestler, I got hit
by a pickup truck.

43
00:03:00,640 --> 00:03:02,560
I lived in an Indian reservation.

44
00:03:02,860 --> 00:03:05,460
I had tonsillitis, so they took out my
appendix.

45
00:03:06,020 --> 00:03:07,500
I moved a lot.

46
00:03:08,940 --> 00:03:10,600
I got hurt a lot as a little kid.

47
00:03:13,600 --> 00:03:16,180
My dad, Roddy Piper, he was born in
Canada.

48
00:03:16,650 --> 00:03:20,590
It's in a place called Saskatoon,
Saskatchewan, which is one of the

49
00:03:20,590 --> 00:03:21,850
places in the world.

50
00:03:22,750 --> 00:03:27,230
He used to tell me, you know, the story
of running uphill both ways to school,

51
00:03:27,310 --> 00:03:29,270
right, in the snow. He actually did
that.

52
00:03:30,370 --> 00:03:32,950
His dad was a police officer that worked
for the railroad.

53
00:03:33,610 --> 00:03:38,190
And this meant that they traveled 24 -7.
They would spend a week in one town, a

54
00:03:38,190 --> 00:03:39,190
week in the next.

55
00:03:39,430 --> 00:03:41,010
I think he was about 10 years old.

56
00:03:41,350 --> 00:03:44,670
He was on an Indian reservation for
about six months.

57
00:03:45,100 --> 00:03:46,600
He's the only white kid on it.

58
00:03:47,300 --> 00:03:51,220
Everybody else is Indian, and they don't
like white people at the time. So he

59
00:03:51,220 --> 00:03:54,280
had to learn how to fight his way
through and get their respect.

60
00:03:54,700 --> 00:03:58,360
So every few months, no matter where he
was going, he would have to start over,

61
00:03:58,480 --> 00:04:02,940
build his reputation, and be the tough
guy so he wouldn't get hurt. He would go

62
00:04:02,940 --> 00:04:08,420
out and get in trouble and come home and
face all kinds of physical punishment.

63
00:04:10,560 --> 00:04:12,220
It was a hard Victorian.

64
00:04:13,390 --> 00:04:16,870
upbringing, very strict, being the
youngest.

65
00:04:17,390 --> 00:04:21,730
He always kind of felt like he was an
afterthought in his family is what he

66
00:04:21,730 --> 00:04:24,050
would tell me, like he wasn't expected.

67
00:04:24,930 --> 00:04:29,030
Not a lot of hugs, not a lot of verbal I
love yous.

68
00:04:29,730 --> 00:04:34,110
My grandpa did beat my dad, I don't know
how often, but he was physical enough

69
00:04:34,110 --> 00:04:38,530
with him that it was a dark place that
my dad never really wanted to talk about

70
00:04:38,530 --> 00:04:39,409
with us.

71
00:04:39,410 --> 00:04:42,190
You're 12, 11, 10 years old.

72
00:04:42,820 --> 00:04:46,920
You move ten times, where all of a
sudden you get into a fight.

73
00:04:47,380 --> 00:04:49,960
You come back home and you get into a
fight because you got into a fight.

74
00:04:50,380 --> 00:04:56,480
You know, it's... I don't think that

75
00:04:56,480 --> 00:05:03,280
punishment, physical punishment, is a
way to raise a kid. None

76
00:05:03,280 --> 00:05:05,120
of it goes out of my house ever.

77
00:05:06,840 --> 00:05:10,420
There was a lot of trauma in his
childhood, and...

78
00:05:11,110 --> 00:05:12,330
It followed him.

79
00:05:12,890 --> 00:05:16,650
He seemed like the kind of person that
always had a demon or something on his

80
00:05:16,650 --> 00:05:20,650
shoulder and that he was fighting with.
And I think that that started at a very,

81
00:05:20,710 --> 00:05:22,370
very young age, long before wrestling.

82
00:05:25,450 --> 00:05:27,690
I got into my bagpipes a lot.

83
00:05:28,130 --> 00:05:31,310
And then it kind of pulled me away from
everybody.

84
00:05:32,910 --> 00:05:36,950
I don't know how, but that's where I
started when I was six years old playing

85
00:05:36,950 --> 00:05:37,950
the bagpipes.

86
00:05:38,440 --> 00:05:41,280
It was a place for me to go. It was
loud.

87
00:05:41,740 --> 00:05:43,600
People knew, don't interrupt.

88
00:05:44,400 --> 00:05:46,800
It actually became a hideaway for me.

89
00:05:49,780 --> 00:05:55,380
One day, I was in my house, and there
was a knock at my back door, and there

90
00:05:55,380 --> 00:05:58,800
two friends of mine with this new guy,
Rod.

91
00:05:59,900 --> 00:06:04,820
And so they said to me, Cam, you're a
pretty tough guy, and this new guy, Rod,

92
00:06:04,980 --> 00:06:07,420
he's a pretty tough guy. Why don't you
have a fight?

93
00:06:08,110 --> 00:06:09,310
I said, sure.

94
00:06:09,790 --> 00:06:11,470
And we went at it.

95
00:06:11,690 --> 00:06:15,870
Like in the movies, he drilled me a good
one and I flew over top of my

96
00:06:15,870 --> 00:06:18,290
motorcycle and he won the fight.

97
00:06:18,890 --> 00:06:23,470
As I found out later, Rod told me he was
the light heavyweight boxing champ for

98
00:06:23,470 --> 00:06:24,470
Toronto.

99
00:06:24,750 --> 00:06:28,610
And from that point on, we became best
friends.

100
00:06:29,270 --> 00:06:34,050
He was a high school wrestler and he was
number two in the city.

101
00:06:34,290 --> 00:06:37,010
That was his goal, was to be a wrestler.

102
00:06:38,420 --> 00:06:42,180
And A, he did graduate school. He
finally did leave home.

103
00:06:42,400 --> 00:06:45,760
He would have liked a better
relationship with his father, you know?

104
00:06:46,020 --> 00:06:47,380
That was eating him up.

105
00:06:48,320 --> 00:06:52,260
As Rod became a young adult, it just
became too much because Rod wanted to

106
00:06:52,260 --> 00:06:53,059
Russ back.

107
00:06:53,060 --> 00:06:56,320
The only other choice would be to have
an all -out brawl with your father.

108
00:06:57,700 --> 00:07:01,120
He left home and was out on his own.

109
00:07:02,060 --> 00:07:05,980
It's just time to go. So I took my
bagpipes, and I just never went back.

110
00:07:07,080 --> 00:07:13,220
He was really a nomad. He went to youth
hostels, YMCA, anywhere, usually back

111
00:07:13,220 --> 00:07:16,160
then, at five bucks for the night. You
could do it, or you'd get there and it'd

112
00:07:16,160 --> 00:07:18,320
be full, so you would be on the street
that night.

113
00:07:19,240 --> 00:07:22,880
I had to make money, so I played my
bagpipes and I'd get quarters or

114
00:07:22,880 --> 00:07:23,880
they gave me.

115
00:07:24,860 --> 00:07:27,500
You sleep during the day. It's too
dangerous to sleep at nighttime.

116
00:07:27,960 --> 00:07:32,060
At nighttime, you get cold, you get
hungry, and so you start to try to feed

117
00:07:32,060 --> 00:07:33,060
of these necessities.

118
00:07:33,530 --> 00:07:37,730
I started stealing what I needed and
then got with a group of bad guys.

119
00:07:38,270 --> 00:07:41,570
You know, all of a sudden you're
carrying a switchblade and, you know,

120
00:07:41,570 --> 00:07:42,570
the fights.

121
00:07:42,810 --> 00:07:47,350
Now I was getting off on this bully type
of thing, which I hate.

122
00:07:47,730 --> 00:07:52,110
He was beaten up. He was made fun of.
Half of those beatings were because

123
00:07:52,110 --> 00:07:55,190
somebody was trying to sexually abuse
him. And you fight back.

124
00:07:56,230 --> 00:07:59,930
You know, I think he did a little
robbery here and there, and he was

125
00:07:59,930 --> 00:08:01,670
ashamed of it. It was a brief.

126
00:08:02,080 --> 00:08:07,700
Part of his life, he also would fight.
People would pay to see him fight on the

127
00:08:07,700 --> 00:08:10,400
street, doing whatever it takes to
survive.

128
00:08:11,280 --> 00:08:13,180
I was living in a youth hostel.

129
00:08:13,560 --> 00:08:17,280
This is Father O'Malley, you know, he
says, you know, Roderick, have you ever

130
00:08:17,280 --> 00:08:18,480
seen professional wrestling?

131
00:08:18,740 --> 00:08:21,700
I said, no, sir. He says, I can get you
$25.

132
00:08:22,520 --> 00:08:24,340
You know, that was like three months
rent.

133
00:08:24,560 --> 00:08:28,700
He was 15 years old when he had his
first professional fight against Larry

134
00:08:28,700 --> 00:08:29,700
Axe Henning.

135
00:08:32,520 --> 00:08:37,020
You know, Rod, he knew that he needed an
angle. I don't believe at that time

136
00:08:37,020 --> 00:08:43,020
he'd come up with Rowdy Roddy Piper. His
name was Rod Toombs, so he went by that

137
00:08:43,020 --> 00:08:44,020
name.

138
00:08:44,480 --> 00:08:49,640
I don't know how many wrestlers can play
the bagpipes and has kilts. So that's

139
00:08:49,640 --> 00:08:54,500
what he did to distinguish himself based
on the talent that he actually had.

140
00:08:54,820 --> 00:08:57,840
The announcer, he just knew my name was
Roddy.

141
00:08:58,190 --> 00:09:02,470
He had to announce something, and he
says, ladies and gentlemen, here comes

142
00:09:02,470 --> 00:09:04,930
Roddy the Piper.

143
00:09:05,310 --> 00:09:10,910
He was just naturally good at it, and
then that evolved into his wrestling

144
00:09:10,910 --> 00:09:14,750
career, since it was a special skill
that he could use as a gimmick. People

145
00:09:14,750 --> 00:09:20,670
would stand up and say, you know, and
yell at him. That was his goal, was to

146
00:09:20,670 --> 00:09:24,270
people pissed off at him. So they're
going to look in the program, who is

147
00:09:24,270 --> 00:09:29,080
guy? My nose is broke, you know, and
Larry only hit me twice, but he did a

148
00:09:29,080 --> 00:09:32,820
job. And I was drooping. He says, kid,
how'd you like to go to Kansas City? And

149
00:09:32,820 --> 00:09:35,660
that's how I got into pro wrestling, and
I never stopped.

150
00:09:36,760 --> 00:09:41,020
He knew that there was going to be many
days that he didn't know where the next

151
00:09:41,020 --> 00:09:46,660
paycheck was coming, and so he just
threw himself at it. That took him all

152
00:09:46,660 --> 00:09:51,560
across Canada and then into the States
and just wherever he could get a job.

153
00:09:51,840 --> 00:09:54,700
When wrestling came along, That's why.

154
00:09:55,180 --> 00:09:59,940
Because it had all the elements without
the police.

155
00:10:00,820 --> 00:10:05,280
There were more than two dozen wrestling
territories in North America.

156
00:10:05,500 --> 00:10:11,020
So that meant that guys could make a
living uprooting, going from territory

157
00:10:11,020 --> 00:10:14,920
territory. I'm so fortunate to have
wrestling and the way it evolved.

158
00:10:15,140 --> 00:10:19,200
If it hadn't, I would have been dead.
There's no doubt about it.

159
00:10:21,450 --> 00:10:28,170
I've got a baby face that looks well in
dress playing bagpipes, and they just

160
00:10:28,170 --> 00:10:29,149
beat me up.

161
00:10:29,150 --> 00:10:32,470
So when you're just getting in, you're
breaking into pro wrestling, what do you

162
00:10:32,470 --> 00:10:36,510
do? They beat you up, and you have to
continuously get up and keep coming

163
00:10:37,390 --> 00:10:44,090
I got my first break in Los Angeles, and
holy cow, really, really

164
00:10:44,090 --> 00:10:45,990
brutal, brutal days.

165
00:10:50,250 --> 00:10:51,770
Roddy came into the gym.

166
00:10:52,830 --> 00:10:58,650
He says, what are you doing? You going
to sweep up the place or sell hot

167
00:10:58,650 --> 00:11:00,330
doggies, chicken on a bun?

168
00:11:00,670 --> 00:11:02,750
He says, no, I'm a wrestler.

169
00:11:03,530 --> 00:11:07,730
And I says, you look like you got polio
in your stomach. You're so small.

170
00:11:08,490 --> 00:11:13,150
You'll never make it. You got to learn
how to wrestle so you could be a

171
00:11:13,150 --> 00:11:14,150
bastard.

172
00:11:14,720 --> 00:11:17,440
We're going to see things that are
different, that's never been seen

173
00:11:17,560 --> 00:11:19,660
ever, ever on any film.

174
00:11:22,440 --> 00:11:26,820
Don't practice this without a qualified
instructor right there with you.

175
00:11:28,220 --> 00:11:34,200
Gino Jean, if you don't know, look him
up, was the toughest man in the world.

176
00:11:34,500 --> 00:11:39,420
Trained Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, Rowdy
Ronda Rousey.

177
00:11:39,780 --> 00:11:43,300
Jean Lavelle, I would consider the
most...

178
00:11:43,560 --> 00:11:45,800
A decorated stuntman of all time.

179
00:11:46,100 --> 00:11:49,980
He was in the first ever televised MMA
event.

180
00:11:51,100 --> 00:11:54,560
And when I was doing judo, he would help
me a lot. And then when I got into MMA,

181
00:11:54,940 --> 00:11:57,740
he was in my corner for, like, every
single match.

182
00:11:58,920 --> 00:12:03,920
Judo Gene saw that these guys were
bullying me. And Gene would tell me what

183
00:12:03,920 --> 00:12:04,779
do on the fly.

184
00:12:04,780 --> 00:12:07,360
You gotta beat him with the dark side of
the moon.

185
00:12:08,000 --> 00:12:10,440
Roddy'd say, well, what's the dark side
of the moon?

186
00:12:11,080 --> 00:12:14,720
Well, what the referee doesn't see
didn't happen.

187
00:12:14,980 --> 00:12:18,860
Watch you don't take the eyes out. This
is a throw. Throw to great hand.

188
00:12:19,960 --> 00:12:26,720
He'd call me late at night, and my wife
said, hey, it must be Roddy

189
00:12:26,720 --> 00:12:27,659
calling again.

190
00:12:27,660 --> 00:12:30,980
So he says, hey, let's go roll for a
couple hours.

191
00:12:31,600 --> 00:12:33,100
We worked out hard.

192
00:12:33,800 --> 00:12:35,180
No playing games.

193
00:12:35,500 --> 00:12:37,580
He wanted to know how to wrestle.

194
00:12:38,340 --> 00:12:40,280
The LaBelle family is...

195
00:12:40,480 --> 00:12:41,379
They're legendary.

196
00:12:41,380 --> 00:12:46,020
They ran the Olympic auditorium. And
because Dad had earned their respect, he

197
00:12:46,020 --> 00:12:49,600
was able then to wrestle there in L .A.
for the LaBelle family.

198
00:12:49,820 --> 00:12:53,940
And that is really where Dad got the
chance to spread his wings and really

199
00:12:53,940 --> 00:12:58,700
become not just another fighter, but the
one they came to see.

200
00:13:05,160 --> 00:13:09,300
One of my favorite memories with him is
when I was like...

201
00:13:09,550 --> 00:13:13,150
15, he brought me to LA to see
Hollywood.

202
00:13:13,510 --> 00:13:18,010
And I wanted to be an actress and
singer. And so to me, Hollywood was

203
00:13:18,270 --> 00:13:24,030
Marilyn Monroe handprints and glamour
and all of that. And we get here, he

204
00:13:24,030 --> 00:13:26,910
a car and he's like, all right, kid, I'm
going to take you around town.

205
00:13:28,190 --> 00:13:33,210
First thing he does is he goes somewhere
into like the Compton maybe area. I was

206
00:13:33,210 --> 00:13:36,410
a little young to understand what I was
looking at. And he was like.

207
00:13:36,930 --> 00:13:38,910
That's where your father slept on the
street.

208
00:13:39,650 --> 00:13:42,450
A woman got murdered right outside my
window.

209
00:13:42,710 --> 00:13:45,030
But I didn't say anything because I'm
not a snitch.

210
00:13:45,230 --> 00:13:48,270
He's just telling me these horrific
stories.

211
00:13:50,570 --> 00:13:53,010
So then I come home from that vacation.

212
00:13:53,490 --> 00:13:56,670
My friends asked me, they're like, how's
Hollywood? And I was like, they're

213
00:13:56,670 --> 00:14:01,210
like, did you see this and that? I was
like, I think I got the wrestler's tour.

214
00:14:11,400 --> 00:14:13,460
I was born and grew up in Los Angeles.

215
00:14:14,600 --> 00:14:17,080
Some of my earliest memories that I have
are actually about professional

216
00:14:17,080 --> 00:14:18,580
wrestling, being a professional
wrestling fan.

217
00:14:19,820 --> 00:14:23,360
I can remember going down on the bus,
running with my stepfather, trying to

218
00:14:23,360 --> 00:14:25,280
catch a bus to go down to the Olympic
Auditorium.

219
00:14:25,860 --> 00:14:30,220
In 1976, one of the new faces in the
territory was a young lad by the name of

220
00:14:30,220 --> 00:14:31,220
Roddy Piper.

221
00:14:31,700 --> 00:14:33,420
He was 21 years old.

222
00:14:33,820 --> 00:14:35,900
He was a young, fresh -faced kid.

223
00:14:37,360 --> 00:14:38,800
Fans give him slight applause.

224
00:14:41,040 --> 00:14:43,280
They start wrestling and it starts out
as a clean match.

225
00:14:43,700 --> 00:14:49,400
But little by little, subtly, he starts
doing these things that only a villain

226
00:14:49,400 --> 00:14:50,400
would do.

227
00:14:51,260 --> 00:14:54,960
He was fighting and he was giving people
kicks to the groin during this

228
00:14:54,960 --> 00:14:55,960
wrestling match.

229
00:14:58,200 --> 00:15:02,880
It was like watching a caterpillar
transform into a butterfly.

230
00:15:03,660 --> 00:15:05,120
And you just saw this magic.

231
00:15:06,170 --> 00:15:10,910
before your eyes, people were booing
Roddy Piper. They absolutely hated who

232
00:15:10,910 --> 00:15:12,650
was. I am the intelligence.

233
00:15:13,190 --> 00:15:16,610
I think the most controversial thing I
did was stir up controversy.

234
00:15:17,830 --> 00:15:18,830
Because it draws money.

235
00:15:19,530 --> 00:15:21,050
Conflict draws money.

236
00:15:21,410 --> 00:15:25,170
The wheels are always turning for him as
to what can I say, what can I do next?

237
00:15:25,470 --> 00:15:26,770
Because you had to keep them interested.

238
00:15:27,010 --> 00:15:28,010
You had to keep them coming back.

239
00:15:28,890 --> 00:15:30,330
There's no way, Piper!

240
00:15:30,550 --> 00:15:31,529
Hey, I fool!

241
00:15:31,530 --> 00:15:32,610
Hey! Piper!

242
00:15:32,910 --> 00:15:34,590
Anything he...

243
00:15:34,810 --> 00:15:38,490
did, he wanted to be good at it. I don't
plan to go in there and make it easy.

244
00:15:38,830 --> 00:15:42,570
I don't plan to go in there and not have
some knocks on my own knocking bullet.

245
00:15:42,670 --> 00:15:49,210
And they used him to do the interviews
because he would showboat and help sell

246
00:15:49,210 --> 00:15:50,670
boletos, tickets.

247
00:15:51,350 --> 00:15:54,430
You're a pig, Guerrero! Your father was
a pig!

248
00:15:54,710 --> 00:15:56,410
Your brother was a pig!

249
00:15:56,890 --> 00:15:58,670
And you're a pig, Guerrero!

250
00:15:59,050 --> 00:16:03,210
The Guerrero family was one of the first
families in professional wrestling.

251
00:16:03,760 --> 00:16:08,500
If you're a Latino descent, you didn't
really see a lot of faces on television

252
00:16:08,500 --> 00:16:09,900
that were like yours.

253
00:16:10,180 --> 00:16:13,780
And usually if you did, they played the
roles of a gardener or they played the

254
00:16:13,780 --> 00:16:14,780
role of a maid.

255
00:16:15,080 --> 00:16:21,400
So for us to see the Guerrero family in
hero roles was very important.

256
00:16:22,500 --> 00:16:23,580
We worshipped them.

257
00:16:23,880 --> 00:16:26,820
You get in that ring, Chavo Guerrero,
and it's going to be all over you,

258
00:16:26,940 --> 00:16:29,960
brother, because I don't give a damn
about nothing no more. When Roddy Piper

259
00:16:29,960 --> 00:16:33,580
would insult the Guerreros, We took it
very personally.

260
00:16:34,260 --> 00:16:39,060
You sitting at home with your fat
bellies and your construction boats

261
00:16:39,060 --> 00:16:41,040
your beer, you know who I am.

262
00:16:41,860 --> 00:16:43,300
Roddy really had the whole package.

263
00:16:43,560 --> 00:16:47,440
In the ring, he was a dirty wrestler,
but he had all this tremendous frenetic

264
00:16:47,440 --> 00:16:48,440
energy.

265
00:16:48,900 --> 00:16:51,580
But also, he knew how to get a reaction
out of the fans.

266
00:16:51,820 --> 00:16:55,260
And one of the ways he would do that was
to bring his bagpipes out to the ring.

267
00:16:56,020 --> 00:16:59,480
One time, he told everybody in silence
the entire...

268
00:16:59,770 --> 00:17:05,810
stadium. He'd play the Mexican national
anthem to apologize for attacking the

269
00:17:05,810 --> 00:17:09,990
Guerreros. I said, you know, I love you
people.

270
00:17:10,430 --> 00:17:13,170
I'd like to do something special.

271
00:17:13,910 --> 00:17:19,690
And all the wonderful Hispanic people
came in. I'm in the ring.

272
00:17:20,290 --> 00:17:27,270
And please stand for the Mexican
national anthem.

273
00:17:31,530 --> 00:17:34,710
I said to myself, I'm going to die.

274
00:17:36,010 --> 00:17:38,070
I put those bagpipes up, man.

275
00:17:38,490 --> 00:17:39,570
It's too late, right?

276
00:17:40,230 --> 00:17:41,990
And Roddy starts playing his notes.

277
00:17:42,430 --> 00:17:46,170
It's not the Mexican national anthem,
but he starts playing La Cucaracha.

278
00:17:46,830 --> 00:17:48,690
He starts playing a song about a
cockroach.

279
00:18:04,179 --> 00:18:09,680
And the fans, they're just shocked.

280
00:18:10,160 --> 00:18:14,160
Chairs come up, things are being thrown,
stages being overcome.

281
00:18:14,380 --> 00:18:17,040
It was like watching a car wreck, you
know?

282
00:18:17,440 --> 00:18:20,020
It's a horrible thing to see, but at the
same time, you can't take your eyes

283
00:18:20,020 --> 00:18:22,140
away from it. I was there that night.

284
00:18:23,310 --> 00:18:27,010
And I was going to whiz in my pants.

285
00:18:27,690 --> 00:18:29,310
You can't write that kind of stuff.

286
00:18:29,530 --> 00:18:31,690
I said, this guy is a natural.

287
00:18:33,510 --> 00:18:38,770
Well, ladies and gentlemen, the Rotated
Wrestler of the Year, maybe you guessed

288
00:18:38,770 --> 00:18:41,830
it, Roddy Piper!

289
00:18:43,410 --> 00:18:46,710
You had to move around, especially as a
bad guy.

290
00:18:47,210 --> 00:18:51,970
You would run your course, and then you
needed to go on and find

291
00:18:52,690 --> 00:18:57,290
another place to go and stake your claim
for a while and then you would move on

292
00:18:57,290 --> 00:19:04,290
somewhere else. I am extremely pleased
to take my wonderful trophy.

293
00:19:04,630 --> 00:19:09,310
Once I left Los Angeles and I went to
Portland, nobody knew who I was. So you

294
00:19:09,310 --> 00:19:10,530
had to start all over again.

295
00:19:19,890 --> 00:19:21,250
32nd birthday gift.

296
00:19:23,380 --> 00:19:24,380
32.

297
00:19:25,320 --> 00:19:30,120
Did you find the choke? Yeah. Okay, kick
the engine over, leaving the throttle

298
00:19:30,120 --> 00:19:31,120
closed.

299
00:19:33,000 --> 00:19:35,600
It's probably just new. It takes a lot
of kicks.

300
00:19:35,920 --> 00:19:36,920
Yeah, maybe.

301
00:19:37,400 --> 00:19:39,300
I met Roddy in 1979.

302
00:19:39,600 --> 00:19:45,300
I was working graveyard shift as a
waitress to the southwest side of

303
00:19:47,740 --> 00:19:51,240
Roderick, you're lucky I had it high
enough that that didn't show.

304
00:19:53,680 --> 00:19:56,220
He was the funniest human being on the
planet.

305
00:19:57,060 --> 00:19:58,060
Is that it?

306
00:19:59,160 --> 00:20:00,160
Oh, the guy.

307
00:20:00,320 --> 00:20:03,400
All the wrinkles on my face are from
him. It makes me laugh.

308
00:20:04,720 --> 00:20:09,520
I was young. I was 19 years old. And so
all the other waitresses would say, you

309
00:20:09,520 --> 00:20:10,860
go wait on those wrestlers.

310
00:20:11,440 --> 00:20:15,700
Prime rib was always what he got. He
ordered two prime ribs and always two

311
00:20:15,700 --> 00:20:16,820
pieces of lemon pie.

312
00:20:17,600 --> 00:20:21,520
He started asking me, hey, can I have
your phone number? I'd like to ask you

313
00:20:21,520 --> 00:20:22,520
out.

314
00:20:23,610 --> 00:20:27,170
I thought he was cute as heck. I thought
he was cute as heck. But the crowd he

315
00:20:27,170 --> 00:20:32,070
was with was so loud, and so I'm like,
no, you know, hey, hi, hi.

316
00:20:32,270 --> 00:20:36,550
And so we kind of flirted, but after
about a month, his tag team partner,

317
00:20:36,550 --> 00:20:40,610
Brooks, got down on his knees, and he
says, please give him your phone number.

318
00:20:40,690 --> 00:20:45,030
I'm his tag team partner, and I'm
getting beat to heck out there because

319
00:20:45,030 --> 00:20:47,330
only thinking about you. He wants to get
to know you.

320
00:20:47,750 --> 00:20:49,630
So I said, okay, I'll take his phone
number.

321
00:20:50,750 --> 00:20:52,570
And then we hit it off.

322
00:20:58,800 --> 00:21:02,560
Portland wrestling in the late 70s,
early 80s was huge.

323
00:21:02,860 --> 00:21:04,700
The buildings were always packed.

324
00:21:05,320 --> 00:21:09,720
From the moment I started dating him,
anywhere we would go, people knew who he

325
00:21:09,720 --> 00:21:15,040
was. Everyone pretty much had the same
reaction. They were shocked, but after

326
00:21:15,040 --> 00:21:19,740
they met him, they all understood that
he was a genuine guy and caring.

327
00:21:24,780 --> 00:21:30,360
And to have to do something like when he
attacked a woman wrestler, he has to do

328
00:21:30,360 --> 00:21:34,240
it over the top because it's so hard for
him to do.

329
00:21:34,500 --> 00:21:38,580
This is why men wrestle and why women
don't! This is why!

330
00:21:41,060 --> 00:21:45,300
For Roddy, in real life, a woman is on a
pedestal.

331
00:21:46,880 --> 00:21:48,360
He's very old -fashioned.

332
00:21:48,980 --> 00:21:52,920
You would never hit a woman. You would
never insult a woman.

333
00:21:53,720 --> 00:22:00,040
And I decided early on I was going to
love Roddy no matter what. I did, and I

334
00:22:00,040 --> 00:22:03,680
do, and wouldn't change it for the
world.

335
00:22:12,480 --> 00:22:16,040
In Portland, it was a smaller territory.

336
00:22:16,380 --> 00:22:19,400
In Atlanta, the business was growing.

337
00:22:20,030 --> 00:22:24,850
You had to move around, and you had to
be able to go from territory to

338
00:22:24,850 --> 00:22:27,750
territory. That's the way that the
business worked at the time.

339
00:22:28,130 --> 00:22:29,990
They called me in the East Coast.

340
00:22:30,490 --> 00:22:35,490
I was ready at any time to get up and
take a left -hand turn, and I drove the

341
00:22:35,490 --> 00:22:37,590
old yellow Canary right across the
country.

342
00:22:42,950 --> 00:22:46,910
WTBS in Atlanta, Georgia, Ted Turner's
Superstation.

343
00:22:47,850 --> 00:22:49,410
Wrestling was a staple.

344
00:22:52,150 --> 00:22:53,410
Here's Roddy Piper.

345
00:22:53,690 --> 00:22:56,910
Very few people knew who he was on a
national basis.

346
00:22:57,270 --> 00:23:02,210
He wasn't the biggest guy in the world,
but the one thing that he did better

347
00:23:02,210 --> 00:23:04,230
than anybody else was talk.

348
00:23:04,750 --> 00:23:09,050
It's a pleasure for you to have me here.
I'm sure you see, being the expert that

349
00:23:09,050 --> 00:23:15,930
I am. The promoter realized Roddy knew
how to tell a story, not just his own

350
00:23:15,930 --> 00:23:18,430
story. but other people's stories.

351
00:23:18,670 --> 00:23:24,010
People want to get familiar with me. He
was brought in as Rod Piper, the color

352
00:23:24,010 --> 00:23:30,650
commentator. Sport coat, no kilt. And
then the color commentator began to

353
00:23:30,650 --> 00:23:32,710
skew his views.

354
00:23:33,350 --> 00:23:35,950
You got a big, big, big mouth.

355
00:23:36,250 --> 00:23:39,870
Maybe a little bit more nasty.

356
00:23:40,830 --> 00:23:45,790
Maybe a little bit more against the fan
favorites.

357
00:23:49,680 --> 00:23:55,420
And they created another way to get this
character over.

358
00:23:55,640 --> 00:23:59,160
They say sticks and stones may break my
bones, but words will never hurt me.

359
00:23:59,180 --> 00:24:02,540
Well, some of the words he's said about
me and my family have hurt me deeply.

360
00:24:02,740 --> 00:24:05,440
Sticks and stones may break your bones.
You are right.

361
00:24:06,220 --> 00:24:08,860
And I'm not enough to throw sticks and
stones.

362
00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:13,420
Now you've got, I can kick that
commentator's butt.

363
00:24:15,980 --> 00:24:18,480
The commentator was a wrestler and a
tough guy.

364
00:24:20,180 --> 00:24:22,440
Now he comes out with the kill.

365
00:24:23,860 --> 00:24:28,640
Now he's Roddy Piper. Roddy Piper, the
only way that he's really been

366
00:24:28,640 --> 00:24:31,220
outstanding in this match is his bad
sportsmanship.

367
00:24:31,880 --> 00:24:35,540
They're trying to literally carry Piper
out of the ring.

368
00:24:35,900 --> 00:24:37,460
I told you Piper pays back.

369
00:24:37,660 --> 00:24:40,740
I told you nobody, nobody messes with
Piper.

370
00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:46,090
When he wrestles as a bad guy, That was
the most comfortable for him. Come out

371
00:24:46,090 --> 00:24:48,290
here right now and fight me like a man!

372
00:24:48,510 --> 00:24:52,690
Come right now! If you're a bad guy,
fans aren't going to come up and shake

373
00:24:52,690 --> 00:24:53,669
hand as much.

374
00:24:53,670 --> 00:24:57,390
He could be alone more if he was a bad
guy.

375
00:24:57,970 --> 00:25:02,590
Maybe because he was alone in life early
on so often, that's where he was

376
00:25:02,590 --> 00:25:03,590
comfortable.

377
00:25:05,470 --> 00:25:12,210
As a kid, he was around some of the
roughest people you can imagine.

378
00:25:13,130 --> 00:25:17,790
And sometimes I wonder if that's part of
what pieced together that bad guy's

379
00:25:17,790 --> 00:25:19,050
psychology that he had.

380
00:25:19,390 --> 00:25:20,970
I am the legend killer.

381
00:25:23,930 --> 00:25:28,010
So my dad did this thing. There are
these yellow legal pads that he would

382
00:25:28,410 --> 00:25:32,710
He would write all kinds of ideas. Just
in case he had the opportunity that a

383
00:25:32,710 --> 00:25:35,990
mic was handed to him so that he had
something great to say. You know, you

384
00:25:35,990 --> 00:25:38,110
couldn't get a date with a $100 bill.

385
00:25:39,280 --> 00:25:43,560
I wouldn't fight you if my grandma was
threatened by the Huns.

386
00:25:44,240 --> 00:25:47,660
Sometimes maybe I heard it in the middle
of a rock and roll song.

387
00:25:47,940 --> 00:25:51,760
Just had a knack for putting that kind
of stuff together.

388
00:25:52,100 --> 00:25:55,520
Of course, I don't have to impress
somebody. They got to impress me because

389
00:25:55,520 --> 00:25:59,120
Roddy Piper and you're not. And that's
why he was so quick -witted because he

390
00:25:59,120 --> 00:26:02,960
put in work nobody else did. When
everybody else was partying and

391
00:26:03,180 --> 00:26:04,180
which he did.

392
00:26:04,480 --> 00:26:08,100
He also was thinking and writing these
things down. Like sometimes people say

393
00:26:08,100 --> 00:26:10,040
me, you just say what comes off the top
of your head.

394
00:26:10,260 --> 00:26:11,540
Oh, it's an orange.

395
00:26:13,800 --> 00:26:16,480
You have no idea how much work went into
it.

396
00:26:16,960 --> 00:26:22,360
I've seen a lot of men buried wearing a
$50 Stetson and carrying a five -buck

397
00:26:22,360 --> 00:26:23,360
gun, you geek.

398
00:26:24,480 --> 00:26:28,360
There was a guy named Ric Flair on the
East Coast.

399
00:26:28,780 --> 00:26:33,720
The greatest wrestler in the whole
entire wide world comes right out of the

400
00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:37,010
-Atlantic area. And Ronnie Piper and I
are glad to be here, brother.

401
00:26:37,210 --> 00:26:40,290
Rick and I were so different. You know,
I wear a kilt. Rick doesn't.

402
00:26:40,530 --> 00:26:47,070
He's blonde. I ain't. You know, that we
got along real well outside the ring.

403
00:26:47,570 --> 00:26:50,010
And then everything started to get out
of control.

404
00:26:50,410 --> 00:26:52,790
Piper and Flair have formed a pact.

405
00:26:53,030 --> 00:26:56,010
And where there's trouble, we won't be
hard to find.

406
00:26:56,590 --> 00:26:57,590
Well,

407
00:26:57,950 --> 00:26:59,890
I knew, yeah, I heard his name, but I
didn't know anything about him.

408
00:27:00,890 --> 00:27:02,870
He came in the studio.

409
00:27:03,680 --> 00:27:07,800
I knew right away I was going to like
him. He was full of himself, and man, I

410
00:27:07,800 --> 00:27:08,800
mean talent.

411
00:27:10,360 --> 00:27:11,360
God,

412
00:27:14,380 --> 00:27:15,380
he was entertaining.

413
00:27:15,420 --> 00:27:17,960
It was so good that it made everybody
mad.

414
00:27:18,300 --> 00:27:23,860
You're going to find it's a whole lot
easier to jump on than it is to jump

415
00:27:26,220 --> 00:27:30,920
I had moved over there to the East Coast
with Roddy, and we were expecting our

416
00:27:30,920 --> 00:27:31,920
first child.

417
00:27:32,270 --> 00:27:34,210
It was a very rowdy time.

418
00:27:35,530 --> 00:27:40,010
Roddy and Rick and other wrestlers, they
lived on a planet that was theirs.

419
00:27:40,390 --> 00:27:46,630
They were a wild, wild pair of men and
lots of drinking and hotels getting

420
00:27:46,630 --> 00:27:47,810
damaged and such.

421
00:27:48,090 --> 00:27:53,110
Next thing I remember, I'm in my bed, my
clothes are on, the doors knocked off

422
00:27:53,110 --> 00:27:53,909
the hinges.

423
00:27:53,910 --> 00:27:56,590
I didn't know what happened, but I got
the hell out of here.

424
00:27:56,930 --> 00:28:01,130
You hear things, you know some things,
you don't know a lot of things.

425
00:28:01,990 --> 00:28:05,590
Roddy was Roddy, and that's what it was.

426
00:28:05,830 --> 00:28:10,850
We like our kamikazes on ice and our
women on fire. You understand what I'm

427
00:28:10,850 --> 00:28:16,930
saying? And everywhere we go, we do it
better, longer, harder than anybody

428
00:28:18,190 --> 00:28:19,690
We were the Beatles, man.

429
00:28:20,170 --> 00:28:22,390
It was suicidal putting us together.

430
00:28:23,750 --> 00:28:25,950
Ingesting or drinking, anything.

431
00:28:26,690 --> 00:28:28,770
Roddy could beat anybody to the draw.

432
00:28:30,280 --> 00:28:32,260
It just got way out of hand.

433
00:28:32,700 --> 00:28:37,780
This is where Ric Flair started, you
know, 99 Tomahawks. And, you know, here

434
00:28:37,780 --> 00:28:40,660
like, cool, you know, I'm pretty
hardcore, man, pretty hardcore.

435
00:28:40,900 --> 00:28:43,660
I'm drinking mine, and I'll be the one I
always get in trouble.

436
00:28:44,300 --> 00:28:49,080
It was a time to make money, but it was
go, go, go, go, go, and you get three

437
00:28:49,080 --> 00:28:52,960
days off, and then you come back on the
road for another couple weeks.

438
00:28:53,920 --> 00:28:55,940
And I remember we were driving in a
snowstorm.

439
00:28:56,200 --> 00:28:58,080
You know, we had beers and everything in
the car.

440
00:28:58,620 --> 00:29:01,900
So we got out, and we were all taking a
leak on the side of the road, and all of

441
00:29:01,900 --> 00:29:03,260
a sudden, Roddy ran to the car.

442
00:29:03,620 --> 00:29:06,940
And I remember it was like we ran after
him because we knew that Roddy was in

443
00:29:06,940 --> 00:29:10,880
one of those kind of states of mind
where he was going to take the car. We

444
00:29:10,880 --> 00:29:13,640
pretty much tackled Roddy while he was
trying to drive off in the car.

445
00:29:13,860 --> 00:29:16,740
He was a tough guy to handle.

446
00:29:17,660 --> 00:29:19,220
He was a heavy partier.

447
00:29:19,520 --> 00:29:23,660
And I would scoop him up, and I'd make
sure he got to where he was supposed to

448
00:29:23,660 --> 00:29:25,040
be going, got him to his rooms.

449
00:29:25,900 --> 00:29:28,680
Got him to the hotel and got him to the
airport.

450
00:29:29,580 --> 00:29:34,980
You go out there and wrestle for 45
minutes, and you come back, take a

451
00:29:35,060 --> 00:29:36,760
and you're wide friggin' awake.

452
00:29:37,280 --> 00:29:41,700
And a lot of times I'd look at the coke
and, oh, I don't want to do this.

453
00:29:42,080 --> 00:29:43,560
But you end up doing it.

454
00:29:43,880 --> 00:29:48,180
It was, I need this to wake up to
wrestle. I need this to go to bed

455
00:29:48,180 --> 00:29:49,380
work in an hour. This is all I have.

456
00:29:49,820 --> 00:29:54,500
It was also about to numb the pain, the
physical pain, the pain of being alone.

457
00:29:55,210 --> 00:30:00,030
Always having to be in transition, you
know, you're never sitting still.

458
00:30:00,690 --> 00:30:04,010
It's a vicious cycle that would just go
round and round.

459
00:30:04,830 --> 00:30:08,190
It's easier to go have a drink. It's
easier to go take a pill or go smoke a

460
00:30:08,190 --> 00:30:09,190
joint.

461
00:30:09,510 --> 00:30:13,150
Back in those days, like, any injury
could cost you your job.

462
00:30:13,990 --> 00:30:17,330
If you can't do it, they replace you a
few minutes later with somebody else.

463
00:30:18,370 --> 00:30:21,810
You learn to be your own doctors. That's
kind of the sad thing is you're your

464
00:30:21,810 --> 00:30:22,810
own doctor.

465
00:30:23,350 --> 00:30:24,950
Roddy was pretty out of control.

466
00:30:25,770 --> 00:30:28,830
Lord knows what kind of drugs and
alcohol were being consumed.

467
00:30:34,890 --> 00:30:41,630
Having Roddy travel so

468
00:30:41,630 --> 00:30:47,530
often and be gone so much and having a
growing family, it was very difficult.

469
00:30:48,850 --> 00:30:52,110
When you live like we did, you know, 3
,000 miles.

470
00:30:52,860 --> 00:30:56,800
A week to become desensitized.

471
00:30:58,800 --> 00:31:04,880
One thing that Roddy did, he kept his
family

472
00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:07,180
completely out of business.

473
00:31:08,260 --> 00:31:10,860
Because he didn't want them to see what
he went through.

474
00:31:11,620 --> 00:31:14,940
He wanted them to grow up, be beautiful,
healthy and happy.

475
00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:18,560
And I think he took too much of it on
himself.

476
00:31:21,020 --> 00:31:25,000
Sometimes when Rod would come home from
the road, he wouldn't come straight

477
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:29,960
home. He would check into a hotel room
and just get rested because when he got

478
00:31:29,960 --> 00:31:31,000
home, he couldn't rest.

479
00:31:34,680 --> 00:31:40,900
He's almost had to do a transition
mentally when he came from the road to

480
00:31:40,900 --> 00:31:44,560
because he didn't want to bring that
character home. He had such a hot temper

481
00:31:44,560 --> 00:31:45,439
Hot Rod.

482
00:31:45,440 --> 00:31:47,960
And he had to because he had to be on
guard a lot.

483
00:31:49,230 --> 00:31:50,630
It was very separate.

484
00:31:51,110 --> 00:31:54,410
He didn't like to take us to a lot of
events.

485
00:31:54,990 --> 00:32:01,810
We were very concerned about safety
because of how much aggression was being

486
00:32:01,810 --> 00:32:02,810
towards Rod.

487
00:32:05,890 --> 00:32:11,010
He'd been a villain in the Deep South
and fighting fans and getting assault

488
00:32:11,010 --> 00:32:15,370
charges. I mean, I can think of a few
situations with Roddy with fans trying

489
00:32:15,370 --> 00:32:17,010
run us off the road and chasing us.

490
00:32:17,790 --> 00:32:18,830
Cities like Detroit.

491
00:32:20,050 --> 00:32:23,010
People throw thumbtacks in the ring, hit
with beer bottles.

492
00:32:23,310 --> 00:32:26,270
I was in Asheville, North Carolina,
threw a rattlesnake in the ring one

493
00:32:26,550 --> 00:32:29,930
Guy ran down to the ringside with a
gunny sack, threw a rattlesnake.

494
00:32:32,810 --> 00:32:37,130
It was a lot of crazy fans back then,
and being a bad guy could be a very

495
00:32:37,130 --> 00:32:38,029
dangerous living.

496
00:32:38,030 --> 00:32:39,570
I'm going to shove it down your throat!

497
00:32:39,790 --> 00:32:43,570
There's certainly times when I'd see him
say or do something on TV where I'm

498
00:32:43,570 --> 00:32:47,370
like, oh, my gosh, we're in for it now.
This is going to get worse before it

499
00:32:47,370 --> 00:32:48,229
gets better.

500
00:32:48,230 --> 00:32:55,010
But I never asked him to curtail or tone
it down because that would hinder his

501
00:32:55,010 --> 00:32:56,010
creativity.

502
00:32:56,510 --> 00:33:00,350
The people wanted to kill me.

503
00:33:00,970 --> 00:33:05,690
I remember there's a gentleman I wasn't
really paying much attention, but Roddy

504
00:33:05,690 --> 00:33:08,330
was taken off down this hallway.

505
00:33:09,680 --> 00:33:12,420
And the next thing I see, I'm having
some words.

506
00:33:13,020 --> 00:33:15,580
And the police got involved in it.

507
00:33:16,700 --> 00:33:20,760
He did have a big knife, you know, like
a bowie knife.

508
00:33:20,980 --> 00:33:25,440
So finally their officer said, Mr.
Piper, we've got him. He's going to

509
00:33:25,760 --> 00:33:29,540
They said, well, I just wanted to have a
couple seconds with him. The officer

510
00:33:29,540 --> 00:33:30,499
said, why?

511
00:33:30,500 --> 00:33:32,460
And he said, because he stabbed me.

512
00:33:32,940 --> 00:33:38,620
And Roddy took his thumb off of his
chest and bludgeoned. Started squirting

513
00:33:38,620 --> 00:33:41,420
the officer's face at every heartbeat.

514
00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:44,940
It was going... And I went, oh!

515
00:33:45,740 --> 00:33:49,240
Sergeant Slaughter took me to the
hospital and held the wound.

516
00:33:49,700 --> 00:33:55,340
The doctor said if that would have went
one more half inch or less, you'd be

517
00:33:55,340 --> 00:33:57,760
dead. So what was it like?

518
00:33:58,240 --> 00:33:59,660
It was a living hell.

519
00:34:00,880 --> 00:34:04,760
It wasn't just you're a bad guy on TV
and that's it. It followed you

520
00:34:04,920 --> 00:34:08,900
Dad was stabbed three times in his life.
Three times they actually stabbed him

521
00:34:08,900 --> 00:34:13,320
to the point where he had a leather
jacket that was Kevlar lined and it was

522
00:34:13,320 --> 00:34:15,280
proof because he'd been stabbed so many
times.

523
00:34:16,159 --> 00:34:21,260
He was the next generation to take it to
the next level.

524
00:34:23,179 --> 00:34:25,739
What a tremendous match to have live.

525
00:34:26,060 --> 00:34:30,840
Millions of fans everywhere can see Greg
Valentine and Roddy Piper go at each

526
00:34:30,840 --> 00:34:35,760
other. Me and Piper started out a long,
long, long journey.

527
00:34:36,620 --> 00:34:39,380
We probably wrestled each other for a
year.

528
00:34:41,100 --> 00:34:43,159
We just walloped each other.

529
00:34:46,780 --> 00:34:52,020
I took Piper's head and rammed it in
through the turnbuckle.

530
00:34:53,929 --> 00:34:57,190
Every time I'd go out there, I'd beat on
his ear.

531
00:34:58,910 --> 00:34:59,910
Wow.

532
00:35:01,090 --> 00:35:05,410
So I ended up naming it the year of the
ear.

533
00:35:05,710 --> 00:35:10,330
Watch him go to that ear. And I'd laugh,
ha, ha, ha, the year of the ear.

534
00:35:12,870 --> 00:35:16,890
And then finally, they want to blow it
off, end it.

535
00:35:18,050 --> 00:35:22,090
What happened was Bruno Sammartino and
Larry Zbysko.

536
00:35:22,570 --> 00:35:24,510
Did $500 ,000 in Shea Stadium.

537
00:35:25,430 --> 00:35:29,810
So it became a war of the North against
the South. So the South said, all right,

538
00:35:30,010 --> 00:35:32,350
we're going to put on the first pay -per
-view ever.

539
00:35:32,750 --> 00:35:38,810
So they come to me and they said, I want
you to make up the meanest, nastiest,

540
00:35:38,950 --> 00:35:45,010
most brutal match you can possibly think
of. And Piper came up with this dog

541
00:35:45,010 --> 00:35:49,170
collar. 40 pounds of change. I want you
to check it out. You're going to see

542
00:35:49,170 --> 00:35:51,810
something you've never seen in your life
before.

543
00:35:52,380 --> 00:35:54,280
It was a great idea. It was my birthday.

544
00:35:54,620 --> 00:35:55,680
Oh, what is this?

545
00:35:55,880 --> 00:35:56,658
This is beautiful.

546
00:35:56,660 --> 00:36:00,940
They presented me with this big cake. I
love cake. Wait a minute. What is this?

547
00:36:01,060 --> 00:36:06,820
I look at it, and I see some steel in
there, and I reached down and pulled out

548
00:36:06,820 --> 00:36:07,819
dog collar.

549
00:36:07,820 --> 00:36:08,799
No way!

550
00:36:08,800 --> 00:36:14,180
What are you doing? What are you trying
to do to me? He wants to have a dog

551
00:36:14,180 --> 00:36:15,180
collar match.

552
00:36:16,140 --> 00:36:19,020
Piper was the best, the best performer.

553
00:36:19,280 --> 00:36:20,280
Good at the mic.

554
00:36:20,750 --> 00:36:24,790
Probably number one at the mic. Some
people said he sounded like Daffy Duck.

555
00:36:25,230 --> 00:36:26,810
I love Daffy Duck.

556
00:36:27,610 --> 00:36:31,230
You're talking about the biggest thing
that's ever going to happen in the

557
00:36:31,230 --> 00:36:32,230
history of wrestling.

558
00:36:32,490 --> 00:36:36,790
Ladies and gentlemen, our next event of
the evening is a very special match.

559
00:36:37,170 --> 00:36:39,230
This is a collar match.

560
00:36:39,770 --> 00:36:43,390
It was the very first pay -per -view
ever for wrestling.

561
00:36:44,910 --> 00:36:50,190
Two men linked together like this in
Mortal Kombat. This is a strategy.

562
00:36:50,730 --> 00:36:52,750
This is what Piper talked to me about.

563
00:36:53,030 --> 00:36:55,110
See, I'm the first one to get mad.

564
00:36:57,770 --> 00:37:00,450
He could use it to batter the guy.

565
00:37:00,810 --> 00:37:03,010
Now he's going to get me in the teeth
right there.

566
00:37:03,910 --> 00:37:08,110
I had to go to the dentist the next day.
And you can see the concern of the

567
00:37:08,110 --> 00:37:11,730
people watching this match. They really
don't know what to expect when two men

568
00:37:11,730 --> 00:37:12,890
are going at it like this.

569
00:37:13,110 --> 00:37:14,390
Now I'm going for the ear.

570
00:37:18,880 --> 00:37:23,180
It was a ridiculously hard match. It was
the toughest match probably I've ever

571
00:37:23,180 --> 00:37:24,880
been in, basically, with Valentine.

572
00:37:25,740 --> 00:37:29,540
Valentine on his knees. Heart blow to
the top of the head.

573
00:37:29,900 --> 00:37:32,200
You know, I'm not just selling. I'm
hurt.

574
00:37:33,400 --> 00:37:38,840
But it's all for you wrestling fans,
giving you our love in a strange way.

575
00:37:42,800 --> 00:37:45,740
This is the end of it right there. You
all called me.

576
00:37:48,880 --> 00:37:50,660
He was the greatest of all time.

577
00:37:52,480 --> 00:37:57,440
A really good -hearted guy, but a really
tough son of a bitch.

578
00:37:58,960 --> 00:37:59,960
Of all time.

579
00:38:00,100 --> 00:38:05,000
You say your strategy was to take away
all my hair, and you say what you forgot

580
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:06,580
is you've got one more year to go!

581
00:38:10,120 --> 00:38:15,840
When you look for attributes of a bad
guy, you have to be fearless.

582
00:38:17,200 --> 00:38:22,660
You have to have a gift of gab. You can
say anything that you want, even though

583
00:38:22,660 --> 00:38:23,660
you know it's got to be controversial.

584
00:38:24,080 --> 00:38:26,100
You have to be able to communicate with
the audience.

585
00:38:26,520 --> 00:38:30,000
And you have to have a certain attitude
about you.

586
00:38:30,500 --> 00:38:32,580
And Roddy had all those attributes and
more.

587
00:38:34,640 --> 00:38:38,860
Vince McMahon had these plans of
expanding nationally.

588
00:38:39,870 --> 00:38:42,790
What's the best way to expand all over
North America?

589
00:38:43,090 --> 00:38:48,590
You get the best wrestlers from the
individual territories, and you bring

590
00:38:48,590 --> 00:38:50,290
all to WWE.

591
00:38:50,750 --> 00:38:52,950
And Vince McMahon wants it all.

592
00:38:53,790 --> 00:38:56,730
I got a call from Roddy. He said, Mr.
McMahon called.

593
00:38:57,190 --> 00:39:01,010
I said, yeah, are you coming up? He
goes, yeah, he wants me to come up. I

594
00:39:01,030 --> 00:39:02,030
come on up.

595
00:39:02,630 --> 00:39:04,390
Roddy was coming to New York City.

596
00:39:08,140 --> 00:39:09,940
Well, let me tell you how to be Roddy
Piper.

597
00:39:11,260 --> 00:39:12,880
Have a nice day.

598
00:39:13,240 --> 00:39:14,240
Go yourself.

599
00:39:14,680 --> 00:39:16,220
Give me the microphone. Get out of my
way.

600
00:39:16,580 --> 00:39:19,760
Full -legged, big, fat, ugly penguin.

601
00:39:20,020 --> 00:39:21,880
You know what? You both stay.

602
00:39:22,140 --> 00:39:26,380
It's as simple as this. When RP talks,
brother, people listen.

603
00:39:27,760 --> 00:39:31,840
In New York, New York is big guys.

604
00:39:32,800 --> 00:39:36,720
At least 250 pounders, six foot,
whatever. That's what I was.

605
00:39:37,640 --> 00:39:42,420
You know, Piper, later on, I guess he
gained weight, but when he first came

606
00:39:42,440 --> 00:39:43,440
he was smaller.

607
00:39:43,580 --> 00:39:47,040
So if Roddy's not the greatest physical
specimen in the world, don't let him do

608
00:39:47,040 --> 00:39:51,420
that. Do what Roddy does best, and be a
talk show host.

609
00:39:51,700 --> 00:39:54,540
In a moment, ladies and gentlemen, we're
going to take you to Piper's pit,

610
00:39:54,740 --> 00:39:59,420
involving, of course, the rather
controversial and certainly opinionated

611
00:39:59,420 --> 00:40:00,420
Piper.

612
00:40:00,780 --> 00:40:03,140
They put up a backdrop, and it was...

613
00:40:03,700 --> 00:40:07,220
basically a wrestling talk show to stir
the pot. You're a lousy wrestler.

614
00:40:07,440 --> 00:40:10,640
It's as simple as that. I might be a
lousy wrestler, but I'm still in there.

615
00:40:10,640 --> 00:40:11,640
got not a play or no play.

616
00:40:13,540 --> 00:40:19,880
It was the Tonight Show where the host
could end up beating up the guest. It

617
00:40:19,880 --> 00:40:25,380
just the most off -the -wall,
unpredictable, amazing idea that ever

618
00:40:25,380 --> 00:40:27,980
television. In my opinion, I'm biased,
but whatever.

619
00:40:29,160 --> 00:40:30,820
Is he supposed to scare me?

620
00:40:31,440 --> 00:40:32,440
You had to be ready.

621
00:40:32,880 --> 00:40:35,740
He was witty, smart. He was like the
fastest gun in the West.

622
00:40:36,000 --> 00:40:42,880
You could take some guys and

623
00:40:42,880 --> 00:40:46,840
make them look like heroes and
superstars, or he could kind of like, if

624
00:40:46,840 --> 00:40:50,360
wanted to, he could chop you down to
size pretty quick.

625
00:40:59,299 --> 00:41:02,420
The most famous one, of course, is the
interview with Jimmy Snuka.

626
00:41:04,660 --> 00:41:05,920
There were a couple of tokens.

627
00:41:06,380 --> 00:41:09,520
And one of them, you know, had been what
we call gimmicked.

628
00:41:09,960 --> 00:41:11,820
But that's not the one Roddy chose.

629
00:41:12,340 --> 00:41:13,680
Am I making fun of you?

630
00:41:13,880 --> 00:41:15,020
No, sir. No, sir.

631
00:41:20,720 --> 00:41:25,840
Nothing was scripted on Piper's pit.

632
00:41:27,050 --> 00:41:30,870
It was all up at the top of Dad's head
or something that he'd maybe written

633
00:41:30,870 --> 00:41:31,870
in a notebook before.

634
00:41:31,890 --> 00:41:33,330
And that's where the magic happened.

635
00:41:33,530 --> 00:41:37,790
When they think they got the answers, I
change the questions.

636
00:41:38,150 --> 00:41:43,110
He wasn't famous for his technique or
his type of wrestling or how big his

637
00:41:43,110 --> 00:41:47,590
were. He was just an incredible talker
and a guy that was taking wrestling and

638
00:41:47,590 --> 00:41:48,930
telling a different story.

639
00:42:07,120 --> 00:42:11,440
but began to work with MTV, which was
absolutely red hot.

640
00:42:11,660 --> 00:42:13,100
You look wonderful, Cindy.

641
00:42:14,060 --> 00:42:19,580
Captain Lou Albano and Cindy Lauper were
friends, and Cindy Lauper had put Lou

642
00:42:19,580 --> 00:42:22,960
Albano in her Girls Want to Have Fun
video.

643
00:42:23,500 --> 00:42:28,160
I got this guy named Dave Wolf that
manages Cindy Lauper. They just did a

644
00:42:28,160 --> 00:42:31,160
with Albano, but now they want to get
involved in the wrestling business.

645
00:42:31,340 --> 00:42:32,920
That's, hmm, hmm.

646
00:42:33,160 --> 00:42:35,160
Dave thought it was going to be good for
Cindy's career.

647
00:42:35,760 --> 00:42:39,500
You know, here she's doing this
crossover in this very unusual world.

648
00:42:39,740 --> 00:42:42,100
It's like, what the hell is this?

649
00:42:42,380 --> 00:42:46,020
Would you please welcome Cindy Leppard!

650
00:42:47,900 --> 00:42:53,020
So now, there's all this attention
somewhere to WWE.

651
00:42:53,720 --> 00:42:59,540
People who are fashionable, people who
are in the rock and roll world, they're

652
00:42:59,540 --> 00:43:01,160
going to start watching WWE.

653
00:43:02,360 --> 00:43:05,380
They have this ceremony in Madison
Square Garden.

654
00:43:06,190 --> 00:43:12,810
Lou Albano was one of the primary forces
responsible for the rock and wrestling

655
00:43:12,810 --> 00:43:18,350
thing in China. And what better way to
honor a man but to give him a gold

656
00:43:18,350 --> 00:43:21,290
record? I'm so grateful to receive this
award.

657
00:43:21,670 --> 00:43:26,830
Now that's going to provoke some
jealousy. And who is the most jealous

658
00:43:26,830 --> 00:43:27,830
of all?

659
00:43:28,190 --> 00:43:34,350
Maybe they have some kind of
presentation to make. I want a

660
00:43:36,360 --> 00:43:37,580
Oh, look out!

661
00:43:39,400 --> 00:43:41,680
Captain Lou Albano, clobbered!

662
00:43:42,480 --> 00:43:49,040
Roddy Piper, shocking, kicks the biggest
pop star in America, a

663
00:43:49,040 --> 00:43:51,440
female pop star in the head.

664
00:43:52,160 --> 00:43:55,060
David Wolfe trying to come to the
rescue, but he's no match.

665
00:43:56,380 --> 00:44:00,900
Oh, his palm drives it right down into
the canvas. 20 minutes before the match,

666
00:44:01,080 --> 00:44:05,380
I was asked, do you think you can kick
Cyndi Lauper and not hurt her?

667
00:44:05,940 --> 00:44:07,120
by her manager.

668
00:44:08,220 --> 00:44:10,780
I hope you never manage me.

669
00:44:11,900 --> 00:44:18,460
But when they saw that, Saddam Hussein
got nothing on me.

670
00:44:20,580 --> 00:44:26,280
Cindy wasn't a wrestler, so she had to
have somebody defend her honor.

671
00:44:27,060 --> 00:44:30,000
He knew what he was doing. He was
stirring up the crowd, and he knew it,

672
00:44:30,000 --> 00:44:30,698
loved it.

673
00:44:30,700 --> 00:44:31,740
All heels do.

674
00:44:33,140 --> 00:44:35,020
What a disgraceful display.

675
00:44:35,900 --> 00:44:38,820
Cindy looked at her, tears running down
her face.

676
00:44:39,600 --> 00:44:40,558
Hulkster's hot.

677
00:44:40,560 --> 00:44:44,700
Everybody's hot. Boy, he wishes he could
have got his hands on Roddy Piper.

678
00:44:45,220 --> 00:44:48,360
Every dog has its day. You know what I'm
talking about?

679
00:44:48,620 --> 00:44:50,380
And that one's going to get his.

680
00:44:50,680 --> 00:44:54,600
She expects me to sit there and do
nothing about her. So I kick her 12

681
00:44:54,600 --> 00:44:55,578
across the field.

682
00:44:55,580 --> 00:45:02,300
Just imagine this. In about a four
-month period, I had kicked Cindy Lauper

683
00:45:02,300 --> 00:45:03,049
the head.

684
00:45:03,050 --> 00:45:07,170
I don't know how many guys on Piper's
Fit I had, whatever I had done, all in

685
00:45:07,170 --> 00:45:10,790
this very short time, is getting really
heated up.

686
00:45:11,810 --> 00:45:16,770
I couldn't go anyplace. I was fighting.
I had a family. I was fighting in and

687
00:45:16,770 --> 00:45:18,350
out of Denny's. It was crazy.

688
00:45:19,590 --> 00:45:24,550
Roddy understood that bringing in a
musician brings it to a whole other

689
00:45:24,610 --> 00:45:26,470
so he was on board for that.

690
00:45:26,770 --> 00:45:33,470
But he found it very hard being an old
-school person, and he

691
00:45:33,470 --> 00:45:36,110
tried best he could to cooperate.

692
00:45:36,370 --> 00:45:37,530
It was never easy.

693
00:45:40,650 --> 00:45:44,370
Once we got hooked up with MTV, it took
us to mainstream.

694
00:45:45,730 --> 00:45:46,730
MTV.

695
00:45:48,740 --> 00:45:51,360
Music to vomit by.

696
00:45:52,160 --> 00:45:55,740
Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, the war
to settle the score.

697
00:45:56,060 --> 00:45:57,640
The hottest ticket in town.

698
00:45:57,840 --> 00:46:03,360
The rock and wrestling connection helps
us change the look of the business to

699
00:46:03,360 --> 00:46:05,760
where we've got families and kids at
ringside.

700
00:46:06,340 --> 00:46:08,500
This is broadcast on MTV.

701
00:46:08,900 --> 00:46:10,820
This is big time.

702
00:46:11,600 --> 00:46:14,060
Everybody wants to be a part of it.

703
00:46:14,350 --> 00:46:17,990
Well, there's something going on here. I
got to see what it is. I got to check

704
00:46:17,990 --> 00:46:18,968
it out.

705
00:46:18,970 --> 00:46:24,010
Piper was the ultimate villain. So you
want to have the ultimate villain

706
00:46:24,010 --> 00:46:25,090
the ultimate hero.

707
00:46:25,430 --> 00:46:29,950
It was the biggest thing ever was Hogan
and Piper going at it.

708
00:46:34,130 --> 00:46:41,030
When I ran

709
00:46:41,030 --> 00:46:42,030
into Piper.

710
00:46:42,140 --> 00:46:44,260
He's the one that made everything else
possible.

711
00:46:45,120 --> 00:46:52,080
I had to have an opponent, and nobody
had the air, the arrogance, the

712
00:46:52,080 --> 00:46:56,000
attitude to go toe -to -toe with me and
not back down. Without Piper, we could

713
00:46:56,000 --> 00:46:58,120
have never launched into the
stratosphere.

714
00:47:00,660 --> 00:47:04,480
Piper has two Confederates, Cowboy Bob
Borden Jr.

715
00:47:04,780 --> 00:47:07,060
and Paul Mr. Wonderful Orndorff.

716
00:47:11,020 --> 00:47:12,920
They interfere in the match.

717
00:47:18,900 --> 00:47:19,500
Who

718
00:47:19,500 --> 00:47:26,420
is going to

719
00:47:26,420 --> 00:47:27,420
save the day?

720
00:47:27,440 --> 00:47:31,700
Well, Mr. T, the biggest TV star in the
United States.

721
00:47:32,140 --> 00:47:35,600
Everybody in the country knows Mr.

722
00:47:35,860 --> 00:47:36,860
T.

723
00:47:38,200 --> 00:47:39,920
And so insert Mr.

724
00:47:40,160 --> 00:47:42,680
T. It was Vince's way to interject
entertainment.

725
00:47:43,260 --> 00:47:46,280
It was nothing but excitement and
electricity, and it sure worked.

726
00:47:46,520 --> 00:47:49,160
I don't know anything about his
background as a wrestler.

727
00:47:49,400 --> 00:47:53,340
I used to be a bodyguard. I used to be a
bouncer at a disco and all that stuff.

728
00:47:53,600 --> 00:47:57,120
You know, and I knew how to wrestle, you
know, and I wasn't no fluff.

729
00:47:57,480 --> 00:48:00,380
So I stepped in the ring, and Piper
snuck up behind me.

730
00:48:00,980 --> 00:48:05,100
I didn't think it would go down like
that. If I knew it would go down like

731
00:48:05,100 --> 00:48:09,240
I would have did something else. So
that's why I was so, I guess I could say

732
00:48:09,240 --> 00:48:10,240
pissed.

733
00:48:11,850 --> 00:48:16,130
Roddy was the ultimate bad guy. He sold
it, he packed it, he was good at what he

734
00:48:16,130 --> 00:48:17,130
did.

735
00:48:17,750 --> 00:48:22,650
And it just went berserk, you know.

736
00:48:23,290 --> 00:48:28,770
I live with it now because it's so old.
I think about it, you know. It was man

737
00:48:28,770 --> 00:48:31,410
of the keystone cops because everybody
was fighting.

738
00:48:31,790 --> 00:48:32,950
What happened to our match?

739
00:48:33,750 --> 00:48:36,430
We don't have a match anymore. It's
pandemonium.

740
00:48:36,690 --> 00:48:39,630
Well, back then we were still really
protecting the business.

741
00:48:40,090 --> 00:48:43,990
Should we tell the cops what we're doing
or not? And the standard modem was, I

742
00:48:43,990 --> 00:48:44,990
don't tell anybody anything.

743
00:48:45,170 --> 00:48:46,590
Let's just get their natural reaction.

744
00:48:47,070 --> 00:48:50,290
All of a sudden, some policeman came in
the ring on me.

745
00:48:50,710 --> 00:48:53,190
Here's a cop with a gun and here the
rest of them come.

746
00:48:53,990 --> 00:48:56,830
Piper was fighting the cops and
everything. It's just insanity.

747
00:48:58,150 --> 00:49:00,410
Hulk Hogan was the biggest hero.

748
00:49:02,230 --> 00:49:05,250
Roddy Piper was the most detected
villain.

749
00:49:05,890 --> 00:49:09,310
And now we are ready to start.

750
00:49:09,760 --> 00:49:12,440
Our road to the first WrestleMania.

751
00:49:15,140 --> 00:49:16,880
Okay, Ariel, let's go.

752
00:49:17,200 --> 00:49:19,580
Come on, Ariel.

753
00:49:20,020 --> 00:49:21,460
I'm sorry.

754
00:49:22,620 --> 00:49:23,900
Mr. Proud Papa.

755
00:49:24,940 --> 00:49:26,040
Papa Piper.

756
00:49:26,320 --> 00:49:31,640
My dad often would say things like, I
can't imagine how hard it is to be Roddy

757
00:49:31,640 --> 00:49:32,439
Piper's kid.

758
00:49:32,440 --> 00:49:33,820
Here comes Roddy.

759
00:49:34,400 --> 00:49:35,400
Ariel.

760
00:49:36,010 --> 00:49:41,130
He felt guilty, like he was some way a
bad parent because his career was in

761
00:49:41,130 --> 00:49:42,210
way affecting our lives.

762
00:49:45,250 --> 00:49:52,250
When we were starting out as a young
family, he came to me and said,

763
00:49:52,370 --> 00:49:56,990
I really do not want our children to
grow up in a hundred different places. I

764
00:49:56,990 --> 00:49:58,090
want them to have roots.

765
00:49:58,370 --> 00:49:59,710
You sure are pretty.

766
00:50:00,270 --> 00:50:03,410
Because he never felt like he had a
home.

767
00:50:04,750 --> 00:50:09,090
We chose to live in the country and have
a lot of land around us.

768
00:50:09,870 --> 00:50:11,430
It was a safe zone.

769
00:50:12,030 --> 00:50:18,330
We lived on a 10 -acre ranch in the
middle of nowhere, end of a gravel road,

770
00:50:18,330 --> 00:50:22,450
we really kept to just that ranch.

771
00:50:23,470 --> 00:50:26,970
Goodbye. With any kind of luck, she'll
keep going. We won't have to feed her.

772
00:50:28,270 --> 00:50:31,030
We wanted to be isolated because...

773
00:50:31,600 --> 00:50:36,120
We had actual stalkers who would come
and try and break into our house or be

774
00:50:36,120 --> 00:50:37,120
our property.

775
00:50:37,900 --> 00:50:41,320
We did not go to the malls. We did not
go to the movies.

776
00:50:41,720 --> 00:50:47,420
I must have gotten 30 fights in one year
just because people wanted to test

777
00:50:47,420 --> 00:50:48,680
their moxie against me.

778
00:50:53,940 --> 00:50:55,900
This kind of thing is real life.

779
00:50:57,300 --> 00:51:00,700
This is the kind of thing that makes a
family.

780
00:51:02,240 --> 00:51:07,600
It's a great way of nature just teaching
a family how to be a family and stay

781
00:51:07,600 --> 00:51:08,600
together.

782
00:51:13,100 --> 00:51:19,840
I had a meeting with a small room full
of our executives, and I said, there is

783
00:51:19,840 --> 00:51:20,658
Super Bowl.

784
00:51:20,660 --> 00:51:23,580
Here's the World Series, there's this,
there's that. It was really common

785
00:51:24,680 --> 00:51:27,720
So why not have one of your own? Call it
WrestleMania.

786
00:51:28,920 --> 00:51:32,280
We would not have had WrestleMania I had
it not been for Roddy because you have

787
00:51:32,280 --> 00:51:35,160
to have, again, a strong antagonist to
get with the protagonist.

788
00:51:35,420 --> 00:51:36,420
Check this out, dude!

789
00:51:36,660 --> 00:51:40,420
Check that out! You have to have good
stories and you have to have bold

790
00:51:40,420 --> 00:51:43,540
characters and larger -than -life
individuals, and Roddy was all that.

791
00:51:43,980 --> 00:51:47,000
So I knew I had Roddy, I knew I had
Hogan, I knew I had Mr. T.

792
00:51:48,180 --> 00:51:52,040
It was like that was going to work. How
does it feel to be portraying someone

793
00:51:52,040 --> 00:51:53,040
like myself?

794
00:51:53,220 --> 00:51:54,540
Well, you ain't nothing, man.

795
00:51:58,210 --> 00:52:01,010
Roddy Piper really did not like Mr. T.

796
00:52:01,870 --> 00:52:08,810
In those days, you know, you really paid
some dues

797
00:52:08,810 --> 00:52:10,230
to be in the main event.

798
00:52:10,710 --> 00:52:16,200
Then Mr. T walks in, not even having a
match anywhere, and it's like... What

799
00:52:16,200 --> 00:52:18,900
right does he have to be in my ring in
the main event?

800
00:52:19,200 --> 00:52:22,760
You want to get in there, brother, and
you want to try some fighting, huh?

801
00:52:22,980 --> 00:52:25,340
We've never brought in somebody from the
outside.

802
00:52:25,660 --> 00:52:30,120
And one of the biggest problems I had
was the barbaric mindset of Piper and

803
00:52:30,120 --> 00:52:33,760
Orndorff. You're looking at someone
that... He's an actor. He's not a

804
00:52:33,820 --> 00:52:36,160
We're just going to break his legs as
the guys, please.

805
00:52:36,620 --> 00:52:40,580
How can I say it without sounding cocky?
They didn't understand that bringing me

806
00:52:40,580 --> 00:52:42,820
in would broaden their thing.

807
00:52:43,240 --> 00:52:44,460
Because basically...

808
00:52:44,670 --> 00:52:48,530
You know, Vince, being the pioneer that
he is, he said, wow, we're going to

809
00:52:48,530 --> 00:52:53,150
broaden and bring it to the world. You
come on down, T. We'll put an X where

810
00:52:53,150 --> 00:52:54,150
T should be.

811
00:52:54,410 --> 00:52:59,210
Roddy hated the thought of a Mr. T
coming into his arena.

812
00:52:59,930 --> 00:53:02,850
It's an insult. It's a slap in the face
to the business.

813
00:53:03,610 --> 00:53:08,050
I had these two guys that had this old
-school mentality, and plus I got this

814
00:53:08,050 --> 00:53:10,910
guy who's got a real edgy attitude.

815
00:53:11,210 --> 00:53:14,010
You know, he always talked in third
person. Mr. T, don't do that. Mr. T,

816
00:53:14,010 --> 00:53:17,190
put up with that. Mr. T ain't no powder
puff, you have to understand, you know.

817
00:53:17,850 --> 00:53:22,270
They didn't want to lose to Mr. T
because he's not a real wrestler.

818
00:53:23,910 --> 00:53:30,670
There I am, the hottest heel they've
ever had, and now they want me to take a

819
00:53:30,670 --> 00:53:31,670
dive.

820
00:53:31,880 --> 00:53:33,320
I said, I ain't doing it.

821
00:53:33,640 --> 00:53:36,960
I was kind of like the babysitter, the
moderator, the peacekeeper.

822
00:53:37,400 --> 00:53:39,320
I was ready to have a nervous breakdown.

823
00:53:39,660 --> 00:53:43,320
The wrestling extravaganza of all -time
WrestleMania.

824
00:53:43,980 --> 00:53:48,520
The people knew the wrestling business
was changing that night. There was a

825
00:53:48,520 --> 00:53:51,780
fever pitch in Madison Square Garden.

826
00:53:52,440 --> 00:53:54,300
Piper's going to get it. Get what?

827
00:53:54,640 --> 00:53:55,640
His punches.

828
00:53:58,610 --> 00:54:04,310
What do you do to show the world what
this product is and what it will be in a

829
00:54:04,310 --> 00:54:05,310
really big way?

830
00:54:05,610 --> 00:54:08,430
How does he fit in any of this? He does
it.

831
00:54:08,870 --> 00:54:09,870
That's why I had him.

832
00:54:10,430 --> 00:54:12,690
This is what sports entertainment is all
about.

833
00:54:12,970 --> 00:54:16,870
It was everything we had, we threw it
in, and let's roll the dice and do it in

834
00:54:16,870 --> 00:54:17,569
big way.

835
00:54:17,570 --> 00:54:19,710
Everything I had was on the line.

836
00:54:26,650 --> 00:54:32,170
This is what is arguably the turning
point of the WWE in just so many ways.

837
00:54:33,030 --> 00:54:34,750
Roddy was very stubborn.

838
00:54:35,290 --> 00:54:39,650
But you're about to make more money than
you ever had in your entire lifetime.

839
00:54:51,950 --> 00:54:55,730
Roddy was smart enough to know, yeah,
I'm going to do business.

840
00:54:56,600 --> 00:54:57,680
and I'm going to make it look right.

841
00:54:58,320 --> 00:54:59,440
You don't have to like it.

842
00:55:02,020 --> 00:55:07,940
At a certain point, Roddy Piper
instructs Mr.

843
00:55:08,160 --> 00:55:10,320
T, pick me up in a fireman's cabin.

844
00:55:13,240 --> 00:55:15,180
Even though he didn't want Mr.

845
00:55:15,400 --> 00:55:21,960
T to take advantage of him, Roddy Piper
knows how to sell himself, and he knows

846
00:55:21,960 --> 00:55:25,260
that's the photo that will go all over
the world.

847
00:55:31,080 --> 00:55:34,500
You need to make Mr. T the hero. This is
what this is all about.

848
00:55:36,900 --> 00:55:40,400
Mr. T should have beat one of those guys
right in the middle of the ring.

849
00:55:41,260 --> 00:55:42,260
Preferably Piper.

850
00:55:45,740 --> 00:55:50,440
But instead, they had to have Orton jump
off the top rope with a cast to hit one

851
00:55:50,440 --> 00:55:52,780
golf on the head just so he could get a
win.

852
00:55:54,660 --> 00:55:56,720
Piper didn't want to do the job even in
WrestleMania.

853
00:55:57,930 --> 00:56:01,110
You're the bad guy. You're supposed to
get beat. That's what bad guys do.

854
00:56:02,490 --> 00:56:06,210
He was so protective about protecting
Roddy Piper.

855
00:56:06,550 --> 00:56:11,050
He didn't realize if you just listen to
our opinion, I think you might find

856
00:56:11,050 --> 00:56:12,210
things a lot easier.

857
00:56:13,870 --> 00:56:18,130
But Piper didn't like me, you know, at
all. I mean, there was no rapport at all

858
00:56:18,130 --> 00:56:19,109
with him and I.

859
00:56:19,110 --> 00:56:21,810
It was strictly business. We didn't talk
unless we had to.

860
00:56:22,450 --> 00:56:26,050
But later on in life, when Piper and I
got to be real good friends, I said, you

861
00:56:26,050 --> 00:56:27,050
screwed up, man.

862
00:56:27,200 --> 00:56:30,320
You could have been one of the richest
guys I've ever met, but you wouldn't let

863
00:56:30,320 --> 00:56:31,178
me beat you.

864
00:56:31,180 --> 00:56:32,320
So he goes, damn it.

865
00:56:32,720 --> 00:56:35,780
I'm so pissed. I wish we had talked. I
said, I tried to talk. You wouldn't talk

866
00:56:35,780 --> 00:56:36,780
to me.

867
00:56:37,960 --> 00:56:39,540
Hulk Hogan, Mr.

868
00:56:39,760 --> 00:56:45,820
T kind of taking the center stage of
that whole event. He always felt they

869
00:56:45,820 --> 00:56:49,040
couldn't have been the center stage
without him being there, being the bad

870
00:56:49,600 --> 00:56:53,120
And he knew his worth. He knew his
worth.

871
00:56:53,860 --> 00:56:55,740
It's things like that, that.

872
00:56:56,140 --> 00:56:58,420
made Roddy the ultimate rebel.

873
00:57:01,060 --> 00:57:07,480
For myself to stay on top, I needed to
get out of the business completely, do

874
00:57:07,480 --> 00:57:09,380
something in another form.

875
00:57:10,800 --> 00:57:15,280
I spent a lot of time with Roddy and had
a lot of big talks with Roddy about

876
00:57:15,280 --> 00:57:19,660
that time period. And I remember Roddy
basically telling me that you got to

877
00:57:19,660 --> 00:57:21,940
something else after wrestling.

878
00:57:22,200 --> 00:57:24,800
What are you going to do after that?
He's like, Hollywood.

879
00:57:29,680 --> 00:57:32,920
Roddy had a quality that I could use in
a movie.

880
00:57:33,320 --> 00:57:37,100
Well, first of all, he didn't have a
pretty boy face like a Hollywood actor,

881
00:57:37,100 --> 00:57:40,300
this role required him to be kind of a
working man.

882
00:57:40,660 --> 00:57:42,100
You, you're okay.

883
00:57:42,920 --> 00:57:44,860
This one, real ugly.

884
00:57:45,300 --> 00:57:50,340
The character of John Nada is really
based a lot on Roddy, and his past and

885
00:57:50,340 --> 00:57:52,540
he'd been through, and he added a lot of
color to that.

886
00:57:54,100 --> 00:57:55,560
He gave me a notebook.

887
00:57:56,350 --> 00:57:59,810
Now, in this notebook were written all
these phrases and ideas he had for

888
00:57:59,810 --> 00:58:00,810
interviews.

889
00:58:02,970 --> 00:58:06,470
And right there, sitting there, was I've
come here to chew bubblegum and kick

890
00:58:06,470 --> 00:58:07,690
ass. I'm all out of bubblegum.

891
00:58:09,290 --> 00:58:14,510
Well, that's a great line. I can use
that. I have come here to chew bubblegum

892
00:58:14,510 --> 00:58:15,710
and kick ass.

893
00:58:16,410 --> 00:58:18,290
And I'm all out of bubblegum.

894
00:58:23,070 --> 00:58:25,670
That's all his idea. That was all from
his brain.

895
00:58:26,160 --> 00:58:32,060
I've never felt safer in my life than
fighting with Roddy Piper.

896
00:58:34,700 --> 00:58:39,460
I believe that fight scene lasts
literally about seven minutes on screen.

897
00:58:41,460 --> 00:58:47,780
We really, you know, choreographed a ton
of it. But there was one time we were

898
00:58:47,780 --> 00:58:53,300
both so hyped up. I was especially hyped
up. And that first punch, I hit him

899
00:58:53,300 --> 00:58:55,300
right in the face. And I was like...

900
00:58:56,590 --> 00:58:59,330
And he's like, come on, man, don't
worry. Come on, come on, step out of it.

901
00:58:59,330 --> 00:59:00,870
on, don't worry. Come on, let's start
again.

902
00:59:01,510 --> 00:59:02,550
And he was great.

903
00:59:02,970 --> 00:59:05,310
Brother, life's a bitch.

904
00:59:07,330 --> 00:59:08,550
Don't feel sorry for me.

905
00:59:09,130 --> 00:59:10,490
My name's John Nada.

906
00:59:11,370 --> 00:59:15,490
The year and a half we were in Los
Angeles while he was filming those

907
00:59:15,490 --> 00:59:17,870
brought the scripts home and we'd go
over them.

908
00:59:18,950 --> 00:59:19,950
Here we are.

909
00:59:19,970 --> 00:59:22,530
He was always leaving to go to acting
classes.

910
00:59:23,760 --> 00:59:26,100
I mean, it was a whole other lifestyle.

911
00:59:28,960 --> 00:59:33,940
It was not like it was today where it's
a lot more flexible for wrestlers to

912
00:59:33,940 --> 00:59:34,940
also do acting.

913
00:59:35,240 --> 00:59:40,740
Back then, you didn't do that. It was
not an easy road to be really the first

914
00:59:40,740 --> 00:59:42,000
wrestler to go into film.

915
00:59:42,240 --> 00:59:46,660
When Vince was booking everything
without Piper's name, it was real hard

916
00:59:46,660 --> 00:59:49,300
to make that transition because Piper
was so hot at the time.

917
00:59:49,860 --> 00:59:53,500
If Roddy wanted to go off and do film,
What am I going to say? No, don't take

918
00:59:53,500 --> 00:59:56,760
advantage of that opportunity. As long
as I know that he's coming back.

919
00:59:57,240 --> 01:00:02,940
He loved acting and he loved the work of
it, but he felt alienated and didn't

920
01:00:02,940 --> 01:00:06,380
really have a lot in common with a lot
of the people in Hollywood.

921
01:00:06,880 --> 01:00:10,320
The only people that they can understand
me are other wrestlers.

922
01:00:12,620 --> 01:00:18,960
I needed to come back to the WWE and
walk back in the front door.

923
01:00:27,900 --> 01:00:34,600
When I came back into wrestling from
Hollywood, bringing that credibility

924
01:00:34,600 --> 01:00:36,480
was huge.

925
01:00:38,620 --> 01:00:42,360
As far as Roddy's standpoint is, well,
you had to bring me back because I was

926
01:00:42,360 --> 01:00:43,360
the greatest star of all time.

927
01:00:43,780 --> 01:00:45,640
You know, that would be Roddy's point of
view.

928
01:00:47,740 --> 01:00:51,220
But it doesn't matter what you want.
Give the audience what they want.

929
01:00:51,640 --> 01:00:54,040
They want Roddy to come back? Let's give
them Roddy.

930
01:00:57,740 --> 01:01:00,980
And after a respite, you know, Roddy's
ready to come back. Great, he's fresh,

931
01:01:01,040 --> 01:01:03,340
he's new all over again. Different set
of opponents.

932
01:01:03,660 --> 01:01:04,740
Mr. Downey.

933
01:01:05,560 --> 01:01:06,900
Yes, Mr. Piper.

934
01:01:07,540 --> 01:01:11,960
Don't blow no more smoke in my face.
When Downey Jr. was a talk show host, he

935
01:01:11,960 --> 01:01:12,859
had a big mouth.

936
01:01:12,860 --> 01:01:14,560
And Roddy had this impeccable timing.

937
01:01:14,840 --> 01:01:20,820
So when Downey blows smoke in Roddy's
face, it's like, one, two, three, four.

938
01:01:21,080 --> 01:01:25,040
Instead of immediately doing it, watch,
something's going to happen now. And

939
01:01:25,040 --> 01:01:26,040
then it does.

940
01:01:30,190 --> 01:01:31,710
He was so creative.

941
01:01:31,970 --> 01:01:34,990
I think the fire is out, Jeff. Very
quick on his feet.

942
01:01:37,170 --> 01:01:42,730
But at the same time, he was very
opinionated and wanted someone to listen

943
01:01:42,730 --> 01:01:46,290
his opinion. I listened to a lot of
Roddy's ideas, some of which were really

944
01:01:46,290 --> 01:01:49,910
dead on and some of which were, wow,
that was out there.

945
01:01:50,130 --> 01:01:53,390
They say you shouldn't blow your own
horn, don't they say that? Why not?

946
01:01:53,640 --> 01:01:56,820
You are the most arrogant individual I
think we've ever had.

947
01:01:57,260 --> 01:02:01,120
Nick Roddy once described our
relationship as a love -hate

948
01:02:01,640 --> 01:02:02,640
We never fought.

949
01:02:03,020 --> 01:02:05,200
There were a couple times when it was
very close.

950
01:02:05,800 --> 01:02:09,480
That was the way it was back in those
days. A lot of times you settled things

951
01:02:09,480 --> 01:02:10,800
a fistfight. You just did.

952
01:02:11,460 --> 01:02:13,780
Vince and I were two peas in a pod.

953
01:02:14,240 --> 01:02:15,260
I love the ass.

954
01:02:16,060 --> 01:02:17,060
I do.

955
01:02:17,160 --> 01:02:18,160
He's an ass.

956
01:02:18,600 --> 01:02:20,320
Sometimes. So am I.

957
01:02:22,799 --> 01:02:26,340
Roddy Piper was an attraction all to
himself.

958
01:02:26,780 --> 01:02:29,780
The fans could no longer boo him
anymore.

959
01:02:30,860 --> 01:02:37,580
You came to see Roddy Piper's intensity,
you came to hear his big mouth, and you

960
01:02:37,580 --> 01:02:44,140
came to watch that frenzied, kinetic
spirit he brought between

961
01:02:44,140 --> 01:02:45,140
the ropes.

962
01:02:49,960 --> 01:02:56,420
Whether he won or whether he was
humiliated, he was a draw and he

963
01:02:56,420 --> 01:02:57,420
draw.

964
01:03:00,440 --> 01:03:06,880
Roddy Piper was maturing and it

965
01:03:06,880 --> 01:03:13,840
wasn't all about Roddy and Roddy was
proving that, hey, I can make people

966
01:03:13,840 --> 01:03:14,840
too.

967
01:03:15,520 --> 01:03:18,040
I wouldn't lay my shoulders down for
anybody.

968
01:03:18,990 --> 01:03:24,790
But when I do, I make somebody, and it
means something.

969
01:03:25,210 --> 01:03:28,890
This is a special match.

970
01:03:29,210 --> 01:03:31,970
This is the biggest moment in my life,
for sure, up to this point.

971
01:03:32,530 --> 01:03:34,110
Roddy really launched me.

972
01:03:35,110 --> 01:03:38,990
My whole career just started climbing,
and Roddy was the one that gave me that

973
01:03:38,990 --> 01:03:39,990
first boost.

974
01:03:40,370 --> 01:03:44,070
This is the first time these two men are
meeting for the World Wrestling

975
01:03:44,070 --> 01:03:45,830
Federation Intercontinental title.

976
01:03:46,400 --> 01:03:49,820
I think the last time, I think I did
watch this maybe when Roddy died. I

977
01:03:49,820 --> 01:03:53,040
make a point of, like, trying to go back
and find some good memories.

978
01:03:53,960 --> 01:03:56,900
I always felt Roddy took a special
interest in me.

979
01:03:57,820 --> 01:04:01,980
Roddy was born in Saskatoon, and my dad
grew up in Saskatoon. And there was a

980
01:04:01,980 --> 01:04:06,000
possibility that their name, like, they
were the same family, or maybe there was

981
01:04:06,000 --> 01:04:07,860
some blood between us.

982
01:04:08,660 --> 01:04:11,880
When I first met him, we joked that we
might be cousins.

983
01:04:12,500 --> 01:04:13,680
Like, it was like, hey, cuz.

984
01:04:14,160 --> 01:04:18,480
And I didn't mind. I never minded Roddy
being a cousin. I know this guy since

985
01:04:18,480 --> 01:04:23,480
he's been knee -high to a grasshopper. I
remember when they were changing your

986
01:04:23,480 --> 01:04:24,480
potty pad.

987
01:04:24,600 --> 01:04:28,240
I think it was a message to the other
wrestlers, some of the other superstars,

988
01:04:28,300 --> 01:04:32,720
that weren't in the habit of reaching
down to help the next guys. Roddy was

989
01:04:32,720 --> 01:04:33,880
like, here, I'll show you how it's done.

990
01:04:34,240 --> 01:04:36,280
Eye to eye, nose to nose.

991
01:04:36,720 --> 01:04:40,720
But I was relieved to find out that this
guy's really pitching for me. He's

992
01:04:40,720 --> 01:04:42,600
actually opening the doors for me.

993
01:04:44,060 --> 01:04:45,560
That match was Roddy's match.

994
01:04:47,960 --> 01:04:49,660
Like, Roddy put that match together.

995
01:04:52,560 --> 01:04:55,600
Roddy was so tuned in to what would work
with the fans.

996
01:04:57,300 --> 01:05:01,440
They don't want to blame me with the
bell.

997
01:05:02,560 --> 01:05:04,400
Say, no, no, don't do it.

998
01:05:06,620 --> 01:05:10,560
His conscience gets the better of him.
He changes his mind here and decides not

999
01:05:10,560 --> 01:05:11,560
to.

1000
01:05:17,560 --> 01:05:19,360
By being a nice guy, it cost him.

1001
01:05:20,560 --> 01:05:27,480
Over the years, Roddy told me many times
that it

1002
01:05:27,480 --> 01:05:28,660
was his most favorite match.

1003
01:05:29,400 --> 01:05:31,220
And, you know, you never forget that.

1004
01:05:33,580 --> 01:05:37,600
There's an old saying that's, you need a
license to hunt, you need a license to

1005
01:05:37,600 --> 01:05:41,420
fish. Any jerk can have a kid. It takes
man to be a dad.

1006
01:05:44,100 --> 01:05:46,480
When I look at my childhood, my dad was
gone.

1007
01:05:47,050 --> 01:05:50,030
almost every day for at least up until I
was five.

1008
01:05:50,630 --> 01:05:56,250
The first at least 12 years of my life,
he was gone for long periods of time. I

1009
01:05:56,250 --> 01:05:58,370
think at one point I didn't see him for
over a year.

1010
01:05:59,790 --> 01:06:03,930
We both made the same choice that the
wrestling business took Preston over

1011
01:06:03,930 --> 01:06:08,930
anything, even family. So that's a tough
choice to look in the mirror and live

1012
01:06:08,930 --> 01:06:14,350
with. You were gone at least 300 days a
year, every year.

1013
01:06:16,140 --> 01:06:21,540
Like me, he was a real strong family
man. You know, you commiserate together

1014
01:06:21,540 --> 01:06:26,360
you miss your kids' birthday parties and
you miss Halloween and you miss all

1015
01:06:26,360 --> 01:06:30,820
these little special days all the time.
You see pictures, the heartbreak at home

1016
01:06:30,820 --> 01:06:34,440
of being gone all the time. You know,
it's just a very tough part of your

1017
01:06:35,900 --> 01:06:41,920
When Roddy would come home and have to
be dad, he was always fun.

1018
01:06:43,760 --> 01:06:46,700
He would spoil them rotten.

1019
01:06:48,040 --> 01:06:52,260
He would pull them out of school,
doesn't matter what was going on.

1020
01:06:55,840 --> 01:06:59,640
Christmas, he was always home and always
lots of presents.

1021
01:07:00,960 --> 01:07:03,260
A lot of cuddle time.

1022
01:07:03,740 --> 01:07:08,060
He was trying very hard to create what
he didn't have.

1023
01:07:09,060 --> 01:07:12,060
He would come home and he would be so
exhausted.

1024
01:07:12,570 --> 01:07:14,030
you know, while trying to see us.

1025
01:07:14,370 --> 01:07:18,230
And then he would want to have fun or
just do something that's a family.

1026
01:07:18,510 --> 01:07:22,490
And then immediately, like as soon as we
were having fun, you could see him

1027
01:07:22,490 --> 01:07:23,830
getting antsy about work.

1028
01:07:24,290 --> 01:07:27,670
You could see it start to tick like a
clock going faster and faster.

1029
01:07:28,190 --> 01:07:31,970
And I think he missed it. You know, he
missed us when he was gone and he missed

1030
01:07:31,970 --> 01:07:33,670
the action when he was home.

1031
01:07:34,130 --> 01:07:39,130
He was like a runaway as a kid growing
up and spent a lot of time on the road.

1032
01:07:39,660 --> 01:07:42,700
in his own mindset, like Roddy against
the world.

1033
01:07:43,940 --> 01:07:45,700
He was not like any other wrestler.

1034
01:07:45,900 --> 01:07:47,820
He was in his own world.

1035
01:07:48,500 --> 01:07:51,500
I think that world also meant going
away.

1036
01:07:52,300 --> 01:07:55,540
I'm going to get 30 minutes with my dad
this month.

1037
01:07:56,000 --> 01:08:00,200
I just want to hug him, cuddle with him,
kiss him, and do whatever I can in that

1038
01:08:00,200 --> 01:08:02,860
time because I literally get him on his
transfer layover flight.

1039
01:08:03,340 --> 01:08:06,440
He wasn't an NFL player that had a
season. He went 365.

1040
01:08:07,500 --> 01:08:08,500
There you go.

1041
01:08:08,920 --> 01:08:12,680
They never liked seeing him go,
everyone, including myself.

1042
01:08:13,160 --> 01:08:16,020
If you could wish for anything in the
whole world, what would you wish for?

1043
01:08:16,279 --> 01:08:19,880
For my family to be together all the
time.

1044
01:08:20,240 --> 01:08:24,240
But it's got to work.

1045
01:08:24,479 --> 01:08:28,979
You know, it's hard not to get sad when
he's going out the door.

1046
01:08:29,520 --> 01:08:30,979
But, um, sorry.

1047
01:08:44,490 --> 01:08:48,250
It's hard to live with a man that has
constant injuries.

1048
01:08:48,930 --> 01:08:54,090
Of course, they varied from bruises to
broken bones.

1049
01:08:55,450 --> 01:08:58,790
He never let on how bad he was hurting.

1050
01:08:59,390 --> 01:09:04,689
I would beg him to sit still and recover
from an injury, yes. Yes, I would. But

1051
01:09:04,689 --> 01:09:07,290
you cannot make Rod do anything he
doesn't want to.

1052
01:09:09,270 --> 01:09:12,149
Dad was injured 90 % of the time.

1053
01:09:13,390 --> 01:09:17,290
So when I say I had to lace his boots up
because I was eight years old, it's

1054
01:09:17,290 --> 01:09:18,630
because it physically hurt him.

1055
01:09:20,210 --> 01:09:23,410
He is sorely outnumbered here.

1056
01:09:24,470 --> 01:09:28,890
I remember the first time that I really
felt like, wow, he is mortal.

1057
01:09:29,330 --> 01:09:30,750
Hogan gets a whipping on him.

1058
01:09:32,130 --> 01:09:35,029
And really hating Hogan.

1059
01:09:37,210 --> 01:09:41,510
The hardest thing as a kid for me was...

1060
01:09:41,790 --> 01:09:43,229
knowing your dad's injuries.

1061
01:09:43,470 --> 01:09:44,850
And he had just had a hip replacement.

1062
01:09:46,069 --> 01:09:49,149
He had a scar from a hip replacement.

1063
01:09:49,410 --> 01:09:52,050
Hulk Hogan took a chair and hit my dad.

1064
01:09:54,229 --> 01:09:57,850
He's not supposed to be wrestling. We
were told he might not even walk again.

1065
01:10:00,010 --> 01:10:05,070
I just remember breaking down in tears
because for the first time it became

1066
01:10:05,070 --> 01:10:06,070
real.

1067
01:10:09,110 --> 01:10:12,200
At that point, My parents stopped
letting us watch altogether.

1068
01:10:13,500 --> 01:10:17,800
When we had the inside and the outside
view, it was really rough.

1069
01:10:18,620 --> 01:10:22,800
I mean, he was in constant pain and yet
could work through it.

1070
01:10:24,000 --> 01:10:26,460
As he got older, he had a shoulder.

1071
01:10:27,200 --> 01:10:31,820
injury and his arm would just hang like
a couple inches lower than the other arm

1072
01:10:31,820 --> 01:10:35,580
and he was probably like that for a year
or two and it turned out his like they

1073
01:10:35,580 --> 01:10:38,680
pulled out something like five or six
shattered bones that were just like

1074
01:10:38,680 --> 01:10:45,280
floating around his shoulder it was kind
of fascinating for me to see him behind

1075
01:10:45,280 --> 01:10:50,380
the scenes having a hard time getting
out of bed having a hard time walking

1076
01:10:50,380 --> 01:10:54,820
two hours later he's in the ring and
you'd never know anything was wrong

1077
01:10:54,820 --> 01:10:56,820
he loved it and he loved putting on a
show.

1078
01:10:57,280 --> 01:11:01,360
It really was just two completely
different lives.

1079
01:11:05,120 --> 01:11:11,320
During the time of 2003, when Dad talked
to HBO, it was a dark time for Dad, in

1080
01:11:11,320 --> 01:11:12,840
front of camera and at home.

1081
01:11:13,060 --> 01:11:14,060
Everybody's dead.

1082
01:11:15,380 --> 01:11:16,580
They're all dying early.

1083
01:11:17,500 --> 01:11:22,540
And nobody cares about it. What the hell
is he doing?

1084
01:11:24,110 --> 01:11:27,050
And what the hell is he saying? It's
like, really?

1085
01:11:27,410 --> 01:11:33,850
They take them and they screw them up so
much. And they being the

1086
01:11:33,850 --> 01:11:37,550
rash of promoters that I've gone through
in the 33 years.

1087
01:11:37,790 --> 01:11:41,870
A lot of times you lash out. And that's
what Roddy was doing, was lashing out.

1088
01:11:43,190 --> 01:11:47,530
A lot of his friends had started passing
away.

1089
01:11:47,810 --> 01:11:50,850
And it makes you worry and it makes you
concerned.

1090
01:11:52,520 --> 01:11:56,780
So that's when he started being vocal
about it. I know he blamed the company

1091
01:11:56,780 --> 01:11:58,660
just about everything in the interviews.

1092
01:11:59,000 --> 01:12:04,100
But at that time, he had lost so much.
He wasn't wrestling. He was hurt.

1093
01:12:04,480 --> 01:12:06,360
Just trying to stand up for his buddies.

1094
01:12:07,120 --> 01:12:11,580
But later on, towards the end, Dad had
talked to me. And, you know, he said,

1095
01:12:11,660 --> 01:12:15,260
it's the business we get into. We know
what it is. You know, we don't get in

1096
01:12:15,260 --> 01:12:17,660
there thinking we're going to live to
70, 80 years old.

1097
01:12:18,140 --> 01:12:20,220
What would you have me do at 49?

1098
01:12:21,389 --> 01:12:24,690
When, like, my pension plan, I can't
take out until I'm 65.

1099
01:12:25,230 --> 01:12:26,630
I'm not going to make 65.

1100
01:12:27,110 --> 01:12:28,510
It's just face facts, guys.

1101
01:12:28,730 --> 01:12:32,070
When someone says, you know, really
rotten things about your company, you

1102
01:12:32,090 --> 01:12:35,890
you're not going to welcome them with
open arms. You know, you're going to

1103
01:12:36,010 --> 01:12:38,170
time for us to say goodbye.

1104
01:12:40,850 --> 01:12:42,670
He wasn't expecting the consequences.

1105
01:12:43,250 --> 01:12:47,310
He lost a contract. It was pretty bad
for our family as far as, like, our well

1106
01:12:47,310 --> 01:12:48,148
-being goes.

1107
01:12:48,150 --> 01:12:49,930
I think he felt very lost.

1108
01:12:50,640 --> 01:12:51,640
Very depressed.

1109
01:12:51,880 --> 01:12:53,740
A little bit reckless with his behavior.

1110
01:12:54,340 --> 01:12:56,980
Obviously with the HBO interview, that's
a good example.

1111
01:12:57,260 --> 01:13:01,240
And, you know, I've talked about him
having demons, and I think that this was

1112
01:13:01,240 --> 01:13:05,080
sort of like the height of his demons
coming out was this period of his life.

1113
01:13:10,060 --> 01:13:14,540
Yeah, nothing's permanent in this
business. And as Piper's been fired,

1114
01:13:14,540 --> 01:13:18,860
fired a couple times. You know, but
things change, and, you know, the

1115
01:13:18,860 --> 01:13:19,860
or...

1116
01:13:20,490 --> 01:13:23,550
OJ or somebody will do something that
takes precedent over something that we

1117
01:13:23,550 --> 01:13:28,490
did. So I think Vince understands that
he's dealing with a bunch of high

1118
01:13:28,490 --> 01:13:31,250
personalities, but Vince has been pretty
forgiving.

1119
01:13:32,290 --> 01:13:39,110
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, I give
you the most gifted entertainer

1120
01:13:39,110 --> 01:13:42,790
in the history of professional
wrestling.

1121
01:13:43,030 --> 01:13:45,930
My man, the hot rod.

1122
01:13:49,800 --> 01:13:53,040
I think it was huge for him, you know,
because his whole life was wrestling.

1123
01:13:53,480 --> 01:13:58,000
Even though wrestling is an exhibition,
for us the Hall of Fame is real.

1124
01:13:58,920 --> 01:14:05,920
I want to

1125
01:14:05,920 --> 01:14:06,920
tell you this.

1126
01:14:08,680 --> 01:14:09,840
I love you.

1127
01:14:10,760 --> 01:14:15,240
I love you so much, man.

1128
01:14:16,240 --> 01:14:19,140
I love you so much, but I guarantee you
this.

1129
01:14:19,620 --> 01:14:24,200
My name is Rowdy Roddy Piper, and you
ain't seen nothing yet.

1130
01:14:43,560 --> 01:14:47,240
You can find sympathy in the dictionary
between sh** and suicide.

1131
01:14:49,780 --> 01:14:53,740
Roddy was definitely depressed off and
on during his life.

1132
01:14:54,860 --> 01:15:01,060
You know, you're either up 100 % or
you're kind of down. And it was always

1133
01:15:01,060 --> 01:15:02,520
for him to find the middle spot.

1134
01:15:04,840 --> 01:15:09,220
One of the demons was that time in his
life as a teenager when he was surviving

1135
01:15:09,220 --> 01:15:10,220
on the street.

1136
01:15:10,640 --> 01:15:12,160
He never let that go.

1137
01:15:13,000 --> 01:15:16,440
I was so young, I had to fight for
everything I had.

1138
01:15:19,640 --> 01:15:20,640
Oh, man.

1139
01:15:22,680 --> 01:15:26,940
He told me some stuff about his
childhood and living on the street. He

1140
01:15:26,940 --> 01:15:32,160
bad spot and used and abused and just a
lot of bad stuff that I had no idea.

1141
01:15:33,460 --> 01:15:36,000
Nobody feels sorry for me, man.

1142
01:15:37,020 --> 01:15:41,120
You know, he'd pull me from the road and
he'd been in his hotel room for three

1143
01:15:41,120 --> 01:15:42,280
days with the lights off.

1144
01:15:42,940 --> 01:15:46,660
He was depressed. There was things on
his mind that went back to his

1145
01:15:48,420 --> 01:15:51,840
His mind went to spots that weren't good
for him.

1146
01:15:53,640 --> 01:15:58,400
He still had that crumbling part inside
his soul that he could never mend.

1147
01:15:59,520 --> 01:16:04,660
He was so depressed at times. I'm sure
that he did think of suicide.

1148
01:16:04,960 --> 01:16:08,580
He wouldn't follow through with it
because, as he would be the first to

1149
01:16:08,620 --> 01:16:10,720
he's not a coward, and that's a coward's
way out.

1150
01:16:11,060 --> 01:16:12,260
But he was so...

1151
01:16:12,730 --> 01:16:19,470
sad at times inside himself that I know
that he did think that occasionally, and

1152
01:16:19,470 --> 01:16:20,470
that's heartbreaking.

1153
01:16:28,150 --> 01:16:33,310
242 pounds, the Hot Rod, Rowdy Roddy
Piper.

1154
01:16:36,510 --> 01:16:38,670
How you doing, pal?

1155
01:16:38,990 --> 01:16:40,230
Yeah, nice.

1156
01:16:42,570 --> 01:16:47,570
As he started to wind down wrestling, he
really started to have fun going into

1157
01:16:47,570 --> 01:16:50,190
acting as well as comedy.

1158
01:16:55,330 --> 01:17:01,950
In a weird way, I think it was a
therapeutic thing that he realized that

1159
01:17:01,950 --> 01:17:04,970
because he couldn't wrestle anymore
didn't mean that he couldn't perform.

1160
01:17:12,350 --> 01:17:14,830
He put the suntan lotion on.

1161
01:17:15,070 --> 01:17:19,470
He enjoyed telling these stories. He
enjoyed connecting with his fans. And

1162
01:17:19,470 --> 01:17:21,390
was something that he was very
passionate about.

1163
01:17:21,610 --> 01:17:23,390
May all your dreams come true.

1164
01:17:23,650 --> 01:17:24,670
God bless you.

1165
01:17:25,450 --> 01:17:26,670
How cool is that?

1166
01:17:26,910 --> 01:17:28,610
Roddy, Roddy Piper.

1167
01:17:28,970 --> 01:17:35,930
January of 2009, his manager reached out
and said, would you have any interest

1168
01:17:35,930 --> 01:17:37,410
in helping Roddy?

1169
01:17:37,850 --> 01:17:42,710
cultivate a stand -up comedy act? And I
was like, absolutely.

1170
01:17:43,410 --> 01:17:47,290
But here's the thing. When you watch Pro
Wrestling with Brothers, that wasn't

1171
01:17:47,290 --> 01:17:51,610
even a TV show. That was an instruction
guide on how to hurt each other. That's

1172
01:17:51,610 --> 01:17:52,589
all it was.

1173
01:17:52,590 --> 01:17:58,450
I grew up in the middle of three boys in
suburban Philadelphia in really the

1174
01:17:58,450 --> 01:18:01,490
golden age of modern professional
wrestling.

1175
01:18:02,670 --> 01:18:06,470
I remember being a kid when he showed
up.

1176
01:18:06,890 --> 01:18:12,570
He was the worst. I remember being a
chubby 11 -year -old kid buying a T

1177
01:18:12,570 --> 01:18:14,450
that said, I hate Rowdy Roddy Piper.

1178
01:18:15,170 --> 01:18:19,370
Like, he could get you to yell at a
television set.

1179
01:18:20,950 --> 01:18:25,610
And meeting Roddy was like meeting
somebody out of a comic book.

1180
01:18:25,890 --> 01:18:31,550
That began a really cool relationship
where I would just listen to stories and

1181
01:18:31,550 --> 01:18:35,410
try to help him craft that into some
sort of cohesive act.

1182
01:18:41,519 --> 01:18:48,480
As a comedian, I have an unbelievable
amount of respect for somebody

1183
01:18:48,480 --> 01:18:51,620
that can connect with audiences on such
a deep level.

1184
01:18:51,840 --> 01:18:54,260
That was his mutant ability.

1185
01:18:56,000 --> 01:19:02,860
I got to go through Roddy's life with
him on a comedic journey, but hearing

1186
01:19:02,860 --> 01:19:05,160
life experience was just so...

1187
01:19:11,670 --> 01:19:15,030
Roddy's darkness is one of the things
that drew him to stand -up comedy.

1188
01:19:18,510 --> 01:19:20,730
You can turn pain into joy.

1189
01:19:22,390 --> 01:19:26,350
And making people laugh meant a lot to
him.

1190
01:19:29,570 --> 01:19:33,450
He is the WWE Hall of Famer.

1191
01:19:34,040 --> 01:19:38,700
And one of the all -time greats, Rowdy
Roddy Piper. When he would get off the

1192
01:19:38,700 --> 01:19:41,500
road, he would be tired or hurt, and
he'd recover.

1193
01:19:41,760 --> 01:19:46,560
But there was never a time that he did
an interview where he got on camera and

1194
01:19:46,560 --> 01:19:47,700
he couldn't turn it on.

1195
01:19:48,000 --> 01:19:49,000
What was the question?

1196
01:19:49,700 --> 01:19:51,080
This time it was different.

1197
01:19:51,600 --> 01:19:56,560
He had this interviewer, and he gets on
and he's like, can't put his thoughts

1198
01:19:56,560 --> 01:19:59,760
together. No, but what I don't think is
on our honor.

1199
01:20:02,240 --> 01:20:03,640
Let me try to do this.

1200
01:20:03,900 --> 01:20:07,120
It's one of those things that as a
family member, when you know someone

1201
01:20:07,120 --> 01:20:12,300
and you're like, they're being odd. I
went into La... Excuse me. I went into a

1202
01:20:12,300 --> 01:20:19,300
Mexican restaurant with my youngest
daughter who's in... It was

1203
01:20:19,300 --> 01:20:25,360
because that was not the man I knew.
There was obvious a problem he was

1204
01:20:25,460 --> 01:20:29,620
I just think that it's a little... It
was like the moment the world knew

1205
01:20:29,620 --> 01:20:30,620
something was wrong.

1206
01:20:33,260 --> 01:20:36,740
And a few days later, Roddy was home.

1207
01:20:37,140 --> 01:20:38,900
He was very tired that night.

1208
01:20:39,140 --> 01:20:42,660
We were going to go see his doctor the
next day. We decided to do that.

1209
01:20:43,200 --> 01:20:46,740
And we went to bed, and he passed away
in his sleep.

1210
01:20:48,800 --> 01:20:49,840
His heart failed.

1211
01:20:50,060 --> 01:20:54,820
As far as the specifics as to what was
causing it, it probably was a

1212
01:20:54,820 --> 01:20:56,400
of his entire life.

1213
01:20:58,520 --> 01:21:01,880
I am so grateful that he was home

1214
01:21:03,210 --> 01:21:09,690
Even at that age, so many days of the
year, he was gone away from home and he

1215
01:21:09,690 --> 01:21:10,690
could have been alone.

1216
01:21:11,330 --> 01:21:12,330
Sorry.

1217
01:21:12,930 --> 01:21:17,430
And I'm just very grateful that he was
home with me when he passed.

1218
01:21:22,070 --> 01:21:24,610
You know, the news came that he passed
away, you know.

1219
01:21:25,650 --> 01:21:29,730
And I felt like I got shot in the chest
with a cannon, you know. And it kind of

1220
01:21:29,730 --> 01:21:32,700
like... knocked me off track for a
couple of days.

1221
01:21:32,920 --> 01:21:37,220
And then all of a sudden I get this
voice message. It was really weird

1222
01:21:37,220 --> 01:21:41,700
either my phone was messed up. Sometimes
you'll get a text message at that night

1223
01:21:41,700 --> 01:21:43,000
when it was sent to you in the morning.

1224
01:21:43,900 --> 01:21:45,580
I saw the light.

1225
01:21:45,860 --> 01:21:48,280
I'm walking with Jesus today, my
brother.

1226
01:21:48,680 --> 01:21:51,880
Walking with Jesus, loving you and
praying for you.

1227
01:21:52,520 --> 01:21:57,300
It really spooked me out. Like, hmm,
alien thing, you know, like close

1228
01:21:57,300 --> 01:21:59,920
encounters. It's crazy to get a voice
message.

1229
01:22:00,470 --> 01:22:03,970
from somebody after they passed away.
And especially for him to say, I'm

1230
01:22:03,970 --> 01:22:05,410
you and walking with Jesus, my brother.

1231
01:22:05,750 --> 01:22:08,430
Just loving you and walking with Jesus.
I was like, wow.

1232
01:22:09,970 --> 01:22:11,170
Totally screwed me up.

1233
01:22:44,740 --> 01:22:46,960
So good to see you. Oh, my God.

1234
01:22:47,180 --> 01:22:50,600
When I first started doing MMA, I was
trying to think of a fight name. And, of

1235
01:22:50,600 --> 01:22:53,100
course, the first thing that everybody
thought of, I was like, what do you

1236
01:22:53,100 --> 01:22:56,060
of the fight name? Well, Rowdy, Rowdy,
Rowdy, Rowdy. Like, I know, but it's

1237
01:22:56,060 --> 01:23:00,260
Rowdy, Rowdy, Piper. He has that. I
didn't want to steal it until...

1238
01:23:00,770 --> 01:23:06,590
happened to be the original rowdy one
and uh god is blessing and yeah he was

1239
01:23:06,590 --> 01:23:11,150
very sweet about it like yeah sure kid
no problem better do the name proud or

1240
01:23:11,150 --> 01:23:15,850
something like that i don't know thank
you

1241
01:23:15,850 --> 01:23:22,450
so much for everything thank you for
trusting me absolutely

1242
01:23:22,450 --> 01:23:23,630
absolutely

1243
01:23:25,060 --> 01:23:31,640
Roddy would dig that you have such
continued success, you know, and he

1244
01:23:31,640 --> 01:23:34,820
be prouder, I'm sure, of your
representation of the Rowdiness.

1245
01:23:35,180 --> 01:23:36,520
No one can do it better.

1246
01:23:36,740 --> 01:23:43,680
Thank you so much. Thank you so, so
much. He was a loner and a wolf, and he

1247
01:23:43,680 --> 01:23:46,040
often misunderstood.

1248
01:23:48,060 --> 01:23:49,840
I was so wild.

1249
01:23:51,120 --> 01:23:52,740
Scary wild.

1250
01:23:53,290 --> 01:23:57,110
But he was always 100 % in your face.

1251
01:23:57,310 --> 01:24:03,110
You do not go rock at a man who's got a
machine gun. This is what you get. I am

1252
01:24:03,110 --> 01:24:04,068
who I am.

1253
01:24:04,070 --> 01:24:06,570
What you got here is all man.

1254
01:24:07,090 --> 01:24:08,650
He didn't change for anybody.

1255
01:24:09,030 --> 01:24:13,090
We are the most popular wrestlers in the
entire world. I haven't found anyone

1256
01:24:13,090 --> 01:24:15,110
that has what Roddy had.

1257
01:24:16,770 --> 01:24:19,330
Love life lived it to its max.

1258
01:24:20,370 --> 01:24:21,630
He came in.

1259
01:24:22,240 --> 01:24:23,760
Spitting fire and crapping thunder.

1260
01:24:26,660 --> 01:24:30,340
I am the legend killer.

1261
01:24:30,740 --> 01:24:35,500
He started with so little and ended with
so much and had every hardship thrown

1262
01:24:35,500 --> 01:24:36,500
at him along the way.

1263
01:24:36,980 --> 01:24:39,940
That's my dad's legacy. I hope it is one
that gives people strength.

1264
01:24:40,580 --> 01:24:46,180
I still hear new stories about him all
the time. And I realize how lucky I am

1265
01:24:46,180 --> 01:24:50,060
have a father that has impacted so many
people in the world.

1266
01:24:53,580 --> 01:24:54,800
Best part of my job?

1267
01:24:56,260 --> 01:25:00,880
When you come with your daddy and your
mummy and you're all excited.

1268
01:25:02,800 --> 01:25:07,620
He could put a smile on a little boy's
face.

1269
01:25:08,800 --> 01:25:13,000
That's the greatest reward a guy could
ever have in his life.

1270
01:25:14,680 --> 01:25:15,680
Thank you.

1271
01:25:16,480 --> 01:25:17,780
I love you too.

1272
01:25:23,470 --> 01:25:30,210
I have come here to chew bubblegum. Come
here to chew bubblegum and kick butt.

1273
01:25:30,370 --> 01:25:35,770
And I'm all out of bubblegum. And I'm
all out of bubblegum. Just when they

1274
01:25:35,770 --> 01:25:39,230
they have the answers. Just when they
think they have the answers.

1275
01:25:39,490 --> 01:25:40,690
I change the question.

1276
01:25:40,970 --> 01:25:42,930
I change the question.

1277
01:25:43,230 --> 01:25:50,090
You do not throw rocks. You do not throw
rocks at a man with a machine

1278
01:25:50,090 --> 01:25:51,090
gun, brother.