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ONE FAN'S OPINION: PIPER DVD IS FITTING TRIBUTE
I was born in 1980. I got into wrestling about four years later. By the time I was ten, my favorite wrestler was Rowdy Roddy Piper, even more than Hulk Hogan, who was my idol when I first got into wrestling. As pointed out by several speakers on this documentary, Roddy was not the best worker most of the time, but he had the gift of gab. When you handed him the microphone, there wasn’t anybody any better than him. He could make you
love him or hate him, and all the while he was never, ever dull.
The reason he had such great chemistry with Hulk Hogan was because they were so different, Hogan was Superman while Roddy was a cross between schoolyard bully and class clown. I’ve gone back and forth with a lot of the older guys being in my mid-twenties, but I have a very special place in my heart for Hot Rod to this day, to the point where he’s one of the
few Legends whom I welcome appearances from today and I had been asking around anywhere I could if they’d ever do a Roddy Piper DVD (right, Dave?). As such, if this DVD set had been a burial like the Ultimate Warrior’s was, I would have never forgiven Vince McMahon.
But don’t worry, folks, I’ve seen the documentary by now. It’s not a burial. It covers every aspect of Piper’s life and career and it’s honest, even if Piper does seem to contradict himself sometimes. For example, Piper says it was important for him to go into the Hall of Fame without tension with Vince because “he’s a friend and I love himâ€ÂÂÂ. While I’m glad to hear he’s finally patched things up with Vince McMahon once and for all, and I believe he wanted to wipe the slate clean with WWE, he was very hard on Vince in his autobiography. You can’t blame him, though, because A. He seemed like he wrote the book in a very bad period of his life, which, even though the book is never directly addressed on the video, he confirms he did (although he did say in the book he liked Vince), and B. Every bit of exaggeration from him can perhaps be attributed to the fact that his new footage was shot at his home and he seems
like he’s had a couple of beers every so often. He’s my idol, he’s allowed.
In the documentary, he talks about how his rough upbringing forced him into the wrestling business at the ridiculously young age of fifteen and how he didn’t train properly until the age of twenty-one. He also talks about his relationships with Hulk Hogan and Vince McMahon, strained for years but extremely positive now, and how he hated Mr. T when they first worked together, for which I blame him not one bit for, who he liked and didn’t like working with and yes, RealSports With Bryant Gumbel is covered.
Roddy said on a website that he pulled no punches on the show but much of what he said was taken out of context, which, in my opinion, is not unreasonable because that’s what they do on shows like that. I was so upset by that when I first heard about it that I actually suggested to a friend that I wanted to track Roddy down so I could help him, which I would have if I could have. I loved the guy too much to let that thing go. My friend told me to forget it but if it
had been Randy Savage or Warrior who went on the show and said that, I would have just shrugged it off because I can’t stand either of them anymore and I never believe a word of anything they say, but this was my man Roddy Piper. So you can imagine how happy I was when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame. Dave on this site reported in 2004 that Roddy faxed Vince and asked for a job. I didn’t see the show, but from what I understand about the Real Sports which got Piper canned, it seems like they made Vince look just as bad on that
show, which is probably something Piper brought up in the fax. As JR said, “They probably just caught Roddy on a really bad day and played it up.†Which is what I think.
I loved the documentary particularly because it talks about how Roddy came to make the cult classic They Live and you get to meet his wife and children. He comes off, even when he exaggerates, as a genuinely good and funny guy.
For Piper fans who wanted a DVD, including myself, this is it. This is what you’ve been waiting for. Maybe the extras are not all you might have hoped for, they’re
great and they’re a plenty but some people said stuff was missing, but they’re enough for me. And the documentary and all the great Pits (including one classic one with Mr. T wherein he puts on a novelty T wig in front of him at the Garden) alone make it worth whatever price you buy it for. Highly recommended.
Incidentally, the only drawback is that the media department gets some of the dates wrong on the back cover and in the documentary itself (it has a picture of Piper with Eddie Guerrero and Batista from 2005 in reference to Piper’s last WWE match in 2003 when in reality Piper and Sean O’Haire against Guerrero and Tajiri). But when you overlook that, you couldn’t have asked for a better DVD set for a guy like Roddy Piper.
5 kilts out of 5
