Original subtitles

- Take my phone? \h\h\h\h\h- Sure.

- Roddy.

Yeah, I’m doing great. \h\h\h\h\hHow are you?

\h\hWe’re just getting ready to do an interview about you.

A little warm down there, huh?

You what?

Yeah, not anytime soon, \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hthough.

You’re holding a place for me.

\hRight next to you at the table, huh?

Great.

No, I...no, I’m just gonna \h\h\h\h\h\htalk about you,

\h\h\hall good things, not to worry about it.

Great.

Thanks, Roddy.

\hRoddy’s in heaven. Roddy’s not in hell.

♪ ♪

- We’ll check you down there, guys.

We’ll check you down there.

♪ ♪

- Rowdy Ronda Rousey!

[no audible dialogue]

\h\h\h\h- Coming to the WWE, I really wanted to make sure

\hthat every single time that I walked out there,

\heveryone remembered "Rowdy" Roddy Piper.

Rowdy is the only name I could have taken on.

\hI wanted to make sure that that next generation of kids

\h\h\h\hknew who he was and respected his memory

and what he’s contributed \h\h\h\h\hto the business.

- When I ran into Piper,

\hhe’s the one that made everything else possible.

\h\h\hHe was the key, the cog in the wheel.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hWithout Piper, we could have never launched

into the stratosphere.

- It’s as simple as this.

When RP talks, brother, \h\h\h\h\hpeople listen.

- He was the ultimate bad guy.

- How you doing, fatso?

- He sold it. He practiced it.

He was good at what he did.

♪ ♪

- Just when they think \hthey got the answers,

I change the questions.

- Even if you had never heard \h\h\h\h\h\h\hof Roddy Piper,

\h\h\h\h\hyou could tell you didn’t like this guy.

- Nobody messes with Piper!

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h- He was riveting. - I seen a lot of men buried...

- A really good-hearted guy,

a really tough son of a bitch.

\h- He was not like any other wrestler.

He was in his own world,

real strong family man.

\h\h\h\h\h- He kept his family completely out of the business,

\h\h\hand I think he took too much of it on himself.

- Yeah!

- Everything he did \h\hfrom the moment

he walked out in the ring \h\h\hrubbed people wrong.

- You’re gonna see something

\h\h\hyou never seen in your life before.

\h\h\h\h- Whatever it was, he went against the grain,

and he just lived \hin that glory.

♪ ♪

[droning bagpipe music]

♪ ♪

- You know, God takes care \h\h\hof fools and babies.

♪ ♪

Before I was a pro wrestler, I got hit by a pickup truck.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hI was lived in an Indian reservation.

\h\h\h\h\h\hI had tonsillitis, so they took out my appendix.

I moved a lot.

I got hurt a lot as a little kid.

♪ ♪

- My dad, Roddy Piper, he was born in Canada

\h\h\hin a place called Saskatoon, Saskatchewan,

which is one of the coldest \h\h\h\hplaces in the world.

He used to tell me, you know,

the story of running uphill \h\h\hboth ways to school,

\h\hright, in the snow? He actually did that.

♪ ♪

\hHis dad was a police officer that worked for the railroad,

\h\h\h\h\hand this meant that they traveled 24/7.

\h\hThey would spend a week in one town, a week in the next.

\h\h\hI think he was about 10 years old.

He was on a Indian reservation \h\h\h\hfor about six months,

and he’s the only \hwhite kid on it.

Everybody else is Indian,

\h\h\hand they don’t like white people at the time,

\hso he had to learn how to fight his way through

and get their respect.

\h\h\h\h\hSo every few months, no matter where he was going,

he would have to start over,

build his reputation, \hand be the tough guy

so he wouldn’t get hurt.

He would go out and get in trouble and come home

\h\h\hand face all kinds of physical punishment.

[somber music]

\h\h\h- It was a hard Victorian upbringing,

very strict.

Being the youngest,

he always kind of felt like

he was an afterthought \h\h\h\h\hin his family

is what he would tell me.

Like, he wasn’t expected.

Not a lot of hugs.

Not a lot of verbal \h\h\h"I love yous."

- My grandpa did beat my dad. \h\h\hI don’t know how often,

but he was physical enough \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hwith him

that it was a dark place

that my dad never really wanted \h\h\h\hto talk about with us.

- You’re 12, 11, 10 years old. \h\h\h\h\h\hYou move 10 times.

\h\h\hAll of a sudden, you get into a fight,

\hand you come back home and you get into a fight

because you got into a fight.

You know, it’s...

♪ ♪

I don’t think that punishment,

\h\hphysical punishment, is a way to raise a kid.

None of it goes on \hin my house ever.

- There was a lot of trauma \h\h\h\h\hin his childhood,

and it followed him.

\h\hHe seemed like the kind of person

\h\hthat always had a demon or something on his shoulder

and that he was fighting with

and I think that that started \h\hat a very, very young age

long before wrestling.

[bagpipe music]

- I got into my bagpipes \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\ha lot,

and it kind of pulled me away \h\h\h\h\h\h\hfrom everybody.

I don’t know how,

but that’s where I started, \h\hwhen I was six years old

playing the bagpipes.

It was a place for me to go. \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hIt was loud.

\h\hPeople knew, don’t interrupt.

It actually became a hideaway for me.

♪ ♪

- One day I was in my house,

and there was a knock \h\h\hat my back door.

\h\h\hAnd there was two friends of mine with this new guy, Rod.

And so they said to me,

"Cam, you’re a pretty \h\h\h\h\h\htough guy,

\h"and this new guy, Rod, he’s a pretty tough guy.

Why don’t you have a fight?"

I said, "Sure."

And we went at it.

\h\hLike in the movies, he drilled me a good one

and I flew overtop of my motorcycle.

And he won the fight.

As I found out later, \h\hRod told me he was

the light heavyweight boxing \h\h\h\h\hchamp of Toronto.

And from that point on, we became best friends.

He was a high school wrestler,

and he was number two \h\h\h\h\hin the city.

\h\hThat was his goal was to be a wrestler.

- And the day he did \h\hgraduate school,

he finally did leave home.

\hHe would have liked a better relationship with his father.

You know, that was \h\heating him up.

As Rod became a young adult, \h\h\hit just became too much

\h’cause Rod wanted to get rough back,

but the only other choice would \h\hbe to have an all-out brawl

with your father.

♪ ♪

\h\h\h\h\h\hHe left home and was out on his own.

- It was just time to go,

\h\h\hso I took my bagpipes and I just never went back.

- He was really a nomad.

He went to youth hostels, \h\h\h\h\hYMCAs, anywhere.

Usually back then,

five bucks for the night \h\hand you could do it.

Or you’d get there \hand it’d be full,

\h\h\h\h\hso you would be on the street that night.

- I had to make money,

and so played my bagpipes \h\h\hand I’d get quarters

or whatever they give me.

You sleep during the day.

\h\hIt’s too dangerous to sleep at nighttime.

At nighttime, you get cold, \h\h\h\h\h\hyou get hungry,

and so you start \hto try to feed

some of these necessities.

I started stealing \h\hwhat I needed

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hand then got with a group of bad guys.

\h\h\h\h\hAnd all of a sudden, you’re carrying a switchblade,

\h\h\hand--you know, and then the fights.

\h\h\hNow I was getting off on this bully type of thing,

which I hated.

- He was beaten up. He was made fun of.

Half of those beatings \h\h\h\h\hwere because

\hsomebody was trying to sexually abuse him,

and you fight back.

\h- You know, I think he did a little robbery here and there,

and he was terribly \h\hashamed of it.

It was a brief part \h\h\hof his life.

He also would fight.

People would pay to see him \h\h\h\hfight on the street.

Doing whatever it takes \h\h\h\h\h\hto survive.

\h\h- I was living in a youth hostel.

\hFather O’Malley, you know, he says,

"You know, Roderick,

\h\h\hhave you ever seen professional wrestling?"

I said, "No, sir."

He says, "I can get you $25."

Whew! You know, that was, like, three months’ rent.

- He was 15 years old

\h\h\h\hwhen he had his first professional fight

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hagainst Larry "The Axe" Hennig.

- Larry Hennig

coming into the ring \h\hat this time...

- You know, Rod, he knew that he needed an angle.

I don’t believe at that time

\hhe’d come up with Rowdy Roddy Piper.

His name was Rod Toombs, so he went by that name.

[playing bagpipe music]

\h\h\hI don’t know how many wrestlers

can play the bagpipes \h\h\h\hand has kilt.

And so that’s what he did

to distinguish himself

\hbased on the talent that he actually had.

- The announcer, he just knew my name was Roddy.

He had to announce something, \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hand he says,

"Ladies and gentlemen \h\h\h\hhere comes...

♪ ♪

Roddy the Piper."

\h\h\h\h- He was just naturally good at it,

\h\h\hand then that evolved into his wrestling career,

\hsince it was a special skill that he could use as a gimmick.

People would stand up and say...

you know, and yell at him.

That was his goal

was to get people pissed off at him,

so they’re going to look \h\h\h\hin the program:

"Who is this guy?"

- My nose was broke, you know?

And Larry only hit me twice, \h\h\hbut he did a good job.

My eye was drooping, \h\h\h\hand he says,

"Kid, how’d you like to go \h\h\h\h\hto Kansas City?"

And that’s how I got into pro wrestling,

and I never stopped.

- He knew that there was going \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hto be many days

\h\hthat he didn’t know where the next paycheck was coming,

\h\h\hand so he just threw himself at it.

\h\hThat took him all across Canada

and then into the States,

\h\h\hjust wherever he could get a job.

- When wrestling came along, \h\h\hthat’s why I just boom!

\h\h\hBecause it had all the elements without the police.

- There were more \h\hthan two dozen

wrestling territories \h\hin North America,

\h\h\h\hso that meant that guys could make a living uprooting,

going from territory \h\h\h\hto territory.

- I’m so fortunate to have wrestling

and the way it evolved.

\h\h\h\hIf it hadn’t, I would’ve been dead.

There’s no doubt about it.

I’ve got a baby face \h\h\hthat looks 12,

\h\h\hin a dress, playing bagpipes,

and they just beat me up.

- So when you’re just getting in,

\h\hyou’re breaking into pro wrestling,

what do you do?

They beat you up,

and you have to continuously get up and keep coming back.

- I got my first break \h\h\hin Los Angeles,

and holy cow.

Really, really brutal, \h\h\h\h\hbrutal days.

- Roddy came into the gym.

I says, "What are you doing?"

"You gonna sweep up \h\h\h\hthe place,

or sell hot doggies, \hchicken on a bun?"

He says, "No, I’m a wrestler."

\h\hAnd I says, "You look like you got polio in your stomach,

"you’re so small.

\h\h\h\h"You’ll never make it. You got to learn how to wrestle

\h\h\h\hso you can be a sadistic bastard."

- We’re gonna see things \h\h\hthat are different,

that’s never been seen before, \h\h\h\hever, ever on any film.

♪ ♪

Don’t practice this without \h\h\ha qualified instructor

right there with you.

- Judo Gene--if you don’t \h\h\hknow, look him up--

was the toughest man \h\h\hin the world,

trained Bruce Lee, \h\hChuck Norris,

Rowdy Ronda Rousey.

\h\h- Gene LeBell I would consider

the most decorated stuntman \h\h\h\h\h\h\hof all time.

He was in the first-ever \h\htelevised MMA event.

\hWhen I was doing judo, he would help me a lot.

And then when I got in to MMA,

he was in my corner for, like, \h\h\h\h\hevery single match.

- Judo Gene saw that these \h\hguys were bullying me,

and Gene would tell me what to do on the fly.

\h\h\h\h- You got to beat them with the dark side of the moon.

Roddy said, "What’s the dark \h\h\h\h\hside of the moon?"

\h\h\h"Well, what the referee doesn’t see, didn’t happen."

\h\hWatch you don’t take the eyes out.

\h\h\hThis is the throat. Throat’s a great handle.

- [yells]

- He’d call me late at night.

And my wife said,

"Hey, it must be Roddy \h\h\h\hcalling again."

\hSo he says, "Hey, let’s go and roll for a couple hours."

We worked out hard, \hno playing games.

He wanted to know \hhow to wrestle.

- The LeBell family is...

they’re legendary.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hThey ran the Olympic Auditorium,

\h\h\h\h\hand because Dad had earned their respect,

he was able then to wrestle \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hthere in LA

for the LeBell family,

and that is really where Dad

\h\hgot the chance to spread his wings

\h\h\h\hand really become not just another fighter

but the one they came to see.

♪ ♪

- One of my favorite memories \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hwith him

is when I was, like, 15.

He brought me to LA \hto see Hollywood,

and I wanted to be an actress \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hand a singer.

\h\h\h\h\h\hAnd so, to me, Hollywood was like, "Whoo!"

\h\h\hMarilyn Monroe handprints, and the glamour and all of that.

\h\hAnd we get here and he rents a car,

he’s like, "All right, kid,

I’m gonna take you \h\h\haround town."

First thing he does is, \h\h\hhe goes somewhere

into, like, the Compton, \h\h\h\h\h\hmaybe, area.

I was a little young \h\h\hto understand

what I was looking at.

And he was like,

"That’s where your father \h\hslept on the streets.

\h"A woman got murdered right outside my window,

but I didn’t say anything, \h’cause I’m not a snitch."

\hHe’s just telling me these horrific stories.

So then I come home from that vacation.

My friends asked me, \h\h\hthey’re like,

"How’s Hollywood?" And they were like,

"Did you see this and that?"

I was like, "I think I got \h\h\hthe wrestlers’ tour."

[laughs]

[upbeat Spanish guitar music]

♪ ♪

- I was born and grew up \h\h\h\hin Los Angeles,

and some of my earliest memories that I have

\h\h\h\h\hare actually about professional wrestling,

being a professional \h\h\hwrestling fan.

I remember going down on the bus,

running with my stepfather, \h\h\htrying to catch a bus

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hto go down to the Olympic Auditorium.

In 1976, one of the new faces \h\h\h\h\h\h\hin the territory

\h\h\h\h\h\hwas a young lad by the name of Roddy Piper.

He was 21 years old.

He was a young, fresh-faced kid.

\hFans gave him polite applause.

They start wrestling, and it starts out as a clean match.

But little by little, subtly,

he starts doing these things that only a villain would do.

He was fighting,

and he was giving people \h\h\hkicks to the groin

during his wrestling matches.

♪ ♪

It was like watching \h\h\h\ha caterpillar

transform into a butterfly,

and you just saw this magic happening before your eyes.

People were booing \h\h\hRoddy Piper.

They absolutely hated \h\h\h\h\hwho he was.

- I am the intelligence.

I think the most controversial \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hthing I did

was stir up controversy

because it draws money.

Conflict draws money.

- The wheels were always turning for him as to what can I say,

what can I do next?

\h\h\h\h\h’cause you had to keep them interested.

You had to keep them \h\h\h\hcoming back.

- There’s no way, Piper! \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h- Hey!

\h\h\h\h- Oh! - Hey! Piper!

- Get up, you think \h\h\hyou’re so tough!

\h\h\h\h\h- Anything he did, he wanted to be good at it.

- I don’t plan to go in there \h\h\h\h\h\hand make it easy.

I don’t plan to go in there \hand not have some knocks

on my own noggin, brother.

- And they used him to do the interviews

\h\h\h\h\h\hbecause he would showboat and help sell boletos, tickets.

- You’re a pig, \h\h\h\h\h\hGuerrero!

Your father was a pig,

your brother was a pig,

and you’re a pig, Guerrero!

\h\h\h\h- The Guerrero family was one of the first families

in professional wrestling.

If you’re of Latino descent,

\h\h\h\hyou didn’t really see a lot of faces on television

that were like yours.

\hAnd usually if you did, they played the roles of a gardener,

or they played the role \h\h\h\h\h\hof a maid.

So for us to see the Guerrero \h\h\h\h\hfamily in hero roles

was very important.

We worshiped them.

- You get in that ring, \h\h\h\hChavo Guerrero,

\h\h\hand it’s going to be all over for you, brother,

because I don’t give a damn \h\habout nothing no more.

\h\h\h\h\h- When Roddy Piper would insult the Guerreros,

we took it very personally.

- You sitting at home with your fat bellies

and your construction boots \h\h\h\hdrinking your beer,

you know who I am.

- Roddy really had the whole package.

\h\h\h\h\h\hIn the ring, he was a dirty wrestler,

\h\h\h\hbut he had all this tremendous frenetic energy.

But also, he knew how to get \ha reaction out of the fans,

and one of the ways \hhe would do that

was to bring his bagpipes \h\h\h\h\hout to the ring.

[playing off-key]

- One time, he told everybody

\h\h\hand silenced the entire stadium,

he’d play the Mexican \h\h\hnational anthem

to apologize for attacking \h\h\h\h\h\hthe Guerreros.

- I said, "You know, \hI love you people.

\h\h\hI’d like to do something special."

[crowd booing]

\hAnd all the wonderful Hispanic people came in.

I’m in the ring.

\h\h\h\hAnd, "Please stand for the Mexican national anthem."

[whispering] Just like this \h\h\h\h\hI said to myself,

"I’m gonna die."

I put those bagpipes up, man.

It’s too late, right?

- And Roddy starts playing his notes,

and it’s not the Mexican \h\h\h\hnational anthem.

But he starts playing \h\h\h"La Cucaracha."

He starts playing a song \h\h\habout a cockroach.

[playing "La Cucaracha" \h\h\h\h\h\hon bagpipes]

♪ ♪

♪ La cucaracha, la cucaracha ♪

[hums]

Holy cow, chairs that were bolted down in the cement,

here they come.

- And the fans...

♪ ♪

They’re just shocked.

\h\h\h\h- Chairs come up. Things are being thrown.

Stage is being overcome.

\h\h\h- It was like watching... watching a car wreck, you know?

It’s a horrible thing to see, \h\h\h\hbut at the same time,

you can’t take your eyes \h\h\h\h\h\haway from it.

- I was there that night,

and I was going to...

whiz in my pants.

\h- You can’t write that kind of stuff.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h- I says, "This guy is a natural."

♪ ♪

- You had to move around, \hespecially as a bad guy.

You would run your course,

and then you needed to go on and find another place to go

and stake your claim \h\h\h\h\hfor a while

and then you would move on \h\h\h\h\h\hsomewhere else.

- I am extremely pleased

to take my wonderful trophy.

- Once I left Los Angeles, \hwhen I went to Portland,

nobody knew who I was,

so you had to start \h\hall over again.

[hopeful music]

♪ ♪

Did you find the choke? \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h- Yeah.

- Okay, kick the engine over, leaving the throttle closed.

\h\h\h\hIt’s probably just new. It needs--takes a lot of kicks.

- Yeah.

- I met Roddy in 1979.

I was working graveyard shift \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\has a waitress

just southwest side \h\h\h\hof Portland.

- Get you something out there.

- Roderick, you’re lucky \h\hI had it high enough

that that didn’t show. \h\h\h\h\h\h- [laughs]

\h\h- He was the funniest human being on the planet.

\h[snickers] - Is that it?

- Oh, the guy...

\h\hall the wrinkles on my face are from him making me laugh.

\h\h\h\hI was young, I was 19 years old,

\hand so all the other waitresses would say,

\h\h\h\h"You go wait on those wrestlers."

Prime rib was always \h\h\h\hwhat he got.

\hHe ordered two prime ribs and always two pieces of lemon pie.

He started asking me,

\h"Hey, can I have your phone number?

I’d like to ask you out."

I thought he was cute as heck. \h\h\hThought he cute as heck.

\h\hBut the crowd he was with was so loud, and so I’m like,

"Nah, you know. \hHey, hi, hi."

\h\hSo we kind of flirted, but after about a month,

his tag-team partner, \h\h\h\hKiller Brooks,

got down on his knees \h\h\h\h\hand he says,

\h"Please give him your phone number.

"I’m his tag-team partner,

\h\h\h"and I’m getting beat to heck out there

"because he’s only thinking about you.

He wants to get to know you."

So I said, "Okay, I’ll take \h\h\h\hhis phone number."

And then we hit it off.

♪ ♪

Portland wrestling

\hin the late ’70s, early ’80s was huge.

\h\h\hThe buildings were always packed.

\h\h\hFrom the moment I started dating him,

\hanywhere we would go, people knew who he was.

\hEveryone pretty much had the same reaction.

They were shocked,

but after they met him,

\hthey all understood that he was a genuine guy and caring.

- You come down here and burn your bra

and think you’re something?

You’re getting in there with men...

- And to have to do something

like when he attacked \h\ha woman wrestler,

he has to do it over the top

because it’s so hard \h\h\hfor him to do.

- This is why men wrestle and why women don’t!

\hThis is why! Get outta here!

Get outta here! \h\hThat’s why!

- For Roddy in real life, a woman is on a pedestal.

♪ ♪

He’s very old-fashioned.

He would never hit a woman.

\hHe would never insult a woman.

And I decided early on,

I was gonna love Roddy \h\h\hno matter what.

I did and I do

and wouldn’t change it \h\h\h\hfor the world.

♪ ♪

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h- In Portland, it was a smaller territory.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hIn Atlanta, the business was growing.

You had to move around,

and you had to be able to go from territory to territory.

\h\h\hThat’s the way that the business worked at the time.

\h- They called me on the East Coast.

I was ready at any time to get up and take a left-hand turn.

And I drove the old \h\h\hyellow canary

right across the country.

[upbeat rock music]

- WTBS in Atlanta, Georgia,

Ted Turner’s superstation,

wrestling was a staple.

Here’s Roddy Piper.

Very few people knew who he \h\hwas on a national basis.

He wasn’t the biggest guy \h\h\h\h\h\hin the world,

but the one thing that he did

better than anybody else \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hwas talk.

\h- It’s a pleasure for you to have me here, I’m sure.

You see, being the expert \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hthat I am...

- The promoters realized Roddy \h\hknew how to tell a story,

\h\hnot just his own story, but other people’s stories.

- People want to get \h\hfamiliar with me.

People like yourself...

- He was brought in \h\h\has Rod Piper,

the color commentator:

sport coat, no kilt,

and then the color commentator \h\hbegan to skew his views...

- You got a big, \hbig, big mouth.

- If they let a bald-headed geek like you in...

- Maybe a little bit \h\h\hmore nasty...

- You just stay out of my way, \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hpig face!

- Maybe a little bit more against the fan favorites.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h- And you won’t have to worry about nothing, man.

- Pig face?

- And they created another way

to get this character over.

- They say stick and stones may break my bones

but words will never hurt me.

Well, some of the words he says about me and my family

have hurt me deeply.

\h- Sticks and stones may break your bones.

You are right!

\h\h\h\hAnd I’m nuts enough to throw sticks and stones!

- Now you’ve got,

\h\h\h\h\h"I’m gonna kick that commentator’s butt."

- Piper into the ring.

\h\h\h- The commentator was a wrestler and a tough guy.

\h- As he gets through the ropes, and they go at it!

- Now he comes out \h\hwith the kilt.

- The wild man, Roddy Piper.

- Now he’s Roddy Piper.

- Roddy Piper, the only way \h\h\hthat he’s really been

outstanding in this match is his bad sportsmanship.

They’re trying to literally carry Piper out of the ring.

- I told you Piper pays back!

\h\hI told you, nobody-- nobody messes with Piper!

- When he wrestles \h\has a bad guy,

that was the most comfortable \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hfor him.

- Come out here right now and fight me like a man!

\h\h\hCome right now! - If you’re a bad guy,

\hfans aren’t gonna come up and shake your hand as much.

He could be alone more \h\hif he was a bad guy.

Maybe because he was alone in life early on so often,

that’s where he was \h\h\h\hcomfortable.

\h\h\h\h\h- Piper has hit him with his fist.

He hit him in the jaw with a roll of coins.

\h- As a kid, he was around some of the roughest people

you can imagine. \h- It’s mine!

- And sometimes I wonder \h\h\h\h\hif that’s part

\hof what pieced together that bad guy psychology that he had.

- I am the legend killer.

[pen scratching]

- So my dad did \h\hthis thing.

\h\h\h\hThere were these yellow legal pads that he would write.

\h\h\hHe would write all kinds of ideas.

- Just in case he had \h\h\hthe opportunity

that a mic was handed to him

so that he had something \h\h\h\h\h\hgreat to say.

- You know, you couldn’t \h\h\h\h\h\h\hget a date

\hwith a $100 bill on your forehead.

I wouldn’t fight you

if my grandma was threatened \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hby the Huns.

Sometimes maybe I heard it

\h\h\h\h\hin the middle of a rock and roll song.

I just had a knack for putting that kind of stuff together.

Of course, I don’t have \h\hto impress somebody.

They got to impress me,

because I’m Roddy Piper \h\h\h\hand you’re not.

\h\h\h\h- And that’s why he was so quick-witted,

because he put in work \h\h\hnobody else did.

When everybody else was partying and drinking, which he did,

he also was thinking and writing these things down.

- Like, sometimes people say to me,

"Oh, you just say what comes \hoff the top of your head."

Oh, [bleep] horse[bleep].

[scoffs]

\h\h\h\h\hYou have no idea how much work went into it.

I seen a lot of men buried wearing a $50 Stetson

and carrying a five-buck gun, you geek.

- Whoo-whoo!

[dramatic music]

\h\h- There was a guy named Ric Flair on the East Coast.

\h\h\h\h\h\h- The greatest wrestling in the whole entire wide world

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hcomes right out of the Mid-Atlantic area,

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hand Roddy Piper and I are glad to be here, brother.

- Ric and I were so different.

You know, I wear a kilt. \h\h\h\h\h\hRic doesn’t.

He’s blond. I ain’t. \h\h\h\h\hYou know?

That we got along real well \h\h\h\h\houtside the ring,

\h\h\h\h\hand then everything started to get out of control.

\h- Piper and Flair have formed a pact,

and where there’s trouble, \hwe won’t be hard to find.

- He’s got a belt.

\h\h\h\h\h- Well, I knew-- yeah, I’d heard his name,

\hbut I didn’t know anything about him.

He came in the studio,

and I knew right away I was gonna like him.

\hHe was full of himself, and, man, I mean, talent.

- Ric Flair, Roddy Piper!

That’s what it’s all about!

\h\hThat’s what it’s all about!

- God, he was entertaining.

\h\h\h\h\h\hIt was so good that it made everybody mad.

- You’re gonna find it’s a whole lot easier to jump on

than it is to jump off.

- Whoo!

\h\h\h- I had moved over there to the East Coast with Roddy,

and we were expecting \h\h\hour first child.

It was very rowdy times.

\h\h\h\h\hRoddy and Ric and the other wrestlers,

they lived on a planet \h\h\hthat was theirs.

They were a wild, wild pair of men,

lots of drinking and hotels \hgetting damaged and such.

- Next thing I remember,

\h\hI’m in my bed, my clothes are on,

the door’s knocked off \h\h\h\h\hthe hinges.

I didn’t know what happened,

but I got the hell \h\hout of there.

\h\h- You hear things. You know some things.

\hYou don’t know a lot of things.

\h\h\h\hRoddy was Roddy, and that’s what it was.

- We like our kamikazes on ice and our women on fire.

You understand what I’m saying?

\h\h\h- A little woman? - And everywhere we go,

we do it better, longer, harder than anybody else!

We were the Beatles, man.

\h\hIt was suicidal putting us together.

Ingesting or drinking, \h\h\h\h\h\hanything,

Roddy could beat anybody \h\h\h\h\h\hto the draw.

- It just got way out of hand.

This is where Ric Flair started the, you know, 99 kamikazes.

You know, here I’m, like-- \h\h\h\h\hwhoa, you know?

I’m pretty hard core man. \h\h\h\hPretty hard core.

I’m drinking mine,

and I’d be the one always \h\hbe getting in trouble.

- It was a time to make money, but it was go, go, go, go, go.

And you get three days off,

and then you come back on the road for another couple weeks.

\hAnd I remember we were driving in a snowstorm.

\h\hYou know, we had beers and everything in the car.

So we got out,

and we’re all taking a leak \h\hon the side of the road.

And all of a sudden, Roddy ran to the car.

And I remember it’s like \h\h\h\hwe ran after him,

\h’cause we knew that Roddy was in

one of those kind of \h\h\hstates of mind

where he was gonna \h\h\htake the car.

We pretty much tackled Roddy

while he was trying to drive \h\h\h\h\h\h\hoff in the car.

\h\h\h\h\h- He was a... a tough guy to handle.

He was a heavy partier.

And I would scoop him up,

and I’d make sure he got

\h\h\hto where he was supposed to be going.

Got him to his rooms. Got him to the hotel.

Got him to the airports.

- You go out there and wrestle \h\h\h\h\h\h\hfor 45 minutes,

and you come back, \h\htake a shower.

You’re wide frigging awake.

\h\h\h\hAnd a lot of times, I’d look at the coke and...

"Oh, I don’t want to do this."

But you end up doing it.

\h- It was, "I need this to wake up to wrestle."

"I need this to go to bed,

’cause I work in an hour and this is all I have."

\h\h\h\h\h- It was also about to numb the pain,

\h\h\hthe physical pain, the pain of being alone,

\h\h\h\halways having to be in transition.

You know, you’re never \h\h\h\hsitting still.

\h\h- It’s a vicious cycle that would just go round and round.

It’s easier to go \h\hhave a drink.

It’s easier to go take a pill \h\h\h\hor go smoke a joint.

- Back in those days,

\h\h\h\hlike, any injury could cost you your job.

If you can’t do it,

they replace you a few minutes \h\hlater with somebody else.

\hYou learn to be your own doctors.

That’s kind of the sad thing is, you’re your own doctor.

Roddy was pretty out of control.

Lord knows what kind of drugs and alcohol

were being consumed.

[chuckles]

- [laughter]

- Having Roddy travel so often

\h\h\h\hand be gone so much and having a growing family,

it was very difficult.

\h- When you live like we did, you know, 3,000 miles a week,

you become desensitized.

- Say merry Christmas.

all: Merry Christmas.

- One thing that Roddy did,

he kept his family completely \h\h\h\h\hout of the business

\h\h’cause he didn’t want them to see what he went through.

He wanted them to grow up

\h\h\hand be beautiful and healthy and happy,

\h\h\hand I think he took too much of it on himself.

♪ ♪

\h\h\h\h\h- Sometimes when Rod would come home from the road,

he wouldn’t come \hstraight home.

\h\h\h\h\hHe would check into a hotel room and just get rested

because when he got home, \h\h\h\hhe couldn’t rest.

I’d like to know \hwhere mine is.

\h\h\h- [laughs] To Barnacle Bill.

♪ ♪

- He almost had to do a transition mentally

when he came from the road to home,

\h\h\hbecause he didn’t want to bring that character home.

He had such a hot temper \h\h\h\h\h\h\has Hot Rod.

And he had to,

because he had to be \h\h\hon guard a lot.

It was very separate.

He didn’t like to take us \h\h\hto a lot of events.

We were very concerned \h\h\h\h\habout safety

because of how much aggression \h\hwas being put towards Rod.

[crowd cheering]

- He had been a villain \h\h\hin the Deep South

and fighting fans \h\hand, you know,

getting assault charges.

I mean, I can think of a few situations

\h\h\h\hwith Roddy with fans trying to run us off the road

and chasing us in cities \h\h\h\h\h\hlike Detroit.

\h\h- People would throw thumbtacks in the ring,

hit with beer bottles.

In Asheville, North Carolina,

they threw a rattlesnake \hin the ring one night.

Guy ran down to the ringside \h\h\h\h\h\hwith a gunnysack

and threw a rattlesnake.

\h[bell dings] [crowd booing]

\h\h\h- There was a lot of crazy fans back then,

and being a bad guy could be \h\ha very dangerous living.

- ’Cause I’m going to shove it \h\h\h\h\h\h\hdown your throat!

- There’s certainly times \h\h\h\hwhen I’d seen him

say or do something on TV \h\h\h\h\hwhere I’m like,

\h\h\h\h"Oh, my gosh, we’re in for it now.

This is gonna get worse before it gets better."

\h\hBut I never asked him to curtail or tone it down

because that would hinder \h\h\h\h\hhis creativity.

- People wanted to kill me.

- I remember there was \h\h\h\h\ha gentleman.

I wasn’t really paying \h\h\hmuch attention,

but Roddy went taking off \h\h\h\hdown this hallway.

\h\h\h\hAnd the next thing, I see them having some words

\h\h\hand the police got involved in it.

\h\hHe did have a big knife, you know, like a Bowie knife.

So finally the officer said, \h"Mr. Piper, we’ve got him.

He’s going to jail."

He said, "Well, I just wanted to have a couple seconds with him."

The officer said, "Why?"

\h\h\h\h\h\hAnd he said, "Because he stabbed me."

And Roddy took his thumb \h\h\h\hoff of his chest,

and the blood started squirting \h\h\h\h\hin the officer’s face

at every heartbeat.

- It was going tsst-tsst, \h\h\h\h\h\h\htsst-tsst.

- And I went, "Oh!"

\h- Sergeant Slaughter took me to the hospital

and held the... held the wound.

\h\h\h\h- Doctor said, "If that would’ve went

one more 1/2 inch or less, \h\h\h\h\h\hyou’d be dead."

- So what was it like?

It was a living hell.

\h- It wasn’t just, "You’re a bad guy on TV," and that’s it.

It followed you everywhere.

Dad was stabbed three times \h\h\h\h\h\h\hin his life.

Three times they actually \h\h\h\h\h\hstabbed him,

\h\h\h\h\hto the point where he had a leather jacket

that was Kevlar-lined and it was stab-proof

because he had been stabbed \h\h\h\h\h\h\hso many times.

\h- He was the next generation to take it to the next level.

- What a tremendous match \h\h\h\h\h\hto have live.

Millions of fans everywhere

\h\hcan see Greg Valentine and Roddy Piper go at each other.

- Me and Piper started out a long, long, long journey.

We’d probably wrestled each other for a year.

[crowd cheering]

We just walloped each other.

♪ ♪

I took Piper’s head and rammed \h\h\h\hit into the turnbuckle.

♪ ♪

Every time I’d go out there,

I’d beat on his ear.

♪ ♪

Blam!

♪ ♪

So I end up naming it \hthe Year of the Ear.

- Watch him go to that ear.

- And I’d laugh, "Ha, ha, ha, \h\h\h\hthe Year of the Ear."

♪ ♪

And then finally they want \h\hto blow it off, end it.

♪ ♪

- What happened was

\hBruno Sammartino and Larry Zbyszko

did $500,000 in Shea Stadium,

\h\h\hso it became a war of the North against the South,

so the South said, \h\h\h\h"All right,

\h\h\h\h\hwe’re gonna put on the first pay-per-view ever."

So they come to me \h\hand they said,

"I want you to make up \h\h\h\h\hthe meanest,

nastiest, most brutal match you can possibly think of."

\h- And Piper came up with this dog collar.

\h\h\h- 40 pounds of chain. I want you to check it out.

You’re gonna see something

\h\h\hyou never seen in your life before.

- Well, it was a great idea. \h\h\h\h\hIt was my birthday.

\hOh, what is this? This is beautiful.

\hThey presented me with this big cake.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hI love cake. Wait a minute, what is this?

I look at it and I see \hsome steel in there,

\h\h\h\h\hand I reached down and pulled out a dog collar.

What? What are you doing?

What are you trying \h\h\h\h\h\h\hto do to me?

\h\hHe wants to have a dog collar match.

Piper was the best, the best performer.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hGood at the mic. Probably number one at the mic.

Some people said he sounded \h\h\h\h\hlike Daffy Duck.

I love Daffy Duck. \h\h\h\h\h[laughs]

- You’re talking about \h\h\h\h\hthe biggest thing

\h\h\h\hthat’s ever gonna happen in the history of wrestling.

\h\h\h\h\h[bell dings] - Ladies and gentlemen,

our next event of the evening \h\his a very special match.

This is a collar match.

- It was the very first \h\h\h\h\h\hpay-per-view

ever for wrestling.

[bell dings]

\h- Two men linked together like this in mortal combat.

- This is a strategy.

This is what Piper talked to me about.

And then, see, I’m the first \h\h\h\h\hone to get nailed.

- Used exactly as a whip as we had talked about.

- You could use it to batter the guy.

\h\hNow he’s gonna get me in the teeth right there.

I had to go to the dentist \h\h\h\h\h\hthe next day.

- You can see the concern

\h\h\hof the people watching this match.

They really don’t know \h\h\h\hwhat to expect

when two men are going at it \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hlike this.

- Now I’m going for the ear.

- Look at Valentine pounding on him now.

♪ ♪

- It was a ridiculously \h\h\h\h\h\hhard match.

\hIt was the toughest match, probably, I’ve ever been in,

especially with Valentine.

- Used as a whip.

Valentine on his knees.

Hard blow to the top \h\h\h\hof the head.

- No, I’m not just selling; \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hI’m hurt.

\h\h\h\h\hBut it’s all for you wrestling fans.

Giving you our love \hin a strange way.

[laughs]

♪ ♪

This is the end of it, \h\h\h\h\hright there.

He hog-tied me.

- He got the count.

- I think he was the greatest \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hof all time...

♪ ♪

A really good-hearted guy

but a really tough \hson of a bitch.

- Valentine, you say--

\h\h\h\h\h\hyou say your strategy was to take away all my hearing.

You see, what you forgot is, \hyou got one more ear to go.

♪ ♪

- When you look for, you know, \h\h\hattributes of a bad guy,

you have to be fearless;

you have to have the gift of gab;

you can say anything \h\h\hthat you want,

\h\h\h\heven though you know it’s gonna be controversial;

\h\h\h\hyou have to be able to communicate with the audience;

and you have to a certain \h\h\hattitude about you.

And Roddy had all those \h\h\hattributes and more.

♪ ♪

\h\h- Vince McMahon has these plans of expanding nationally.

What’s the best way to expand \h\h\hall over North America?

\h\hYou get the best wrestlers from the individual territories

and you bring them all to WWE.

And Vince McMahon \h\hwants it all.

\h\h- I got a call from Roddy. He says, "Mr. McMahon called."

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hI said, "Yeah, are you coming up?"

He goes, "Yeah, he wants me \h\h\h\h\h\h\hto come up."

I said, "Come on up."

\hRoddy was coming to New York City.

\h\h- Let me tell you how to be Roddy Piper.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h[laughs] Have a nice [bleep] day.

Go [bleep] yourself.

\h\h\hGimme the microphone and get out of the way.

Bowlegged, big, fat, \h\h\h\h\h\h\hugly penguin.

You know what? You both stink!

It’s as simple as this:

when RP talks, brother, people listen.

- And New York,

New York is big guys,

at least 250-pounders, \h\h\h6-foot whatever.

That’s what I was.

You know, Piper, later on,

I guess he gained weight.

But when he first came in, \h\h\h\h\hhe was smaller.

\h\h\h\h\h\h- So if Roddy’s not the greatest physical specimen

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hin the world, then don’t let him do that.

\h\hDo what Roddy does best. Let him be a talk show host.

\h\h\h\hIn a moment, ladies and gentlemen,

we’re going to take you \h\h\hto "Piper’s Pit,"

\h\hinvolving, of course, the rather controversial

and certainly opinionated \h\h\h\h\h\hRoddy Piper.

- They put up a backdrop,

and it was basically a wrestling talk show

to stir the pot.

- You’re a lousy wrestler. It’s a simple as that.

- I might be a lousy wrestler, \h\h\h\h\h\h\hbut I’m still in there,

and I’m not afraid \h\h\h\h\h\h\hof nobody--

- It was "The Tonight Show"

where the host could end up \h\h\hbeating up the guest.

\h\h\h\hIt was just the most off-the-walls, unpredictable,

amazing idea that ever happened \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hin television,

\h\h\h\h\hin my opinion. I’m biased, but whatever.

[laughs]

- Is he supposed \h\h\h\hto scare me?

- You had to be ready.

He was witty, smart.

He was like the fastest gun \h\h\h\h\h\h\hin the West.

- Hello, peasants.

- Don’t call my father stupid.

- Wait, wait, wait...

How you doing, fatso?

- He could take some guys \h\h\h\hand make them look

like heroes and superstars,

or he could kind of like, \h\h\h\hif he wanted to,

he could chop you down to size \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hpretty quick.

- I could slam you myself! I don’t care.

You’re saying John Studd did at 520...

[crowd cheering]

- The most famous one, \h\h\h\h\h\hof course,

is the interview with Jimmy Snuka.

- There you go.

- There were a couple \h\h\h\h\hof coconuts,

and one of them, you know, had been what we call "gimmicked,"

but that’s not the one \h\h\h\h\hRoddy chose.

- Am I making fun of you?

No, sir, no, sir.

[indistinct shouting]

- Nothing was scripted \h\hon "Piper’s Pit."

- There, you sucker!

- It was all off of the top \h\h\h\h\h\h\hof Dad’s head

\hor something that he’d maybe written down in a note before.

\hAnd that’s where the magic happens.

- Just when they think \hthey got the answers,

I change the questions.

- He wasn’t famous for his technique

or his type of wrestling or how big his arms were

or anything like that.

\h\h\h\h\hHe was just an incredible talker

and a guy that was taking \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hwrestling

and telling a different story.

\h\h- You do not throw rocks at a man who’s got a machine gun!

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h[Cyndi Lauper’s "Girls Just Want to Have Fun"]

- Ladies and gentlemen,

I want to introduce to you

the female entertainer \h\h\h\h\hof the year,

Miss Cyndi Lauper!

[crowd cheers] \h\h\h[laughs]

- Wrestling began to work with MTV,

which was absolutely \h\h\h\h\h\hred-hot.

- You look wonderful, Cyndi.

\h\h\h\h\h- Captain Lou Albano and Cyndi Lauper were friends,

\hand Cyndi Lauper had put Lou Albano

in her "Girls Want to Have Fun" \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hvideo.

\h- I said, "Vince, I got this guy named Dave Wolff

"that manages Cyndi Lauper,

"and they just did a video \h\h\h\h\h\h\hwith Albano

but now they wanna get involved \h\hin the wrestling business."

And Vince was like, "Hmm, hmm."

\h\h- Dave thought it was going to be good for Cyndi’s career.

You know, here she’s doing \h\h\h\h\h\hthis crossover

in this very unusual world.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hIt’s like, "What the hell is this?"

- Would you please welcome \h\h\h\h\h\h\hCyndi Lauper!

[crowd cheering]

\h- So now there’s all this attention, suddenly, to WWE.

People who were fashionable,

\h\h\hpeople who were in the rock and roll world,

they’re gonna start \h\h\hwatching WWE.

So they had this ceremony in Madison Square Garden.

\h\hLou Albano was one of the primary forces

\h\h\h\h\hresponsible for the Rock ’n’ Wrestling Connection,

and what better way \h\h\hto honor a man

but to give him \ha gold record?

\h\h\h- I’m so grateful to receive this award.

\h\h\h- Now that’s going to provoke some jealousy,

and who is the most jealous \h\h\h\h\hperformer of all?

- There is Roddy Piper.

- This is beautiful, Cyndi.

- Maybe they have some kind \h\hof presentation to make.

- I want to present you \h\h\h\h\h\hwith this.

- Oh! Look out!

Captain Lou Albano \h\h\h\hclobbered!

\h- Roddy Piper shockingly kicks the biggest pop star in America,

a female pop star, \h\h\hin the head.

\h- David Wolff trying to come to the rescue,

but he’s no match!

\h\h\hOh, he pile-drived him right down into the canvas.

\h\h- 20 minutes before the match, I was asked,

\h\h"Do you think you can kick Cyndi Lauper and not hurt her?"

by her manager.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hI’m thinking, "I hope you never manage me."

You know?

But when they saw that,

uh, Saddam Hussein got nothing on me.

- Look out!

\h\hThe Hulkster’s hitting the ring!

- Cyndi wasn’t a wrestler,

so she had to have somebody \h\h\h\h\hdefend her honor.

- He knew what he was doing. He was stirring up the crowd

\h\hand he knew it and he loved it.

All heels do.

- What a disgraceful display.

Cyndi, look at her.

Tears running down her face.

Hulkster’s hot. Everybody’s hot.

\hBoy, he wishes he could have got his hands on Roddy Piper.

- Every dog has its day,

you know what I’m talking \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\habout?

And that one’s gonna get his.

- She expects me to sit there \h\hand do nothing about her,

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hso I kick her 12 yards across the field.

- But she’s a woman. \h\h\h\h\h\hShe’s a woman.

- Just imagine it.

In about a four-month period,

I had the kicked Cyndi Lauper \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hin the head.

I don’t know how many guys \h\hon Piper’s Pit I had,

\h\h\h\hwhatever I had done, all in this very short time.

\h\hIt was getting really heated up.

I couldn’t go anyplace. \h\h\h\hI was fighting.

I had a family.

\h\h\h\hI was fighting in and out of Denny’s.

It was crazy.

\h\h\h\h\h\h- Roddy understood that bringing in the musicians

brings it to a whole \h\h\hnother level,

so he was onboard for that.

- All right, let me just step out this way a tad.

- But he found it very hard being the old-school person,

and he tried best he could \h\h\h\h\h\h\hto cooperate.

It was never easy.

- And the last one \his, "MTV stinks"?

- Once we got hooked up \h\h\h\h\h\h\hwith MTV,

it took us to mainstream.

- MTV...

[laughs]

Music To Vomit by.

\h\h\h\h\h\h- Tonight, ladies and gentlemen,

the War to Settle the Score,

the hottest ticket in town.

- The Rock ’n’ Wrestling \h\h\h\h\h\h\hConnection

helped us change the look \h\h\h\h\hof the business

to where we get families \hand kids at ringside.

- This is broadcast on MTV.

This is big time.

\h- Everybody wants to be a part of it.

Well, there’s something \h\h\h\hgoing on here.

I got to see what it is. \hI got to check it out.

\h\h\h\h\h- Piper was the ultimate villain,

\hso you want to have the ultimate villain

against the ultimate hero.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h- It was the biggest thing ever.

It was Hogan and Piper \h\h\h\h\hgoing at it.

- We have got action.

Oh! They’re at it! \h\h[bell dings]

It’s under way.

\hLook at this, back and forth.

Oh, raking the eyes \h\hof Roddy Piper.

- When I ran into Piper,

\hhe’s the one that made everything else possible.

\h\h\h\h- Oh! Dropped the big elbow on him.

- I had to have an opponent,

\h\hand nobody had the air, the arrogance, the attitude

to go to toe-to-toe with me \h\h\h\hand not back down.

\h\h\hWithout Piper, we could have never,

\h\h\h\hnever launched into the stratosphere.

- Oh!

- Piper has two confederates:

\h\hCowboy Bob Orton, Jr., and Paul "Mr. Wonderful" Orndorff.

- Orndorff going up \h\hto the top rope!

- Oh, please. \h- Look out!

- They interfere in the match.

\h- Cyndi Lauper up on the apron.

Orndorff going around the side \h\hrope now at Cyndi Lauper.

- What? Wait a minute. \h\h\h\h\h\h\hHold on!

- Mr. T over the railing!

- Oh, no!

\h\h- Here comes Mr. T, ladies and gentlemen...

- Who was going to save the day?

Well, Mr. T, the biggest TV star in the United States.

Everybody in the country \h\h\h\h\h\hknows Mr. T.

- They’re inviting him \h\h\hinside the ring.

- And so insert Mr. T.

\h\h\h\h\hIt was Vince’s way to interject entertainment.

It was nothing but excitement \h\h\h\h\h\h\hand electricity

and it sure worked.

- I don’t know anything

about his background \h\has a wrestler...

- I used to be a bodyguard.

I used to be a bouncer \h\h\h\h\h\hat a disco

and all that stuff.

\h\hYou know, now, I knew how to wrestle, you know,

and I wasn’t no fluff.

\hSo I stepped into the ring, and Piper snuck up behind me.

- Piper nailed him \h\h\hfrom behind.

- I didn’t think it would \h\h\h\hgo down like that.

If I’d knew it’d go down \h\h\h\h\h\h\hlike that,

I would’ve have did \h\hsomething else.

So therefore I was so...

I guess I can say pissed.

- All hell has broken loose.

\h\h\h\h\h- Roddy was the ultimate bad guy.

He sold it. He practiced it. \hHe was good at what he did.

- We’ve got a madhouse here.

- Security holding \h\heveryone back.

- And it just went--it just \h\hwent berserk, you know?

It was-- [laughs]

\hI laugh at it now ’cause it’s so old,

I think about it, \h\h\h\hyou know.

\h\h\hIt reminded me of the Keystone Cops

’cause everybody \h\hwas fighting.

- What happened to our match?

- We don’t have a match anymore.

It’s pandemonium.

- Well, back then,

\h\hwe were still really protecting the business.

"Should we tell the cops what we’re doing or not?"

And the standard mode was,

"Oh, don’t tell anybody \h\h\h\h\h\hanything."

\h\h\h\h\hLet’s just get their natural reaction.

- All of a sudden, \h\hsome policemen

came in the ring on me.

\h\hThere’s a cop with a gun, and here the rest of ’em come.

- Piper was fighting the cops \h\h\h\h\h\h\hand everything.

It was just insanity.

\h\h\h\h\h- Hulk Hogan was the biggest hero.

♪ ♪

Roddy Piper was the most \h\h\h\hdetested villain.

And now we are ready \h\hto start our road

to the first WrestleMania.

- Okay, Ariel, let’s go. Whoo, whoo, whoo!

Come on, Ariel.

- She’s tired.

There’s the proud papa.

Papa Piper.

\h\h\h\h- My dad often would say things like,

"I can’t imagine \hhow hard it is

to be Roddy Piper’s kid."

- Here comes Roddy and Ariel.

- He felt guilty, like he was \h\h\h\hsome way a bad parent

because his career was, \h\h\h\h\hin some way,

affecting our lives.

\h\h\h[laughter and indistinct chatter]

- When we were starting out \h\h\h\h\has a young family,

he came to me and said,

\h"I really do not want our children

"to grow up in a hundred \h\h\h\hdifferent places.

I want them to have roots."

You sure are pretty.

’Cause he never felt like \h\h\h\h\h\hhe had a home.

\hWe chose to live in the country...

- [laughing]

- And have a lot of land \h\h\h\h\h\h\haround us.

It was a safe zone.

- We lived on a 10-acre ranch \h\hin the middle of nowhere,

end of a gravel road,

\hand we really kept to just that ranch.

\h\h\h\h\h\h- Good-bye. With any kind of luck,

she’ll keep going and we won’t \h\h\h\h\h\h\hhave to feed her.

[laughs]

- We wanted to be isolated

because we had actual stalkers \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hwho would come

and try and break into our house or be on our property.

- We did not go to the malls. \hWe did not go to the movies.

I must’ve gotten 30 fights \h\h\h\h\h\h\hin one year,

just because people wanted

to test their moxie \h\h\h\hagainst me.

[dog barks]

♪ ♪

- And this kind of thing \h\h\h\h\his real life.

♪ ♪

This is the kind of thing \h\h\hthat makes a family.

♪ ♪

It’s a great way of nature,

just teaching a family \h\hhow to be a family

and stay together.

♪ ♪

- I had a meeting with a small \hroom full of our executives,

and I said,

"There is a Super Bowl, \h\h\h\h\h\h\hyou know.

There’s a World Series."

There’s this, there’s that.

It was really common sense.

So why not have one of your own?

Call it WrestleMania.

We would not have \hWrestleMania I

had it not been for Roddy because you have to have,

again, a strong antagonist to go with the protagonist.

- Check this out, dude. \h\h\h\hCheck that out.

- You have to have \h\h\hgood stories

and you have to have \h\hbold characters

and larger-than-life \h\h\h\hindividuals,

and Roddy was all of that.

\h\h\h\hSo I knew I had Roddy, I knew I had Hogan and Mr. T.

\h\h\h\hIt was like, that was gonna work.

- How does it feel to be portraying someone like myself?

- Well, you ain’t nothing, man.

- Oh, oh, why?

Oh, because I don’t have a chair with my name on it?

- Roddy Piper really did not \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hlike Mr. T.

- Don’t look at-- - Hey, hey, hey.

[overlapping shouting]

- In those days, you know, you really paid some dues

to be in the main event.

Then Mr. T walks in, not even \h\hhaving a match anywhere,

\hand it’s like, "What right does he have to be in my ring

in the main event?"

- You want to get in there, brother,

and you want to try some fighting, huh?

\h- We’d never brought in somebody from the outside,

and one of the biggest \h\h\h\hproblems I had

was the barbaric mindset \h\hof Piper and Orndorff.

- You’re looking at someone \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hthat will...

\h\h\h- "He’s an actor. He’s not into wrestling.

We’re just gonna break his legs."

I said, "Guys, please."

\h\h- How can I say it without sounding cocky?

They didn’t understand \h\hthat bringing me in

would broaden they thing

because, basically, \hyou know, Vince,

\h\hbeing the pioneer that he is, he said,

"Wow, we gonna broaden, bring it to the world."

- You come on down, T.

We’ll put an X where the T should be.

- Roddy hated the thought \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hof a Mr. T

coming into his arena.

\hIt’s an insult. It’s a slap in the face to the business.

- I had these two guys

\h\h\h\hthat had this old-school mentality,

and plus I got this guy who’s \hgot this real edgy attitude.

You know, he’s always talking \h\h\h\hin the third person.

"Mr. T don’t put up with that."

- Mr. T ain’t no powder puff,

you had to understand, \h\h\h\h\h\h\hyou know.

- They didn’t want to lose \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hto Mr. T

\hbecause he’s not a "real wrestler."

[no audible dialogue]

- There I am, the hottest heel \h\h\h\h\h\hthey’ve ever had,

and now they want me \h\hto take a dive.

I said, "I ain’t doing it."

- I was kind of like \h\h\hthe babysitter,

\hthe moderator, the peacekeeper,

and I was ready to have \ha nervous breakdown.

- The wrestling extravaganza \hof all time, WrestleMania.

- The people knew

\hthe wrestling business was changing that night.

\hThere was a fever pitch in Madison Square Garden.

- Piper’s gonna get it. \h\h\h\h\h\h- Get what?

- Get his butt kicked.

♪ ♪

\h\h\h- What do you do to show the world what this product is

and what it will be, you know, \h\h\h\h\hin a really big way?

\h\h\hLiberace, how the hell doe he fit into any of this?

\h\h\h\h\hHe doesn’t. That’s why I had him.

\h\h\h\hThis is what sports entertainment is all about.

It was everything we had, \h\h\h\h\hwe threw it in,

and let’s roll the dice and do it in a big way.

Everything I had was on the line.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h[playing spirited bagpipe music]

- There he is.

[crowd booing]

- Rowdy Roddy Piper...

- Here is what is arguably \h\h\h\hthe turning point

\h\h\h\h\h\hof the WWE in just so many ways.

Roddy was very stubborn,

\hbut you’re about to make more money

\h\h\h\hthan you ever had in your entire lifetime.

[bell dings]

\h\h\h\h- There goes the bell. Look at the bell by Liberace.

- Fans are chanting T, T, T.

And they’re going \h\hnose-to-nose.

- Lookit, nose-to-nose.

- Mr. T and Rowdy Roddy Piper, \h\h\h\h\h\h\hnose-to-nose...

- Roddy was smart enough \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hto know,

"Yeah, I’m gonna do business,

and I’m gonna make it \h\h\h\h\hlook right.

You don’t have to like it.

- They’re exchanging--oh!

Piper now goes behind quickly, takes him down to the canvas.

\h\h\h- At a certain point, Roddy Piper instructs Mr. T,

\h\h\h\h\h\h"Pick me up in a fireman’s carry."

- Oh, nice fireman’s carry.

- Even though he didn’t want

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hMr. T to take advantage of him,

\h\hRoddy Piper knows how to sell himself,

and he knows that’s the photo

\h\h\h\hthat will go all over the world.

♪ ♪

- What’s he gonna \h\h\hdo with him?

\h\hOh, drops him like yesterday’s newspaper.

- You need to make Mr. T \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hthe hero.

This is what this is all about.

\h\h\h\h- Mr. T now in the wrong corner.

Here comes the Hulk.

- Mr. T should have beaten \h\h\h\hone of those guys

right in the middle \h\h\h\hof the ring,

preferably Piper.

\h\h\h\h\h- As Piper was about to lower--

Look out!

\h\h\h\h- But instead, they had to have Orton

jump off the top rope \h\h\h\h\hwith a cast.

It hits Orndorff on the head just so we could get a win.

Piper didn’t want \h\hto do the job,

even in WrestleMania.

\h\h\h\h\hYou’re the bad guy. You’re supposed to get beat.

That’s what bad guys do.

♪ ♪

\h\h\h\h\hHe was so protective about protecting Roddy Piper,

\h\h\hand he didn’t realize if you just listen to our opinion,

I think you might find things \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\ha lot easier.

♪ ♪

But Piper didn’t like me, \h\h\h\hyou know, at all.

I mean, there was no rapport \h\h\hat all with him and I.

It was strictly business.

\h\hWe didn’t talk unless we had to.

But later on in life, Piper and I got to be real good friends.

I said, "You screwed up, man.

\h\h\h"You could’ve been one of the richest guys I’ve ever met,

but you wouldn’t let me \h\h\h\h\h\hbeat you."

So he goes, "Damn it. \h\h\hI’m so pissed.

I wish we would’ve talked."

I said, "I tried to talk. You wouldn’t talk to me."

- Hulk Hogan, Mr. T,

kind of taking the center stage of that whole event,

he always felt

they couldn’t have been \h\h\hthe center stage

without him being there, \h\h\hbeing the bad guy.

And he knew his worth. \h\hHe knew his worth.

\h- It’s things like that that made Roddy the ultimate rebel.

♪ ♪

- For myself to stay on top,

\h\h\h\hI needed to get out of the business completely,

\h\hdo something in another form.

♪ ♪

- I spent a lot of time \h\h\h\h\h\h\hwith Roddy

\h\h\h\h\hand had a lot of big talks with Roddy

about that time period,

and I remember Roddy basically telling me

that you got to have something \h\h\h\helse after wrestling.

"What are you gonna do \h\h\h\h\hafter that?"

And he’s like, "Hollywood."

♪ ♪

\h\h\h- Roddy had a quality that I could use in a movie.

- Well, first of all, he didn’t \h\h\h\hhave a pretty-boy face

like a Hollywood actor,

\hand this role required him to be kind of a working man.

- You, you’re okay.

This one? Real [bleep] ugly.

\h- The character of John Nada is really based a lot on Roddy

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hand his past and what he’d been through,

and he added a lot of color to that.

He gave me a notebook.

\hNow, this notebook were written all these phrases

and ideas he had \hfor interviews.

♪ ♪

\h\hAnd right there, sitting there, was,

"I’ve come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass,

and I’m all out of bubble gum."

I went, "That’s a great line. \h\h\h\h\hI could use that."

- I have come here to chew \hbubble gum and kick ass,

and I’m all out of bubble gum.

- Oh, [bleep]! \h\h\h[gunshot]

\h\h\h- That’s all his idea. That was all from his brain.

- I’ve never felt safer \h\h\h\h\h\hin my life

\h\hthan fighting with Roddy Piper.

[both grunting]

I believe that fight scene

\hlasts literally about seven minutes onscreen.

[both grunting and shouting]

- We really, you know,

choreographed the [bleep] \h\h\h\h\h\h\hout of it.

\h\hBut there was one time we were both so hyped up--

I was especially hyped up--

and that first punch,

I hit him right in the face.

And it was--and I’d be like, \h"Oh, [bleep]. Oh, [bleep]."

\h\h\h\h\h\hAnd he’s like, "Come on, man. Don’t worry.

\h\h"Come on, snap out of it. Come on, let’s start again."

And he was great.

- Brother, life’s a bitch.

Don’t feel sorry for me.

My name’s John Nada.

- [laughs]

\h\hA year and a half we were in Los Angeles

while he was filming \h\h\hthose movies.

He brought the scripts home,

and we’d go over them.

\hHe was always leaving to go to acting classes.

\hI mean, it was--it was a whole nother lifestyle.

\h\h\h- It was not like it was today,

where it’s a lot more flexible

\h\hfor wrestlers to also do acting.

Back then, it was, you didn’t do that.

It was not an easy road to be,

really, the first wrestler \h\h\h\h\hto go into film.

\h\h\h\h\h- When Vince was booking everything,

without Piper’s name,

it was real hard for us to make that transition

’cause Piper was so hot \h\h\h\h\h\hat the time.

- If Roddy wanted to go off \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hand do film,

what am I going to say?

No, don’t take advantage \h\hof that opportunity?

\h\h\hAs long as I know that he’s coming back.

\h\h\h\h\h- He loved acting and he loved the work of it

but he felt alienated

and didn’t really have \h\h\ha lot in common

with a lot of the people \h\h\h\h\h\hin Hollywood.

\h\h- The only people that can understand me

are other wrestlers.

♪ ♪

I needed to come back \h\h\h\hto the WWE...

♪ ♪

and walk back in the front door.

♪ ♪

- Rowdy Roddy Piper!

\h- When I came back into wrestling from Hollywood,

bringing that credibility back \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hwas huge.

- As far as Roddy’s \h\h\hstandpoint is,

well, you had to bring me back

because I was the greatest \h\h\h\h\hstar of all time.

You know, that would be Roddy’s \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hpoint of view.

But it didn’t matter \h\h\hwhat you want.

You give the audience \h\h\hwhat they want.

They want Roddy to come back, \hwell, let’s give them Roddy.

- Standing ovation here \h\h\h\hfor Rowdy Roddy.

- And after a respite,

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hyou know, Roddy’s ready to come back.

\h\h\hGreat, he’s fresh. He’s new all over again.

Different set of opponents.

- Mr. Downey?

- Yes, Mr. Piper?

- Don’t blow no more smoke in my face.

- Morton Downey, Jr., was a talk show host.

You know, he was a big mouth.

And Roddy had this impeccable timing.

So when Downey blows smoke \h\h\h\h\hin Roddy’s face,

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hit’s like, "One, two, three, four."

\h\h\h\h\hInstead of immediately doing it,

"Watch something’s going \h\h\h\h\hto happen now."

And then it does.

- Ya-ha!

[laughs]

- He was so creative.

- I think the fire is out, \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hJess.

- Very quick on his feet.

♪ ♪

\hBut at the same time, he was very opinionated

\h\h\hand wanted someone to listen to his opinion.

I listened to a lot \hof Roddy’s ideas,

some of which were really \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hdead on

\h\h\h\hand some of which were, whew, wow, that was out there.

- They say you shouldn’t blow \h\h\h\h\h\h\hyour own horn.

Don’t they say that? \h\h\h\h\h\hWhy not?

- You are the most arrogant individual

I think we’ve ever had.

\h\h- I believe Roddy once described our relationship

as a love-hate relationship.

We never fought.

There were a couple times \hwhen it was very close,

but that was the way it was \h\h\h\hback in those days.

A lot of times, you settled \h\hthings in a fistfight.

You just did.

- Vince and I were two peas \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hin a pod.

I love the ass[bleep].

I do.

He’s an ass[bleep] sometimes.

So am I.

[crowd chanting "Roddy"]

\h\h\h\h\h\h- Roddy Piper was an attraction all to himself.

The fans could no longer \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hboo him.

♪ ♪

\h\h\h\hYou came to see Roddy Piper’s intensity,

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hyou came to hear his big mouth,

and you came to watch \h\h\h\hthat frenzied,

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hkinetic spirit he brought between the ropes.

- Rowdy Roddy Piper!

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h- Whether he won or whether he was humiliated,

\h\h\h\hhe was a draw, and he remained a draw.

\h\h\h\h\h- We have a new intercontinental champion:

Hot Rod Rowdy Roddy Piper.

- Roddy Piper was maturing,

\hand it wasn’t all about Roddy

and Roddy was proving that, hey, I can make people too.

♪ ♪

- I wouldn’t lay my shoulders \h\h\h\h\h\hdown for anybody.

\hBut when I do, I make somebody,

and it means something.

\h\h\h\h\h\h- This is going to be something!

- This was a special match.

This is the biggest moment \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hin my life,

for sure, up to this point.

Roddy really launched me.

\h\hLike, my whole career just starting climbing,

\h\hand it was Roddy was the one that gave me that first boost.

- This is the first time these two men are meeting

for the World Wrestling \h\h\h\h\hEntertainment

intercontinental title.

- I think the last time--I think I did watch this, maybe,

when Roddy died.

I always make a point of, like,

\h\h\h\h\h\htrying to go back and find some good memories.

\h\h\h\h- I always felt Roddy took a special interest in me.

Roddy was born in Saskatoon,

and my dad grew up \h\hin Saskatoon.

And there was a possibility \h\h\h\h\hthat their name--

like, they were in \hthe same family.

\h\h\h\hMaybe there was some blood between us.

When I first met him,

we joked that we might \h\h\h\h\hbe cousins.

Like, it was like, "Hey, cuz."

\hAnd I didn’t mind. I never minded Roddy being a cousin.

- I know this guy since he’d been knee-high to a grasshopper.

\hI remember when they were changing your potty pants.

- I think it was a message \hto the other wrestlers,

some of the other superstars

that weren’t in the habit \h\h\h\hof reaching down

to help the next guys.

\h\h\hRoddy was like, "Here, I’ll show you how it’s done."

- Eye-to-eye, nose-to-nose.

- But I was relieved \h\h\h\hto find out

that this guy’s really \h\h\hpitching for me.

He’s actually opening \h\hthe doors for me.

That match was Roddy’s match.

- Now Rowdy Roddy...

Oh, bulldog!

- Roddy put that match \h\h\h\h\h\htogether.

- Wide open!

\h\h- Roddy was so tuned in to what would work with the fans.

- He’s got the bell.

Piper’s gonna ring his bell.

\h\h\h- They don’t want him to brain me with the bell.

"No, no, don’t do it."

- He’s having second thoughts.

\h\h\h\h- His conscience gets the better of him,

and he changes his mind here \h\h\h\h\hand decides not to.

- Oh, look at that move

off the turnbuckle!

\h\h\hIt’s over! [crowd cheers]

- See that? Being a nice guy, \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hit cost him.

Idiot.

[laughs]

♪ ♪

\h\h\h\hOver the years, Roddy told me many times

that it was his most \h\h\hfavorite match,

\h\h\h\hand, you know, you never forget that.

- There’s an old saying \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hthat’s,

"You need a license to hunt. You need a license to fish.

"Any jerk can have a kid.

It takes a man to be a dad."

♪ ♪

Oh, man.

\h- When I look at my childhood, my dad was gone almost every day

\h\h\h\hfor at least up until I was five.

- The first, at least, \h12 years of my life,

he was gone for long periods \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hof time.

I think at one point, I didn’t \h\h\hsee him for over a year.

♪ ♪

\h- We both made the same choice,

that the wrestling business

took precedent over anything, \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\heven family,

so that’s a tough choice

to look in the mirror \h\h\hand live with.

\h\h- You were gone at least 300 days a year, every year.

\h\h\h\h\hRoddy was--like me, was a real strong family man.

\h\h\h\h\hYou know, you-- you commiserate together,

and you’re missing your kids’ \h\h\h\h\h\h\hbirthday parties

and you miss Halloween

and you miss all these little \h\hspecial days all the time.

You see pictures,

\h\h\hthe heartbreak at home of being gone all the time.

\h\h\hYou know, it’s just this very tough part of your life.

- When Roddy would come home \h\h\h\hand have to be Dad,

he was always fun.

[kids chattering excitedly]

He would spoil them rotten.

He would pull them \h\hout of school,

\h\hdidn’t matter what was going on.

[girls screaming]

Christmas, he was always home, \hand always lots of presents.

\h\h\h\h\h\h- Hey, you! - A lot of cuddle time.

\h\h\hHe was trying very hard to create what he didn’t have.

\h\h\h\h- He would come home, and he would be so exhausted,

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hyou know, while trying to see us.

And then he would want \h\h\h\h\h\hto have fun

or just do something \h\h\h\has a family.

\hAnd then immediately, like, as soon as we were having fun,

\h\h\h\hyou could see him getting antsy about work.

You could see it start to tick \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hlike a clock,

going faster and faster.

And I think he missed it.

You know, he missed us \h\hwhen he was gone,

and he missed the action \h\h\hwhen he was home.

- He was like a runaway \h\has a kid growing up

and spent a lot of time on the \h\hroad in his own mind-set.

Like, Roddy against the world.

\h\hHe was not like any other wrestler.

He was in his own world.

\h\hI think that world also meant going away.

- I’m gonna get 30 minutes \hwith my dad this month.

I just want to hug him, \h\h\h\hcuddle with him,

kiss him, and do whatever \h\h\hI can in that time,

because I literally get him

on his transfer layover flight.

He wasn’t an NFL player \h\hthat had a season.

He went 365.

- [plays note] - There you go.

- They never liked \h\hseeing him go,

\h\h\h\heveryone, including myself.

\h\h\h- If you could wish for anything in the whole world,

what would you wish for?

- For my family to be together \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hall the time.

You know, it’s hard not \h\h\h\h\h\hto get sad

when he’s going out the door, \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hbut...

\h\h\h\hSorry. [clears throat]

[exhales]

♪ ♪

\h\h\h[whispers] I need a minute.

♪ ♪

- It’s hard to live with a man \hthat has constant injuries.

\h\h\hOf course, they varied from bruises to broken bones.

He never let on how bad \h\h\h\hhe was hurting.

I would beg him to sit still and recover from an injury.

Yes, yes, I would.

\h\h\h\hBut you cannot make Rod do anything he doesn’t want to.

♪ ♪

- Dad was injured \h90% of the time.

♪ ♪

\hSo when I say I had to lace his boots up

since I was eight years old,

it’s because it physically \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hhurt him.

\h\h- He is sorely outnumbered here.

- I remember the first time \h\hthat I really felt, like,

wow, he is mortal.

- Hogan gives a whuppin’ \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hon him.

- And truly hating Hogan.

[crowd cheering]

- They can’t hold him down!

- The hardest thing \has a kid, for me,

was knowing your dad’s \h\h\h\h\h\h\hinjuries.

- And he had just had \ha hip replacement.

- Showing that scar there. \h\h\h\h\hYou can see it.

\h\h\h\h\h- He had a scar from the hip replacement.

Hulk Hogan took a chair \h\h\h\hand hit my dad.

- Oh, no! No!

- He’s not supposed \hto be wrestling.

We were told he might not \h\h\h\heven walk again.

♪ ♪

\h\h\h- I just remember breaking down in tears

because, for the first time, \h\h\h\h\h\hit became real.

- Roddy! Roddy! Roddy!

- So at that point,

my parents stopped letting us \h\h\h\h\h\hwatch altogether.

- When we had the inside \hand the outside view,

it was really rough.

- I mean, he was just \h\h\hin constant pain

and yet could work through it.

\h\h\h\h\hAs he got older, he had a shoulder injury,

and his arm would just hang, like, a couple inches lower

\h\h\h\h\hthan the other arm, and he was probably like that

for a year or two.

It turned out his, like--

\h\h\h\hthey pulled out something like five or six shattered bones

\h\h\h\hthat were just, like, floating around his shoulder.

- It was kind of fascinating

for me to see him behind the scenes

\hhaving a hard time getting out of bed,

having a hard time walking,

and two hours later, \h\hhe’s in the ring

and you’d never know anything was wrong

because he loved it.

He loved putting on a show.

\h\h\hIt really was just two completely different lives.

♪ ♪

- During the time of 2003 \hwhen Dad talked to HBO,

it was a dark time for Dad

in front of the camera \h\h\h\h\hand at home.

- Everybody’s dead.

They’re all dying early,

and nobody cares about it.

- What the hell is he doing?

And what the hell is he saying? \h\h\h\h\h\hIt’s like, really?

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h- They take them and they screw them up so much

and they being the rash \h\h\h\h\hof promoters

that I’ve gone through \h\h\hin the 33 years.

\h- And a lot of times you lash out, you know,

and that’s what Roddy was \hdoing was lashing out.

♪ ♪

\h- A lot of his friends had started passing away,

\h\hand it makes you worry and it makes you concerned,

and so that’s when he started \h\h\h\hbeing vocal about it.

- I know he blamed the company

for just about everything \h\h\hin the interviews,

\h\hbut at that time, he had lost so much.

He wasn’t wrestling. \h\h\h\hHe was hurt.

\h\h\h\h\hHe was just trying to stand up for his buddies.

\hBut later on, towards the end,

Dad had talked to me and, \h\h\h\hyou know, he said,

"It’s the business we get into. \hWe know what it is, you know.

\h"We don’t get in there thinking we’re gonna live

to 70, 80 years old."

\h\h\h- What would you have me do at 49 when,

\h\h\h\hlike, my pension plan, I can’t take out until I’m 65.

\h\h\hI’m not gonna make 65. Let’s just face facts, guys.

\h\h\h- When someone says really rotten thing about your company,

\hyou know, you’re not gonna welcome them with open arms.

\h\hYou know, you’re gonna say, "Time for us to say good-bye."

♪ ♪

- He wasn’t expecting \h\hthe consequences.

He lost a contract.

It was pretty bad \h\hfor our family

\h\has far as, like, our well-being goes.

I think he felt very lost, \h\h\h\h\hvery depressed,

a little bit reckless \h\hwith his behavior.

\h\h\h\h\h\hObviously, with the HBO interview,

that’s a good example.

And, you know, I’ve talked \habout him having demons,

and I think that this was \hsort of like the height

\h\hof his demons coming out was this period of his life.

♪ ♪

- Yeah, nothing’s permanent \h\h\h\h\hin this business,

and as Piper’s been fired,

I’ve been fired a couple times.

You know, but things change

\h\h\hand, you know, the president or...

\h\hOJ or somebody will do something

\h\h\h\hthat takes precedent over something that we did.

So I think Vince understands \h\h\hthat he’s dealing with

\h\h\ha bunch of high, intense personalities.

But Vince has been \hpretty forgiving.

- Whoo! Ladies and gentlemen, \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hI give you--

I give you the most gifted entertainer

\h\h\h\h\h\hin the history of professional wrestling:

my man, the Hot Rod.

[playing bagpipe music]

- I think it was huge for him,

you know, ’cause his whole \h\h\hlife was wrestling.

Even though wrestling \h\his an exhibition,

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hfor us, the Hall of Fame is real.

[crowd chanting "Roddy"]

Roddy! Roddy! Roddy! Roddy!

♪ ♪

- I want to tell you this.

I love you s...

[chuckles]

[laughter]

I love you so much, man.

\h\h\hI love you so much, but I guarantee you this:

\hmy name is Rowdy Roddy Piper, and you ain’t seen nothing yet.

[solemn music]

♪ ♪

[pen scratching]

- You can find sympathy \h\h\hin the dictionary

between [bleep] and suicide.

♪ ♪

- Roddy was definitely \h\h\h\h\h\hdepressed

off and on during his life.

You know, you’re either up \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h100%

or you’re kind of down,

and it was always hard for him \h\h\hto find the middle spot.

One of the demons was that time in his life

as a teenager when he was \hsurviving on the street.

He never let that go.

- I was so young.

\h\h\h\hI had to fight for everything I had.

♪ ♪

Oh, man.

♪ ♪

- He told me some stuff \h\habout his childhood

and living on the street.

He was in a bad spot \hand used and abused

and just a lot of bad stuff \h\h\h\hthat I had no idea.

♪ ♪

\h\h\h\h\h- Nobody--you know, nobody feel sorry for me, man.

- You know, he had phoned me \h\h\h\h\h\h\hfrom the road,

and he’d been in his hotel \h\h\hroom for three days

with the lights off.

\h\h\h\h\hHe was depressed. There was things on his mind

\h\hthat went back to his childhood.

♪ ♪

\h\hHis mind went to spots that weren’t good for him.

♪ ♪

- He still had that crumbling \h\h\h\h\hpart inside his soul

that he could never mend.

He was so depressed at times,

I’m sure that he did \h\hthink of suicide.

He wouldn’t follow through \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hwith it

because, as he would be the first to say,

\h\h\h\h\h\hhe’s not a coward, and that’s a coward’s way out.

But he was so sad at times \h\h\h\h\h\hinside himself

\hthat I know that he did think that occasionally,

and that’s heartbreaking.

- At 242 pounds,

\h\h\hthe Hot Rod, Rowdy Roddy Piper.

[playing jaunty piano music]

\h\h\h\h- Hey, buddy! - How you doing, pal?

\h\h\h\hYeah. Nice. - Good to see you!

- Good to see you too. \h\h\h\h\hBeen in jail.

\h\h\h\h- As he started to wind down wrestling,

he really started to have fun

\hgoing into acting as well as comedy.

[laughter]

\h\h- In a weird way, I think it was a nice,

therapeutic thing \hthat he realized

that just because he couldn’t \h\h\h\h\h\h\hwrestle anymore

\h\h\h\h\h\h\hdidn’t mean that he couldn’t perform.

[laughter]

- He enjoyed telling \h\h\hthese stories,

he enjoyed connecting \h\h\hwith his fans,

\hand that was something that he was very passionate about.

- May all your dreams come true. God bless you.

\h\h\h\h[applause] - How cool is that?

Rowdy Roddy Piper!

January of 2009,

his manager reached out \h\h\h\h\h\h\hand said,

"Would you have any interest

in helping Roddy cultivate \h\ha stand-up comedy act?"

And I was like, "Absolutely."

Because here’s the thing:

when you watch pro wrestling \h\h\h\h\h\h\hwith brothers,

that wasn’t even a TV show.

That was an instruction guide \hon how to hurt each other.

That’s all it was.

I grew up the middle of three boys in suburban Philadelphia

\h\hin really the Golden Age of modern professional wrestling.

♪ ♪

I remember being a kid \h\hwhen he showed up.

He was the worst.

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h[laughs] Like, I remember being

\ha chubby 11-year-old kid buying a T-shirt that said,

"I hate Rowdy Roddy Piper."

\h\h\hLike, he could get you to yell at a television set.

♪ ♪

\h\h\h\hAnd meeting Roddy was like meeting somebody

out of a comic book.

That began a really cool \h\h\h\h\h\hrelationship

where I would just listen to stories

and try to help him craft that into some sort of cohesive act.

\h\h- As a comedian, I have a unbelievable amount of respect

for somebody that can connect \h\h\h\h\h\h\hwith audiences

on such a deep level.

That was his mutant ability.

- Like that power walking...

[laughter]

- I got to go through Roddy’s life with him

on a comedic journey,

but hearing his life experience \h\h\h\h\hwas just so amazing.

\h- Roddy’s darkness is one of the things

\h\h\hthat drew him to stand-up comedy.

[playing harmonica]

You can turn pain into joy,

and making people laugh \h\hmeant a lot to him.

♪ ♪

- He is the WWE \h\hHall of Famer

and one of the all-time greats, \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hRowdy Roddy Piper.

\h- When he would get off the road,

he would be tired or hurt, \h\h\h\hand he’d recover.

But there was never a time \hthat he did an interview

\h\h\h\hor he got on camera and he couldn’t turn it on.

- What was the question? \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h[laughs]

- This time was different.

He had this interview.

And he gets on and he’s, like,

can’t put his thoughts \h\h\h\h\h\h\htogether.

- Nah, but--but what I don’t \h\h\h\hthink is an honor...

\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hUh... Let me--let me try to do this.

- It’s one of those things \hthat, as a family member,

when you know someone close \h\h\h\h\hand you’re like,

"They’re being odd."

- I went into a-- excuse me.

I went into a Mexican... uh, restaurant

with my youngest daughter, who’s, uh...

- It was heartbreaking

because that was not \h\h\hthe man I knew.

There was obvious problem \h\h\h\h\h\hhe was having.

- I just think that...

\h- It was like the moment the world knew something was wrong.

♪ ♪

And a few days later, \h\h\hRoddy was home.

He was very tired that night.

\h\hWe were gonna go see his doctor the next day.

We decided to do that.

And we went to bed

and he passed away \h\h\hin his sleep.

♪ ♪

- His heart failed.

\hAs far as the specifics as to what was causing it,

it probably was a combination \h\h\h\h\hof his entire life.

♪ ♪

\h\h\h\h- I am so grateful that he was home because,

even at that age,

\hso many days of the year, he was gone away from home,

and he could have been alone.

\h\h\h\hSorry. [clears throat]

And I’m just very grateful \hthat he was home with me

when he passed.

♪ ♪

\h\h- You know, the news came that he passed away, you know.

\hI felt like I got shot in the chest with a cannon, you know.

And it kind of like knocked me \h\hoff track for a couple days,

and now all of a sudden, I get this voice message.

It was really weird \h\hbecause either

my phone was messed up,

\h\h\h\hsometimes you’ll get a text message at that night

when it was sent to you \h\h\h\hin the morning.

- That really spooked me out.

\h\hLike, hmm, alien thing, you know, like "Close Encounters."

\h\hIt was just crazy to get a voice message from somebody

\h\h\h\hafter they passed away, and especially for him to say,

"I’m loving you and walking \h\hwith Jesus, my brother.

\h\h\h\h\hJust loving you and walking with Jesus."

I was like, "Wow."

Totally screwed me up.

[wistful music]

♪ ♪

- All right, guys.

[overlapping chatter]

- It is.

- Hey, nice to see you again. \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hHow are you?

- So good to see you. \h\h\h\h\hOh, my God.

When I first started doing MMA,

I was trying to think \h\hof a fight name,

and, of course, the first thing \h\h\hthat everybody thought of

was like, "What do you think \h\h\h\h\h\has a fight name?"

\h\h\h\h"Well, Rowdy. Rowdy Ronda Rousey."

Like, I know, but it’s like \h\h\h\hRowdy Roddy Piper.

\h\h\h\hAnd he has that. I don’t want to steal it

until I happened to see \hthe original rowdy one

and got his blessing

and, yeah, he was very \h\h\h\hsweet about it.

He was like, "Yeah, sure, kid. \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hNo problem.

Better do the name proud." \h\hOr something like that.

I don’t know. \h\h[laughs]

- And then Kitty, my mom. \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h- Hi.

♪ ♪

No one can do it better.

- [laughs] Thank you so much.

Thank you so, so much.

- He was a loner and a wolf,

and he was often \hmisunderstood.

- I was so wild,

scary wild.

- But he was always 100% \h\h\h\h\hin your face.

\h\h- You do not throw rocks at a man who’s got a machine gun!

- This is what you get. \h\h\h\h\hI am who I am.

- What you got here \h\h\h\his all man.

- He didn’t change \h\h\hfor anybody.

- We are the most popular wrestlers in the entire world.

- I haven’t found anyone that has what Roddy had.

Loved life.

Lived it to its max.

- Ya-ha!

- He came in spitting fire \h\h\hand crapping thunder.

- I’m not afraid \h\h\h\h\hof nobody--

♪ ♪

- I am the legend killer.

- He started with so little \h\h\hand ended with so much

\h\h\hand had every hardship thrown at him along the way.

That’s my dad’s legacy.

\h\h\h\h\hI hope it is one that gives people strength.

- I still hear new stories \habout him all the time,

and I realize how lucky I am \h\h\h\h\h\hto have a father

\h\h\h\h\h\hthat has impacted so many people in the world.

♪ ♪

- Best part of my job:

when you come with your daddy \h\h\h\h\h\h\hand your mommy,

and you’re all excited and...

\h\h\hWe can put a smile on a little boy’s face.

That’s the greatest reward

a guy can ever have \h\h\h\hin his life.

Thank you.

I love you too.

♪ ♪

- I have come here

to chew bubble gum.

- I have come here to chew \hbubble gum and kick butt.

\h\h\h- And I’m all out of bubble gum.

- And I’m all out \hof bubble gum.

\h- Just when they think they have the answers...

- Just when they think they \h\h\h\hhave the answers...

- I change the questions.

\h\h- I change the questions.

- You do not throw rocks...

- You do not throw rocks

at a man with a machine gun, \h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\h\hbrother.