Roddy Piper

Oh, yeah.

What are we, oh, Roddy Piper, Bret Hart.

Sorry, we're going back to the old schools now.

Roddy Piper, Bret Hart.

Yeah, dude.

Uh, let's see.

Any era you say?

Yes.

Yeah.

Roddy Piper, Bret Hart.

Sorry, we're going back to the old schools now.

Roddy Piper, Bret Hart.

Let's see.

Yeah, get the Bret Hart tights at SummerSlam.

Any era.

Any era, you say? Yes.

He's still with us.

Roddy Piper's gone, of course, but he was great.

Jimmy Snuka was great.

He was just crazy.

all over.

So after Vincent does the intros, we are introduced to our commentary team for the night, which is Gorilla Monsoon, Bobby the Brain Heenan, and Rowdy Roddy Piper.

Now, Callum, we have talked about bad commentary teams in the past.

You know, because I don't know how much praise we're going to put on today's show, but I'm just going to throw it out there.

Is this revisionist because of how good Girl and Bobby are together? There was sometimes I thought that Piper was maybe bringing them down.

And that pains me to say because I think...

I don't think it's too controversial to say that Roddy Piper's one of the best talkers in the history of professional wrestling.

But I did feel like sometimes he was bringing it down a bit.

Yeah, that's one question where there is a void in my career that's very familiar with Jim Sr. and with Ringley taking over, and then I left.

So when George Scott came in, I was traveling the world, but it was a period of time where Ric Flair johnny valentine greg valentine wahoo mcdaniel blackjack mulligan you start making a list of the name roddy piper you start listing the names and uh but still you got to know what to do when you have that kind of talent but but they just completely blew the lid off that uh of the territory

It started with Johnny Valentine, and let's get into John Ringley for a second, because he was there for a hiccup and a cup of coffee, but he was chosen to take over from Jim Sr., and he was married to Francis, and he was running the company, and then real life got in the way.

Yeah, the story that I heard was that they bought an airplane.

The NWA champion got eight or 10%, and then the NWA, for booking the champion, got another two or 3%, so sometimes you needed to boost your gates.

But that was indicative, and we talked about the changeover with the talent headed in a more, or the style headed in a more singles-oriented, bigger titles, bigger national names, and now you can talk about from 1974 to 1979, and I did this off the top of my head.

because you could literally list every wrestler in the world that appeared in the Carolinas, but on the heels of Johnny Valentine and Wahoo McDaniel, in those five years, Ric Flair, Ricky Steamboat, Jimmy Snuka, Black Jack Mulligan, Greg Valentine, Paul Orndorff, Ole and Gene Anderson, the NWA champions Jack Briscoe, Terry Funk, and Harley Race, Jay Youngblood, Dick Murdock, Dusty Rhodes, Andre the Giant, Mr. Wrestling Tim Woods, Roddy Piper, and that's just off the top of my head, and that's a short list, especially the big shows in Greensboro, tag team tournaments, Thanksgiving night, the big shows in Charlotte, you would literally see a who's who of everybody from the NWA and in some cases from around the world.

Carlos Colon worked preliminary matches at one point in time in the Carolinas.

He supported for them.

Him and Rowdy Roddy are most vocal Niners fans.

They're having a good time.

Enjoying it.

Didn't they release a film back in the 80s called They Live? They live.

1988, John Carpenter, Roddy Piper.

The ultimate red pill movie.

The sunglasses reveal the hidden messages in billboards and magazines.

So he was aware of it.

Like his favorite wrestler was like Rowdy Piper.

Cause we come from a Scottish background.

So that's the only one he was like really interested in, but he was like listening to it, watching it here and there.

morning.

And I do think that I turned it on before that and I saw, I want to say it was like Roddy Piper and somebody else in a steel cage match on Nitro.

And I think a fan jumped the cage with a sling mask on.

And for some reason that like sticks in my memory as well.