Post by corndog on May 14, 2021 13:53:27 GMT -5
I really like Roddy Piper but I was born in 1988 and other than a moment here or there I feel like I missed why he's treated like such a huge legend. I grew up knowing he was a big legend and a huge deal but he really didn't do it for me anytime he was out there. I didn't really "get" his mic work or his style and he was a decent wrestler at best. His older stuff is decent but when people put him on the same level as a Hogan, Flair, Savage etc. I just don't see it.
He could get heat but I think most people could get heat if they said some of the stuff he was saying. And Piper's Pit, at least the ones on the big stage, WM 5 and WM 21(Whichever one had Austin and Carlito), really failed to deliver.
I think in the Attitude Era he would've been hard to see as an authority figure because Vince was the authority figure. Austin couldn't be the antiauthority if Piper was playing the face authority figure to Vince's heel and Piper vs Austin wouldn't have drawn nearly the same. For all of Vince's faults, he put guys over left and right. If it had been Piper wrestling it would have had to be a more legit match and at some point Piper was going to have to win. Vince could look like a fool because everyone knew he wasn't trained to wrestle. It wouldn't have worked.
Piper was never the best technician or worker, but he was good at brawling, more hardcore style matches like the Dog Collar Match at Starrcade '83 or his match with Paul Orndorff on SNME in '85. Piper was pretty good on the stick as a heel back in the day, he also was a complete wildcard, who could anything at any given moment. Great examples are him attacking Snuka with a coconut and hiting Lou Albano with Cyndi Lauper's award. He was one of the first "cool" heels that people loved to hate and really I can't think of a better opponent and foil during the Rock N' Wrestling connection in 1985. He was must see tv for his first few years in WWF and then became a parody of himself in the late 80s after returning from starring in films.