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Titans of Wrestling #56: Roddy Piper Tribute Part 2


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http://placetobenation.com/titans-of-wrestling-56-roddy-piper-tribute-part-2/

 

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Join Kelly, Johnny and Marty Sleeze (until he tragically passes away halfway through the show) for part 2 of what may become, at this pace, a 7-8 part tribute to "Rowdy" Roddy Piper! This episode is devoted entirely to Piper's 1984-1987 WWF run, featuring a look at...

 

-His initial time as a manager and tag wrestler

-His feuds with Jimmy Snuka, the Tonga Kid, Hulk Hogan, Mr. T, Cyndi Lauper, Bruno Sammartino, Adrian Adonis...Hell, most of the roster

-The revolutionary Piper's Pit

-His trunks-tearing off war with Paul Orndorff

 

All this and much, much more!

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Yup, the rest of it was first rate also.

 

Hope you give Piper plenty of credit for his 1989-92 run. I know it's not up to his 80s tour de force, but there's loads of quality angles and commentating (loved his reluctance to put Warrior over at SummerSlam 90) as well as in-ring stuff with Rude, Hennig, Flair, Bret and DiBiase.

 

No objections to you trashing the Lawler match and a lot of the WCW stuff though :P

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Oh yeah there was plenty of good stuff during his second WWF run, and I probably should've been more positive about that when previewing the next part. I think I'm going watch the Lawler match for the first time since 1994 because I remember it being awful but want to go into the specifics of why it was so bad

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I still remember REALLY liking a lot of Piper in '96 and '97 WCW. I might be in the VAST majority on that, but hey. I'm okay with that. The interviews weren't what they used to be, but he'd still rattle off a winner here & there.

"What's a Horsemen? Do the Horsemen ride mares..? Do they ride STUDS..? What IS a Horseman? How can I TRUST a Horseman?!"

Good stuff. Oh. And I thought the Piper/Flair vs. Outsiders match from GAB '97 was probably better than it had any right to be. I won't deny that Flair was the worker out there, but Piper's performance as the outnumbered & overwhelmed face in peril is pretty damn good. The Slamboree six-man also speaks for itself.

 

Again, obviously there's not a TRUCKLOAD of gems in the WCW run. But I don't think there was anything truly dreadful from his arrival up until the Havoc cage debacle. The SuperBrawl deal with Hogan was cheesy and definitely a letdown in terms of a main event match, but man. Both guys were so fucking over that it hardly put a dent in any of my enjoyment at the time.

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Great great episode. I don't think ANYONE'S complaining about 3 episodes of Piper, when you do a 6 hour Terry Gibbs tribute, things might get harsher.

 

I do want to talk about Snuka and the presentation of Hogan in 84, both of which are brought up in that podcast.

 

It's just my opinion but I don't think there was even a day's consideration to Snuka being the champion. He wasn't even considered reliable enough to go over Don Muraco and run with the IC title. He was put in the perfect role for him, amazingly awesome ass kicker involved in the blood feud of the year (both in 83 and 84) but he more or less lost both those feuds (well he didn't WIN either). Add to his promo skills which I think are even stranger than anything Bob Backlund did and the fact that he would be an ethic champion without an ethnicity in any size and you've got little chance of being champion even before the worst hit the fan.

 

As for Kelly's point about Hogan's strange booking in 84, in some ways it was, in some ways it was a continuation of what had come prior. Someone mentioned Hogan's 84 feuds, to which I replied..............what feuds? Hogan's first feud was arguably the build up to WM I. And that was done at MSG and then blown off at SNME after Mania basically. Bits and pieces were shown on TV but it wasn't as if the TV shows created the feud. Prior to that Hogan had programs with guys but no real issues beyond "X cuts a local promo about his title match with Hogan". That wasn't really all that different from the way Bruno and Bob were booked, you wanted to see the champion you had to go to a show, but unlike their eras the heels didn't really call Hogan out or focus on him during the TV shows at all either, except for local promos.

 

We tend to think of the brief Savage program in late 85 into early 86 and then the Orndorff program as being huge hits because of the talent involved. No disrespect to Randy or Paul but I think the simpler reason is those feuds started on the weekly TV show. Everyone watching from the littlest kid watching to Ivan from MSG understood what was going on and wanted to see what happened next. What's strange is that it took so long for Vince to figure this formula out and what's amazing is Hogan was such a draw you COULD draw an extra five thousand just to see him.

 

Snuka and Slaughter had RED HOT awesome programs to help them draw. Hogan really just had himself.

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An in-depth profile piece for Hogan sounds awesome. I'm especially intrigued by some of his more "obscure" challengers from that first reign and the loops he worked with a lot of those challengers then.

 

Hogan's incredible aura and presence, the gradual streamlining of his in-ring "formula", the numbers for some of those title defenses, etc. would give ya a truckload of material to look at. The "Battles of Backlund" show Kris put out with Exile awhile back springs to mind as a somewhat similar project.

 

Either way, these Piper shows are tremendous and much appreciated. Definitely wouldn't mind an entire spin-off series devoted to similar things.

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Yup, all sounds good to me.

 

Don't know if Parv ever told you this Kelly, but the WWF videos released in the UK covering the mid to late 80s was paltry. We got the PPVs, Best of Hogan tapes and Best of SNME. Probably a few others too, can't remember exactly, but my point is the 20 Best of WWF tapes, Saturday Nights Main Event etc were not released.

 

It left the viewer with a very limited patchwork of info on 1985-89.

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Yeah I had to get Best of WWF from a seller on eBay and they were something like 20th generation tape to tape copies. Same with SNME, I mentioned this in that thread recently. It's because the "boom" was slightly later here as I've mentioned in the past.

 

However THIS tape was everywhere:

 

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I fully support Kelly developing that new show idea.

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Not to derail this into Hogan talk but his 84 loop is really strange. It's not just the insane travel schedule everybody had it's the variety of opponents. Hogan never wrestled so many different guys as he did in 84 and again in 85 after that. Some of the strangest people got title shots like Afa and Mr. Fuji. I THINK the approach was a combination of "people came to see Hogan, who cares against who" and "give EVERYONE a title shot at one point to keep the money spread around and talent happy". I can't see any other reason.

Bruno had programs. Bob had programs. Hogan early on just wrestled whoever without rhyme or reason. It's the closest thing to face traveling NWA champ we get. As a random example in the last week of Feb/first week of March Hogan fought Studd, Masked Superstar, David Schultz, Orndorff, Sheik, Afa and Tiger Chung Lee. I bet that's more guys than Flair in that same period lol.

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