How Good Was Roddy Piper Actually?

10. Presence/Look/Presentation

Roddy Piper did not boast what was an impressive or supposedly marketable physique by 1980s standards. 

Vince McMahon, Jr. was the size-obsessed promoter, but it was his father who first rejected Piper. Vincent James thought that Piper was too skinny and weak-looking when, after hearing about a great new heel talker, he brought Piper in as a potential heel opponent for Bob Backlund. Piper’s July 30, 1979 MSG debut went badly, and the Backlund programme was dropped immediately. Vincent Kennedy was so dubious about Piper’s look that he was initially brought back to New York to play a manager who sometimes wrestled before he got too over not to main event. 

Piper lacked definition in the 1980s (although he was weirdly ripped at King Of The Ring 1994). He wasn’t small, but then, nobody was back then. He was handsome, which helped. He was telegenic at the advent of the cable television wrestling boom. 

When programmed opposite Hulk Hogan and Mr. T, Piper’s relative lack of size and muscle became a feature, not a bug. In an age where the muscle monster was a babyface idol, a totem of the strength of Reagan’s America, Piper was an ideal contrast. Of course he was going to run his mouth, poke you in the eye, and run away. He was a scrawny cheating coward punk. His size generated heat. Piper’s size almost did not matter at all because he was so absurdly overpowered in the charisma department. 

Piper was also easy to identify via silhouette. His signature kilt was a fantastic touch because, in an age where people were more openly bigoted, it was confused, deliberately, for a skirt. Piper, more savvy than most, knew what he was doing. He made fans foam at the mouth. This guy thinks he’s so tough, but he’s wearing women’s clothing! 

“You wear a skirt, where’s your pantyhose at?”

“Look in the top drawer of your wife’s bedroom, man”. 

It worked to outrageous effect every time. 

The blue trunks were on-the-nose for a Scotsman, but it was a broad old industry during Piper’s heyday. His bagpipe and drums-led ‘The Green Hills of Tyrol’ theme was magnificent, utterly unique, and it was, again, ideal. The xenophobic yanks did not want to hear that sh*t. It was much too foreign. 

9.5/10