How Good Was Roddy Piper Actually?

8. In-Ring Ability

If not the absolute best match in WWE history up to that point, Bret Hart Vs. Roddy Piper at WrestleMania 8 was certainly the most sophisticated and textured. 

The WWF had already experimented with the all-babyface match - the famed Ax and Smash sequence at Royal Rumble 1989, Hulk Hogan Vs. Ultimate Warrior - but this was different. This was a remarkable subversion of the ultra-broad wrestling psychology that the WWF was known for, in that Piper, by that point established as a beloved old legend despite being just 38 years of age, was wrestling two opponents: Bret and Father Time. Piper, incredible at selling the rage of humiliation, spat at Bret after he had been outwrestled and dumped to the floor in an early sequence. As the match progressed, and Piper sensed but refused to accept his fate, he grabbed the ring bell and motioned to strike Bret with it. The fans very loudly implored him not to cheat. He didn’t, which was his undoing. Bret pinned him and regained the Intercontinental title. Piper was a man about it, and picked Bret up before wrapping the title around his waist. 

Piper was a trailblazer. You can trace two future trends back to this genuine ‘WrestleMania Moment’. Firstly, while the bell shot was too far, Piper drew cheers despite using the dark arts throughout. You could argue that Piper was among the original cool heels that would dominate the mid-to-late 1990s. Also, this moral crisis and internal conflict basically wrote the playbook for the second coming of Shawn Michaels, and later the “cinema” trend beloved by the Bloodline. 

Piper was great on occasion, but if you polled a demographic of fans on his top 10 matches - hardcore fans, not the ultra-informed territory historians - they’d struggle. A wrestler of Piper’s era wasn’t interested in building an impressive match catalogue designed for a compilation Blu-ray or an internet listicle. Piper was fiercely protective over kayfabe. Even on the shoot interview circuit, years after there was no such need to do it, Piper would refer to doing jobs as “taking dives”. He was so dedicated to gritty realism and the idea of “fights”, as he called them, that the matches were deliberately ugly and all too often devoid of dramatic structure. The usual Piper match was heavily influenced by boxing, and worked boxing matches are traditionally not very good at all. Piper prided himself on the messy match, since that’s what a fight is supposed to look like, but the looped brawling was often tedious. Loud and snug, but tedious. Piper got lost under the veil at times. The fans believed it, sure, but storytelling was not his best attribute. 

When the rhythm was perfect, the tone gruesome, Piper’s fights were incredibly compelling - and his iconic Dog Collar war against Greg Valentine at Starrcade 1983 was a masterpiece. Piper swore bloody vengeance in the build, with his typically awesome promos, after Valentine had purportedly destroyed Piper’s ear in an angle. Every blow with the metal chain added a harrowing texture to the match. Those on the WCW side of the Monday Night War will tell you that Piper was not particularly ecstatic about nor great at selling deeper into his career - this is what instigated his backstage brawl with Kevin Nash at a Nitro event in June 1997 - but in 1983, Piper was peerless at selling damage to a specific body part. Selling equilibrium issues was far more creative and challenging than hobbling around on a bum knee. 

His battle of the bastards with Ric Flair at Bash At The Beach 1997 was a glorious display of enchanting heel work. He had great chemistry with Mr. Perfect years earlier in the WWF. 

Piper was a very witty wrestler. As much as he took inspiration from boxing, he was clever enough to borrow from its showmen. He was fantastic at slapping people daft after pretending to call a truce. At his best as a face, he made everybody go ballistic; at his best as a heel, he was the ultimate bastard. 

Piper was one of the worst in the world in his often excruciating and very protracted post-prime. As good as he was at the old man magic with Hulk Hogan initially in WCW, his collection of stinkers - Vs. Jerry Lawler (King Of The Ring 1994), Vs. Hollywood Hogan (Halloween Havoc 1997), Vs. Scott Hall (SuperBrawl 1999) - are among the very worst matches of an era hardly notable for great action.  

6/10