10 Crazy Things You’ll Find On WWE Network (If You Search Deep Enough)
2. Roddy Piper Cutting An Ill-Advised Promo
It's more crazy that whatever this was hasn't been scrubbed. It's crazy that Roddy Piper didn't scrub the grease paint before cutting this promo. Racism was a, sigh, tried-and-tested heel tactic in that era. Piper was the babyface.
Music rights?
Scrub, pal.
Purposeless racism?
Who cares, pal, it was the '80s!
You don't even have to search hard enough. In just a few clicks, at WrestleMania VI, you can see Roddy Piper standing sideways, so that he can reveal his f*cking blackface as a bit.
To wit:
Set-up: you can't see his face.
Punchline: he's black!
He proceeds to cut a promo at the expense of opponent Bad News Brown, a ring name he took rather too literally, and a close examination of the verbiage yields a troubling conclusion. Piper describes Brown's face, and the description is remarkably similar to a t-shirt that WWE somehow produced in 2019. Piper talks of Brown's "big bug eyes" and "schnozzola" with "dilating nostrils". He does well to call him "Son," and not "Boy," mind. Calm down, SJW police, it wasn't that bad!
If this is bad, but inconclusive, just wait until they upload Prime Time Wrestling from 1990. On the March 24, 1990 episode, Piper is worse; he mimics a stereotypical black voice and claims to be fighting on behalf of the black power movement.