10 Dirtiest Tricks WWE Heels Pulled To Inspire Hate
9. Roddy Piper Rips Off Zach Gowen’s Prosthetic Leg
During the mid part of 2003, SmackDown was dominated by the feud between Vince and daughter Stephanie. Oh, and Mr. America, who totally wasn’t Hulk Hogan. As ludicrous as this was, it was the Ruthless Aggression era and kayfabe was very much alive, even in its most absurd forms. However it all took a more bizarre turn on the 15 May episode.
On his way to the ring, Mr. Not Hogan gave his American flag to a fan in the front row. When Roddy Piper and Sean O’Hare were beating up the star spangled babyface, the fan jumped the barricade and rushed to make the save. As the perplexed crowd continued to cheer, it got extremely dark very soon.
Piper was trying to ragdoll the young man around the ring. While pulling on one of his legs, the limb came right off. It took a second or two before everyone realized it was a prosthetic. Subsequent to this, Gowen would be involved in numerous other angles where his disability would be mocked and bigger men such as Brock Lesnar, the Big Show and even Vince himself would beat him down. After finding some success, his character was eventually binned off.
Despite plenty of noteworthy moments throughout the storyline, it was the beginning that really stuck in the memories of fans. We get Piper was meant to be a bad guy, but did he really have to beat up an amputee to get that across?