10 Funniest Wrestling Shoot Stories
2. ‘Rowdy’ Roddy Piper’s New Boots
Old school wrestler and manager Frank Dusek tells the story of travelling in Florida in 1984 with Kevin Sullivan and ‘Rowdy’ Roddy Piper. Heading from Tampa to Miami, the car passed almost nothing but canals, many of which held actual, genuine wild alligators… and Piper fancied getting himself a gator-skin belt and boots on the way to the next show.
Pulling off the road, the group saw a six-foot alligator sunning itself, and began shooting at it. Dusek swears that at least two shots hit the huge reptile, which was left floating in the murky canal water to be collected by the less-than-heroic hunters. Piper and Sullivan were wearing their wrestling gear under their clothes… so anyone passing would have been treated to the sight of two famous pro wrestlers, dressed for the ring, wading into deep Florida waters to wrestle the corpse of an alligator.
Sullivan began to slap the water, with the intention of frightening away any other alligators long enough for Hot Rod to claim his prize. Piper waded towards his trophy. Just when he reached the point where wading would have to become swimming, the inevitable occurred. The corpse of the giant reptile moved… in fact, it swam, vanishing beneath the dark surface.
Dusek claims to have seen a miracle that day: two mortal men rising from the dank canal to almost literally run on the surface of the water to get out and away from the probably very annoyed alligator. Piper never got his boots, in the end.