10 Wrestling Matches That Started Riots
2. Roddy Piper Vs. Anyone, Anywhere
When you look back on the history of professional wrestling, few names could ever generate as much heat as 'Rowdy' Roddy Piper. Would Piper's schtick fly today? For most of it, absolutely not.
In interviews over the years, the Rowdy One was always very matter-of-fact in how he would do whatever he deemed necessarily to make wrestling crowds hate him. And when looking back on that now, a lot of what Piper did during his heyday was the sort of material that just would not be tolerated in the current pro wrestling landscape.
Wherever Piper went, he drew heat. If you give RP even a minute on a microphone, he could have every single person in a building calling for his head.
To pinpoint in on one Roddy Piper-incited riot would do a massive injustice to the numerous other riots caused by Roddy, but it's at least worth singling out Piper's time in Puerto Rico and Los Angeles as being particularly dangerous for the Canadian-Scot.
In Puerto Rico, Roddy was regularly met with knives, broken bottles and more, with him leaning on racial tensions and all-out racism to garner a negative reaction from the crowds. During this period, it was rare that Piper could make it from the ring to the backstage without a police escort, and there are many stories of Roddy being swept into a waiting car as soon as he went backstage - with the fans in attendance rampaging through the dressing room on the hunt for RP.
As for where Los Angeles comes into this, Piper created a major riot by promising to play the Mexican national anthem on his bagpipes - only to play La Cucaracha instead.