10 Wrestling Stunts Which Nearly Went Very Wrong
4. Piper's Near Hollywood Ending
A list of 'wrestlers nearly being killed in ludicrous circumstances' would hardly be complete without at least one reference to Roddy Piper, a man for whom the word 'tumult' had a close association throughout his near lifetime in the industry.
Piper's off-camera run-ins are the stuff of industry legend, whether brawling with the nWo backstage or the time he was literally stabbed by a 'fan' following one of his typically incendiary heel performances. Less well-known - even though it took place before the watching world on the grandest stage of them all - was a scary near-miss at WrestleMania XII, from which 'Hot Rod' escaped with his life by the literal skin of his knees.
His Hollywood Backlot Brawl contest (not worth a watch: the transphobic ending has aged abysmally) called for bête noir (or should that be bête d'or?) Goldust to hightail the scene in his gilded Cadillac, giving way to a nail-biting high-speed pursuit (WWE used footage of the OJ Simpson police chase; like we say, it's aged badly). The only problem was that, as the Son of the Son of a Plumber started to build up speed, he noticed a leaden Piper - who'd broke his arm earlier in the match - grounded on the tarmac.
"I'm looking dead at him and I'm thinking, 'Please, dear God, move.'," Goldust told the E&C Podcast. "He doesn't move. He doesn't move and his knees hit and it just buckled the whole car. It was gross sounding."
After the 'match', Vince McMahon personally escorted the beat-up duo to hospital. Piper, being Piper, insisted on the 'correct' treatment for being a broken arm and being run over: some tape. We'd say 'they don't make 'em like they used to', but even back then they didn't make 'em like Roddy.