Everything You DIDN’T KNOW About WCW’s Final Days
7. My Name’s Roddy Piper And I’m Here To Say
Granted, this doesn’t count as a WCW fact, technically, since Roddy Piper had departed the promotion in July 2000 - but at the time this story was reported, he was engaged in a legal standoff with it. There's only a tenuous connection. However, the tale is too delightfully stupid not to include here.
According to the March 5, 2001 issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Roddy Piper announced that, driven by his disgust of Eminem, he’d be recording a hip-hop album with the notorious Death Row records. He wanted to make rap a cleaner genre and set a better example.
As much as this may read as a crackers old wrestler talking nonsense, Piper had already, albeit very briefly, embarked on a career as a musician. His 1992 single ‘I’m Your Man’ was not much of a success - probably because it was a corny soft rock dud.
The rap album was never recorded nor released, obviously, and it’s a bit rich of ‘Hot Rod’ to criticise Eminem for the content of his lyrics when Piper might as well have cut his 1980s promos wearing a white hood. And he picked a hell of a label with which to launch this supposed moral crusade, bloody hell.
“I’m going to put an end to this awful stuff happening in hip-hop - and I’m going to do it with the help of Suge Knight, currently incarcerated for violating a probation order set after he assaulted two people.”
Piper could have rapped about WrestleMania 6.
“My name’s Roddy Piper and I’m here to say, I approach racial commentary in an unusual way.”