The WORST Wrestling Moment Every Year (1989 - 2025)
29. 1997 | Roddy Piper’s Family
What they write about WCW in 1997 is largely true. It was cool, it was chaotic, it was revolutionary. The idea that it was so cool that all the kids at school wearing nWo t-shirts were cheeks magnets is very much overstated. WCW was a lot cooler than it was in 1995, but it was still WCW. It was still overflowing with dumb, bad bullsh*t.
Roddy Piper as Hulk Hogan’s chief rival was hardly Tokyo Dome Atsushi Onita. Piper, after some very strong work in the build to Starrcade, entered his “what in the f*ck is this guy banging on about here” era. Piper never said a single coherent thing between 1997 and his last, bleak WWE appearances.
Piper needed himself a stable with which to fight the respective threats of the New World Order and a team of WCW representatives at the upcoming PPV. This led to one of the worst and most inexplicable segments in peak Nitro history.
On the March 3 Nitro, Piper said there were six guys in the back - and he was going to take them all on to prove their worth. The trialist wrestlers that the fans endorsed with a thumbs up would join his new ‘Family’ - quite possibly the worst idea for an impromptu stable made up of random strangers. Piper went on a lengthy, schmaltzy speech about the meaning of family before submitting a kelp-green Power Plant trainee within seconds - the future Luther Reigns, in a fun trivia note.
A guy in boxing gloves came out after this, as the awkward commentary team expressed bemusement throughout. Unable to sell it but obviously unwilling to bury it, Tony Schiavone et al. said variations of “Have you ever seen anything like this?”
The answer was “no”, and for good reason. In no other segment would a main event star sell for a complete unknown. You wouldn’t see anything like it ever again, either: the idea was instantly retconned, and Piper simply tagged with the Horsemen at Uncensored.
This complete unknown boxer guy gave Piper quite a bit of trouble. Remember that infamous Dark Order segment, in which the overzealous unknown Creepers started battering the Elite when that wasn’t in the plans?
WCW did AEW’s worst ever segment on purpose!