WWE: 10 Most Memorable Piper's Pit Moments

7. Bobby Heenan And Paul Orndorff

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfMOa5HbdQQ After his massive loss to Mr. T at WrestleMania 2, Piper took a brief leave of absence from the World Wrestling Federation. He returned in 1986, and received a massive ovation from the crowd as he destroyed a jobber on WWF Superstars. As a heel, he ended up getting cheered a lot of the time anyway so it wasn't too much of a stretch to swap to being a good guy. Almost instantly, Piper's Pit became a fan favourite segment. On this episode of Piper's Pit in MSG in October 1986, Roddy welcomed his old tag team partner from WrestleMania 1, Paul Orndorff with his manager Bobby Heenan. Roddy and Orndorff had already had a memorable episode of the pit a year earlier in which Piper turned on Paul because of the loss at WrestleMania and this was sure to be another heated affair, due to Piper now being the fan favourite and Orndorff being one of the companies biggest heels. Before Mr Wonderful, only Heenan came to the ring and made no friends by insulting the New York Mets who at the time where down 2-0 in a series against the Boston Red Sox. After some baseball banter, the two exchanged wardrobe based insults before Heenan brought Orndorff to the ring. The two went face to face right away with Piper bringing up the fact that Orndorff was the one who was pinned at WrestleMania. This enraged Orndorff and the two almost came to blows, before Bobby Hennan stepped in to calm things down. Altough the fight was put on hold for the time being, the insults continued to flow with Piper mocking him for using Hogan's music because he couldn't get a theme of his own and for having no friends after having turned on everyone. Heenan played the perfect heel manager, claiming he could name a hundred people who would tag with his protégé, then not being able to name any when pushed for an example. He argued that it was because Orndorff always does 98% of the work in a team, to which Piper claimed he did 100% of the losing. After conferring with Orndorff, Heenan finally revealed his tag partner to be "Handsome" Harley Race who had recently jumped to the WWE from the NWA. Feeling that he'd won the battle, Heenan challenged Piper to come up with a partner of his own. First Piper mocked the way that his opponents stalled for an answer, before bringing a fan to the apron to help him decide. Piper gave the fan the honor of announcing that his tag team partner would be none other than Hulk Hogan. A few weeks later back at MSG, Piper and Hogan defeated Race and Orndorff when Orndorff accidentally clotheslined his partner. Again, the Pit did a great job of hyping a major upcoming WWE match and would only get better over the next few months in the buildup to WrestleMania 3.