The SmarK Rant for Getting Rowdy

The SmarK Rant for Getting Rowdy: The Unreleased Matches of Roddy Piper

So this one caught me off guard, to say the least. I was saying they should do another Unreleased set after I had the reviewed the original one and the Savage one, and they DID. I found it at my local Sunrise Records yesterday, and it turns out that it was released in 2019, which shows you how dead the DVD market is now for WWE because I had no idea about it. I don’t think this one was even released on Blu Ray. Apparently this was some kind of tie-in with Ronda Rousey’s debut and a sequel to the original set.

This is 2 discs, covering about six hours total.

Disc One

We get a montage of Piper’s notable moments to start, of course, including Piper meeting up with Intercontinental champion Daniel Bryan in one of those weird convergences that always catches me off guard.

Ronda Rousey talks about watching Piper’s matches and learning that you don’t have to be liked to be a success in the business. Well she sure learned that lesson.

Roddy Piper talks about his debut as a teenager for Leo Garibaldi, as he got used as an enhancement guy and then got turned into a manager because he could talk. His first big controversy was during a feud with the Guerreros, as he offended everyone by promising to play the Mexican national anthem on the bagpipes and of course it went south from there. He talks about how he improvised his promos, typically getting the beginning and the ending and filling in the middle with whatever spewed from his brain.

Roddy Piper v. Jay Youngblood (10.14.81)

From Mid-Atlantic. Well this is definitely unreleased because it pre-dates the Mid-Atlantic collection on the WWE Network, which starts in December! Although we’ve got Bob Caudle and David Crockett on commentary, which suggests this might have been taped for Worldwide Wrestling instead. They go to the mat and Piper gets frustrated and goes for Youngblood’s hair, so Jay tosses him and Piper calls for a timeout. Back in the ring for a test of strength and Jay breaks out of that and chops him in the corner and Piper decides to take another breather in the corner. Back in, Piper with a sunset flip for two and Youngblood kicks him in the head to escape, and Piper regroups again outside. Back in with a backbreaker for two. Piper with a backbreaker and Jay breaks free with headbutts, so Piper gives him the ol’ Jesse Ventura special and drops an elbow on him for two. Youngblood fights back with chops, but Piper puts him out with the sleeper, only for Youngblood to fall into the ropes to break it. So Piper gets a suplex, but hurts his own head on the way down and they’re both out. Jay gets two off that and hits a bodypress for two before making the comeback, but Piper pokes him in the eyes again, so Youngblood responds in kind and fights back with chops and a small package for two. They collide for another double down and Piper gets two, but Jay fights back with more chops and gets two. Piper with a small package for two. Piper with a kneelift and that gets two. Youngblood rolls him up for two, but Piper headbutts him and they’re both out as time expires at 10:48. Was the timekeeper in the bathroom or something? Even the announcers were like “Well, fans, we thought time had expired but apparently we were a minute or two off…”. Anyway this was a hell of a TV match for 1981 and Jay was just wearing him out with the chops. ***.

Roddy Piper & Ole Anderson v. Mike Davis & Buddy Landel (11.18.81)

Another one from Worldwide Wrestling with a very young Budro. Buddy is all fired up on Ole to start, but he brings in Mike Davis and he gets worked over by the heels. Interestingly Jake Roberts does color commentary here and sounds nothing like what he would later on, sounding more like a generic Texas cowboy at this point. Ole and Piper double-team Davis in the corner and Ole twists on the neck. Davis manages to bring Buddy in and he runs wild on Piper, but Ole cuts him off and Piper drops a knee for two. Piper finishes Davis with a backdrop suplex at 6:39, and then we get a brawl with Jake Roberts in a bright yellow tracksuit. Ole then runs away and does a promo with Piper talking about how no one is stepping up to face him even though Jake is literally STANDING RIGHT THERE in the ring demanding a fight. Ole was a hell of a promo at the time.

Roddy Piper v. Tony Anthony (02.20.82)

Back to Worldwide Wrestling, which opens up another can of worms about shows that aren’t on the Network even though they have years of footage ready to go. Anthony is of course the rookie version of the Dirty White Boy, back when he was a fresh faced babyface with an afro. Piper takes Anthony down and hits him with a kneelift and then beats on him on the ropes for two. Piper twists the neck and yells at Ray Stevens on commentary while Austin Idol shoots some video footage at ringside, but Tony gets a sunset flip for two. Too bad the Idol thing never went anywhere because that would be a promo battle of a lifetime. Piper finishes with a backdrop suplex at 4:43.

Piper’s Pit with special guest Paul Orndorff, 01.26.84. So we’re early in the WWF careers for both guys, as Piper was managing Mr. Wonderful in his quest to beat Hulk Hogan for his newly-won WWF title.

Roddy Piper & Paul Orndorff v. SD Jones & Jose Luis Rivera (02.14.84)

From All American Wrestling and THIS is the era we’ve been begging for on the Network, the rise of Hulkamania when the shows started changing look and feel to the more modern Vince interpretation of wrestling. Piper tries a headlock on SD after a lengthy ritual of removing his gear, but SD shakes him off and Piper demands timeout. So SD gets the headlock and Piper can’t shake him off, so he just waits for SD to tag in Rivera and then the heels go to work. Orndorff drops an elbow on Rivera for two, and then follows with a kneedrop before tossing him outside. He tries a suplex back into the ring and Rivera falls on top for two. So Piper annoys SD on the apron and provides referee distraction, allowing Orndorff to go to work on Rivera again. Rivera tries a comeback on Piper, but gets slugged down and choked out by Piper in the corner, and then Orndorff ENDS him with the piledriver at 8:00. Still the best one. Surprisingly competitive and entertaining squash here.

Rowdy Roddy Piper v. SD Jones (03.27.84)

From Championship Wrestling now a month later. Piper does his disrobing gimmick again and Jones gets a sunset flip for two, but Piper cuts him off and goes to a neck vice. Jones breaks free and makes a comeback with the headbutt and atomic drop, but Piper drops him with a neckbreaker and pins him at 4:38. A lot of this was Piper’s histrionics, of course, because he was mostly being used as a manager in 1984. Vince and Mean Gene were selling it like a big upset win for him here.

Rowdy Roddy Piper v. Jimmy Snuka (07.07.84)

This is a feud where there’s tons of footage out there but it’s never really been fully documented, so I’m happy to see another one from them. From the Spectrum following the coconut incident and the crowd is MOLTEN. Snuka stalks him around the ring and pulls him in by the hair, but they collide and Piper slugs him down to take over. Piper tosses Snuka and bites him on the apron to keep him on the floor. Back in for a kneelift, which gets two. They make sure to highlight someone named Howard Eskin at ringside, but don’t identify who he is exactly, so I’m assuming he’s some kind of purveyor of sportsball who people would know in 1984. Does Philly have a football team? Feels like they should. Back in the ring, Piper drops Snuka on the top rope to crotch him, and referee Red Bastien calls for the weak DQ at 4:40. So Piper punches Red in the face and leaves. Too short to be worth much, unfortunately. **

Promo time!

07.22.84: Roddy Piper lets us know he’s a nice guy, and he’s going to interview whoever wins the title match between Fabulous Moolah and Wendi Richter next week. And then he reads a “letter” from Jimmy Snuka’s son, who begs Piper to stop beating up his daddy because he cries at night. So Piper spits on the letter and throws it away.

02.16.85: Roddy Piper lets us know that he’s an equal opportunist who is happy to beat up Cyndi Lauper in the name of feminism. Also he’s the kind of guy who will save a drowning man by throwing him a rope…but he’ll throw him both ends.

03.09.85: Roddy Piper does a local promo for Pennsylvania, for a Jimmy Snuka match, and gazes into a garbage can while calling it “Jimmy Snuka’s life story”.

03.30.85: Piper’s Pit with Paul Orndorff and Bob Orton, as Piper does the final promo for Wrestlemania and feeds bananas to a poster of Mr. T. And then Orton smashes up the set for fun.

We get more comments from Ronda, as she talks about Wrestlemania and how it’s her favorite Piper match. Well that’s certainly a choice.

Piper also talks about it and we get another montage of him being a villain.

Rowdy Roddy Piper v. Paul Orndorff (07.20.85)

We appear to be in Washington DC following Wrestlemania, as Orndorff is all fired up as a babyface and kicks Piper’s ass all over the ring while Piper tries to run away. Paul works the arm and Piper tries to slap him around to break free, but Paul won’t let go of the arm and calmly runs Piper into the corner and kicks him in the crotchal area. Piper of course sells that like crazy and Paul works him over again, but Piper thumbs him in the eye. Orndorff slugs him down, but tries a splash and lands on Piper’s knees. So Piper tosses him and smashes a drink on him and then grabs a phone from the timekeeper’s table and hits Paul with that as well, busting him open. And that’s back when telephones were built like the black boxes in airplanes so they could survive any disaster! Back in the ring, Orndorff tries a sunset flip, but Piper hits him in the face again to cut him off. Piper with a bearhug and he takes him down with that and gets two. Orndorff powers up from that and rings his ears to come back, and then follows with an enzuigiri! They fight to the floor and Orndorff drops the table on him to come back, and back in for a kneelift and suplex. Piper makes sure to have his feet in the ropes when he lands, so now Orndorff goes to the bearhug, but Piper slugs out of that. Orndorff backdrops him to the floor and they brawl out there for the double countout at 10:30. Not surprising as neither guy did jobs in this feud. But they had a crazy brawl leading up to it and I wish there would have been a Summerslam 85 at the time so they could have done a PPV blowoff. ***1/4

08.31.85: Piper’s Pit with Andre the Giant, as Piper talks shit about him and mocks him going to “GAY Paris” and tears up the photos of him, but then Giant storms in and Piper gets all offended and demands that Andre “conduct himself like a gentleman” while sucking up to Andre. But then he blows his nose on an Andre shirt and hides behind Bob Orton before running away.

10.18.86: Piper’s Pit returns after the Flower Shop storyline, with special guest Jimmy Hart. Jimmy gives Piper some gifts, including a pink cowboy hat from Bob Orton, and Piper gives him a sarcastic laugh and then sits him down in a chair and hogties him with a rope. Bless his heart, Jimmy sells it like he’s helplessly tied up, while Piper puts a lei from Don Muraco on Jimmy and quips “You should take this because it’s the only lei you’re gonna get” and then washes his mouth out with mouthwash. “DO NOT SPIT!” Finally he presents Orton’s pink hat to Jimmy if he wants to spit out the mouthwash, and then sticks the hat on his head and lays him out. Tremendous stuff.

Rowdy Piper Piper v. Mr. Fuji (11.09.86)

This is from a WWF Superstars taping, it looks like, which is definitely unreleased because god knows we’re never getting Superstars on the Network before we all die of old age. So this features some of the weirdest commentary you’ll hear from the era, because they literally deleted all of Jesse Ventura’s lines to screw him out of royalties, and left Vince McMahon going solo and bookended with seconds of silence. Also we’re now getting into the Coliseum Video era where they taped EVERYTHING so there’s probably gonna be tons of good stuff from here until Piper goes to WCW in 96. Piper pretends like his leg is still injured, but then reveals that he’s lying and beats Fuji down. Fuji chops him in the throat and goes up to the top, but he misses a flying whatever and Piper continues beating on him. This brings Muraco and Orton to ringside and they run in for a DQ at 2:11. But the DQ is on Piper, because Danny Davis. Nothing to this one. DUD. This was apparently part of the master plan to switch the heat from Adrian Adonis to the Muraco & Orton team because Adonis was on the outs with Vince, but that sure didn’t work.

11.29.86: Piper’s Pit with Jimmy Hart, as he takes the place of George Steele after tricking him with a poster of Elizabeth. So Jimmy wants respect from Piper after being humiliated, and Piper is confused about what exactly he’s supposed to respect. So Jimmy makes various threats and slaps Piper around, which gives Adrian Adonis a chance to jump Piper from behind and puts him out with the sleeper. “I thought he was done for!” notes Vince after the double super-secret Adonis firing where he was hired back before the next taping cycle.

12.20.86: Piper’s Pit with the Hart Foundation, as a nervous Jimmy Hart hides behind his team while Piper questions whether “referee” Danny Davis is a member of the team or what. So Bret and Jim kick a field goal with a toy bulldog, but Piper presents them with a fire hydrant that turns out to be full of water and gets dumped all over Bret.

Rowdy Roddy Piper v. Ravishing Rick Rude (10.08.89)

So now we jump ahead three years following Piper’s “retirement” and return, and we’re in Toronto. Rude charges and Piper plays matador with the kilt and then hits him with an atomic drop right away. Then we get Rude taking a backdrop and bumping all the way to the floor and landing on the ringside table as Rude plays all the greatest hits. Back in the ring, Piper sneaks up on him like Bugs Bunny and drops him on the tailbone again as Rude of course sells that like death. Piper must have been loving these matches. Rude lays him out, however, and drops elbows on him for two and then goes to work on the back. Rude with a bearhug, but Piper breaks free and gets a small package for two. Backslide gets two. Rude cuts him off and goes up with a flying forearm smash to take over again, making sure to stop for some gyrations. Rude works a rear chinlock and beats on Piper’s back, but Piper comes back and runs him into the corner after tearing off the turnbuckle. Questionable refereeing there. Piper slugs him down to make the comeback and hits him with an Eddie Kingston backfist, but the ref is bumped and everyone is down and out. Rude goes up and hits Piper with a fistdrop to set up the Rude Awakening, but Piper gets his own neckbreaker for a visual pinfall. Rude tries to attack him so Piper gets another atomic drop on Rude and Rude bumps to the floor, and Piper grabs the ref’s arm and makes the count on his behalf, declaring himself the winner via countout at 12:16. I don’t think it works that way. And indeed, the ref revives and instead declares it a DQ win for Rude instead. Outside of the early Mid-Atlantic matches I’m beginning to think we won’t get any clean finishes on this DVD set. Super fun match here. ***1/4

Rowdy Roddy Piper v. Rick Martel (04.24.90)

From Wrestling Challenge. So this was a very “only in wrestling” thing, as this was a quarterfinal tournament match for the vacant Intercontinental title, which happened to be taped the day AFTER Curt Hennig had already beaten Tito Santana in the finals. And I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen this match before. In theory the winner of this one was to wrestle Perfect in the semi-finals. They slug it out and Piper sends Martel into the corner with an atomic drop, which gets two. Martel chokes him down to take over and sends Piper to the floor, but he showboats and allows Piper to fight back again. They fight on the floor and Piper runs him into the post, but Martel catches him with a cheapshot on the way into the ring and grabs the perfume. The ref steals that away from him and Piper comes back again, dodging a Martel bodypress. They choke each other out and Piper keeps him from running away a few times, but Martel grabs the perfume again and they fight over that and it’s a double DQ at 5:26. Didn’t really go anywhere but it was fine. **

Rowdy Roddy Piper v. Mr. Perfect (11.20.90)

Dark match from Wrestling Challenge here. So this is the nebulous period, the day after Perfect had won the IC title back from Kerry Von Erich, but a full month before it actually aired on TV to make the title change official. So it’s non-title. Perfect challenges Piper to a boxing match because he’s perfect, and quickly loses that, so he tries for a takedown instead and Piper kicks him in the head to break free. He hauls Perfect around by the hair and they collide for the double down. Perfect rolls over and gets two from that. Perfect beats on him with chops in the corner, but Piper slugs back, so Perfect dropkicks him and goes to the top rope. Piper crotches him and rolls him up for two after taking care of Bobby Heenan, but he puts his head down and NOW YOU’RE GONNA SEE A PERFECTPLEX at 6:30. HOLY SHIT, Piper does a JOB?!? TOTALLY CLEAN?!? And then Piper actually gives him the handshake of respect after the loss and walks off. Huh. Match was nothing special, much like 90% of what a clearly unmotivated Piper was doing at this point. **

We get some Hasbro action figure commercials with Piper, including Randy Savage cutting a promo on a Hulk Hogan talking doll and then selling for it.

02.17.91: Mean Gene does a special interview from Wrestling Challenge with Virgil, along with his good friend Roddy Piper. Piper explains the difference between asking a friend to help shine your shoes, as opposed to being ordered to. So Roddy teaches him to stand up for himself, even when being ordered to wipe cow shit off his boots and getting slapped around.

Intercontinental title: Mr. Perfect v. Rowdy Roddy Piper (03.19.91)

We’re of course right before Wrestlemania VII here, and this is Copps Coliseum in Hamilton. They brawl right away and fight to the floor, and then back in as Piper chops Perfect over the top rope before dragging him back in by the hair. Perfect rakes the face to take over while Piper clings to Perfect’s gear and leaves Perfect in his underwear after tearing it off. Perfect clotheslines him and thankfully dresses himself again because the undergarments left NOTHING to the imagination. So they clothesline each other for a double down, but Piper recovers first with an airplane spin and makes himself so dizzy that he lands on the floor. Back in, Perfect slugs him down and chokes him out, but Piper reverses a suplex for two. Perfect with a small package for two, but Perfect rolls him over for two. Perfect with a SWEET standing dropkick and he pulls off the turnbuckle, but Piper fights back and they fight to the floor. Back in, Perfect with the sleeper, but Piper fights out of that with a jawbreaker. Perfect tries to send him into the exposed turnbuckle, but Piper makes the comeback and Perfect runs away. He tries to go to the top rope, but Piper crotches him and Perfect falls to the floor and gets counted out at 10:45. Didn’t have much heat, as it was just kind of the usual uninspired midcard Piper babyface match from this time. **1/4.

Disc Two

We gotta have at least one Flair match coming up.

More with Ronda to start, as she relates the story of meeting Roddy and learning to stay humble and grounded from him. That of course tracks perfectly with what we think about Ronda today: Humble and grounded.

03.15.92: Bret Hart and Roddy Piper join Mean Gene for a special interview leading up to the IC title match at Wrestlemania VIII. Piper sits down and says he doesn’t want to fight Bret, so he’s not coming to Wrestlemania to fight. So Bret is like “Oh, I guess that means I’m the champion then” and goes for the belt, but Piper freaks out and calls him FULL OF BALONEY and tells Bret that he’s gonna fight after all and hate Bret’s guts until the match. So Bret is fine with that and shakes his hand, but Piper waits until he turns around and tries to clobber him with the title and Bret catches him. “I would have had you, Bret!”

Rowdy Roddy Piper v. Sonny Beach (03.29.92)

I was hoping we’d get a bonus title defense from Piper before WM, but it’s just a squash match from Challenge. Sonny dares to grab the title, so Piper mauls him and gets a sunset flip for two. Piper slugs him down and finishes with the sleeper at 1:13.

04.29.92: Piper’s Pit with special guest Brooklyn Brawler. This is from a Superstars taping, I assume shot before the taping started. Brawler claims to have a date with Madonna he needs to get to, which is of course funny on a few levels. So Piper walks around ringside taking questions from the crowd, like “Do you ever take showers?” and “Have you ever been to Brooklyn?” and then one guy who asks “Do you eat raw fish backwards?” and even Piper doesn’t know what to do with that one. But then Brawler demands the ringbell and calls Piper a gutless bleached blond coward for not using it at Wrestlemania, and Piper lays him out and walks off.

More from Ronda here on this DVD about Roddy Piper, as we take a look at her debut at the Royal Rumble. And then she explains the secret origin behind her damn jacket and this goes ON AND ON for like 10 minutes.

02.03.97: Oh god we’re into the WCW era now. Piper joins Mean Gene on Nitro and brings his son with him, after declining a rematch with Hogan for the WCW title. He already won at Starrcade and has nothing more to prove, you see. Even though the show itself spent the entire two hours advertising a title match between Hogan and Piper. So the nWo joins us and Piper is SHOOTING and calls off “Terry”, saying he just wants to go home. So Hogan bullies Piper and Mean Gene tells us “This is neither the time nor the place” even though they LITERALLY SAID that Hogan would be giving Piper a title shot on this show. But then Piper gives his son to some guy at ringside and brawls with Hulk, chasing him off and then accepting the challenge for Superbrawl VII. Didn’t make a lot of sense but Piper got a lot of heat for the ending.

02.17.97: Roddy Piper does a promo “live” from Alcatraz to build up the title match in San Francisco. It wasn’t live, but Piper is pretty funny here, cutting a promo into the toilet that’s aimed at Hogan, while claiming that it’s not a wrestling promo.

09.22.97: Roddy Piper chats with Mean Gene in his new role as the Commissioner of WCW, and we’re here in the SHANKS OF THE EVENING. He books Lex Luger v. Scott Hall with Larry as referee for Halloween Havoc 97. Also he makes his match with Hogan into a cage match because he loves cages. He’s going to make Mike Tyson look like a vegetarian! Unfortunately he quips “NWA is for life” but other than that this was 1000 times more coherent than his usual rambling promos from this point.

Rowdy Roddy Piper v. Randy Savage (03.23.98)

Hey, finally a match on this disc of unreleased matches! From Nitro, which technically fits the Unreleased motif because it’s never been on DVD before that I know of. Liz grabs Piper’s foot to keep him from attacking, but he beats on Savage anyway and whips him with his belt. Savage bails to the floor and they do some brawling out there as Piper pulls up the mats and threatens a piledriver, but Liz makes the save. Back in the ring, Piper gets the sleeper, but Liz saves again and they’re both out. So the camera cuts to the ref checking on Liz while having a conversation into his earpiece, and this brings out Hogan and Nash to attack. But they can’t agree on who to attack because you needed a literal scorecard to keep track of who was on whose side at this point, and then Sting comes out to save…someone…and Nash and Hogan decide to double on Piper until the Giant shows up for the hell of it. I guess there was a DQ in here somewhere? So the babyfaces clear the ring and everyone is just kind of left more confused than anything. Not even really a match in any sense of the word that means anything. But I’ll shit on it anyway because it was terrible. -*

Rowdy Roddy Piper v. Hollywood Hogan (03.30.98)

Back on Nitro the next week as WCW gets increasingly more desperate to hold off RAW’s charge in the ratings. So they “brawl” on the “floor” and trade “punches” with their “fists” while sucking all the oxygen out of the front row, and poor Brutus Beefcake has to take bumps for Hogan. Back in the ring, they trade nutshots as Tony declares that Piper is getting his second wind. Well that’s a relief, because his first wind is LONG gone. He comes back with a sleeper and Big Bad Booty Disciple Man runs in for the DQ at 4:50. Holy shit how can you air this on a show listed as “wrestling” and not get fined by the FCC for false advertising? This was like all-time terrible. -****

Rowdy Roddy Piper v. Rikishi (04.24.03)

So now we jump ahead another 5 years with Piper making his sad return at Wrestlemania XIX in order to help Sean O’Haire get over. This is from Smackdown, as we get a graphic for young ring announcer “Jason Roberts”! Piper goes low on Rikishi and gets two from that, but Rikishi slugs him down and Piper takes goofy bumps off that. So Rikishi goes for the stinkface but O’Haire runs in for the DQ at 1:38. Piper of course could barely even move at this point so this was more of an angle than anything. DUD. And O’Haire lays out Rikishi afterwards to set up a match at Backlash that no one remembers or cares about.

Rowdy Roddy Piper v. Randy Orton & Cowboy Bob Orton (10.07.05)

Jumping ahead another couple of years on Smackdown, to Piper’s next comeback, as Orton was deep into the Legend Killer gimmick and his dad hadn’t yet pissed off the Undertaker enough to get blackballed. I’m kind of annoyed that there’s probably a ton of legit Piper v. Orton matches that they have in the vault from the 80s which would have been fascinating to see, and this is the match they choose to feature. The Ortons double-team Piper in the corner and Randy dropkicks him and goes for the RKO, but the Undertaker’s DONG distracts the heels and Piper rolls up Cowboy Bob for the pin at 3:10. Good lord. DUD

Rowdy Roddy Piper, Batista & Eddie Guerrero v. Mr. Kennedy (…Kennedy), Randy Orton & Bob Orton (10.28.05)

Back on Smackdown again and we are sadly two weeks before Eddie’s death, which makes this one of his final matches. This is also the last match on this set and there’s still another hour to go. Batista slugs away on Orton and spears him out of the corner, called a “spear like maneuver” by Michael Cole, and we take a break. Back with Orton powerslamming Eddie out of the corner, but Piper comes in and drops a knee on him for two. But then the heels trap Roddy in the corner and Piper is face in peril and this is pretty dull stuff, until Batista gets the hot tag and the faces destroy everyone. And Piper puts Bob Orton out with the sleeper to win at 6:42. This was a lot of nothing and Piper was way out of shape and pale as a ghost. Of course there were mitigating factors to that. *1/2

04.28.08: Santino accidentally confuses “Roddy the Piper” with a woman and gets all excited about “the junk in the trunk”. But then he asks Piper to do the Truffle Shuffle and gets slapped.

06.13.11: Piper’s Pit comes to RAW with special guest The Miz. Piper is thankfully looking way better at this point after recovering from cancer, and now he’s back in shape and tanned again. Piper is still bitching about the Mr. T match at Wrestlemania 2, but the Miz comes out and puts over his own acting career compared to Piper’s. Piper never saw the Real World because he was busy “living in the real world.” Yeah as if. So Piper introduces Miz’s opponent for the Capital Punishment PPV, ALEX RILEY. Oh man remember when they were trying to make Alex Riley into a thing? So Piper rambles to the point where even the Miz gets bored and tries to rein him in, and we end up with a challenge for a match TONIGHT IN THIS VERY RING, with Steve Austin popping up to make it official.

Rowdy Roddy Piper v. The Miz

So we’re later in the show and Piper tries the sleeper, but Miz escapes that, but then gets into an argument with special referee Alex Riley and Piper rolls him up for the pin. Well I guess that was technically a match.

11.28.11: Rowdy Rowdy Piper starts off an episode of RAW with a Piper’s Pit. He talks about his relationship with the fans and how their energy influenced his decisions in the ring. I thought it was the coke, but I guess that works too. He brings out John Cena, as it was apparently Piper’s turn to try and make people stop booing Cena. Piper reads off a list of Hall of Famers to gauge reaction to them, and then compares against Cena’s negative reaction. Cena once again gives his canned response about the people being able to buy their tickets and boo him if they want, but Piper accuses him of beginning to crack under the pressure of holding in his hostility towards the fans. Cena reels off the list of times fans have turned on him in big matches, and notes the Survivor Series was just New York fans being themselves, and it won’t affect his upcoming match with the Rock. Piper gives one last bit of advice (and his Hall of Fame ring – is that a real thing?), but tells Cena he really needs to deal with his repressed anger. Even a slap from Piper can’t make Cena break, however, and he gives the ring back and leaves. Bit of a trainwreck, but they pulled it together at the end and got to the point.

04.13.12: Piper’s Pit with special guest Daniel Bryan. We’re really getting into some weird territory here, as none of this stuff is particularly about Piper and it’s more about all these storylines from the time that have kind of faded into history. Moving on.

01.06.14: Piper’s Pit with special guests the Shield, on Old School RAW. That might be a neat show to check out sometime, actually. Dean Ambrose quips that Piper finally quit rambling “until he was 112 years old”. He thinks Piper is jealous because Dean is a better US champion, but Piper tries to cause dissention by telling Roman Reigns that he’s the best member of the Shield and the other two are jealous of him. So the Shield doesn’t take kindly and goes to attack, but CM Punk and the New Age Outlaws make the save.

12.22.14: Piper’s Pit with special guests Rusev and Lana. Nothing to this one as it was just a setup for Ryback to come out and brawl with Rusev. Was that really a match they put on a PPV? Holy crap.

And we wrap it up with, OF COURSE, another segment of talking from Ronda Rousey. NOBODY CARES WHAT SHE HAS TO SAY. I did not buy this DVD to hear from or about Ronda Rousey. We get it, she’s a fan of Piper. But she has nothing substantial to add to the discussion, especially when her only contribution is to talk about what SHE means to the business. Thankfully Piper gets the last word: “For love who love us, God bless. For those who hate us, may God turn their hearts. Or at least turn their ankles so we can recognize them by their limp.”

Interesting first disc, but a truly awful second disc. Overall it’s a nice addition to the greatest hits of the Born to Controversy set, although I do wish they’d gone deeper into the 80s and not bothered with the extremely sad modern era stuff. By the third Piper’s Pit from the HD era I was ready to shut it off and go do just about anything else because I don’t want to see washed up old Piper getting overshadowed by the current stars. Anyway, for $10, you can do worse, but I felt like this was advertised as something it really wasn’t. Mostly it’s a promotional piece for Ronda Rousey that features a few Piper matches. Take from that what you want as far as a recommendation.

Amazon Link: Getting Rowdy