This is a script for a video on my YouTube channel. You can find that video Here.
Earlier this week I uploaded to this channel a video about the first Taboo Tuesday, and while I was researching for that video I came upon a story that I previously didn't know. It's the true story of a fan vote for a WWE match actually leading to a surprising discovery for a wrestling legend, and that legend is Rowdy Roddy Piper.
In 2006 after previously being known as Taboo Tuesday, WWE changed the name and date, creating Cyber Sunday. The concept was still the same, fans would get to vote on match stipulations, and sometimes who would participate in certain matches. In this case, Ric Flair was set to challenge the Spirit Squad for the Raw tag team championships, and his partner would be a legend voted on by the WWE fans. Either Dusty Rhodes, Roddy Piper or Sargent Slaughter.
As I brought up in my Taboo Tuesday video, everyone involved to this day claims that the votes were legitimate, however it has also been claimed many times that WWE try influence who fans would vote for with how each choice was presented on television, but if a vote didn't go their way they would honour the result. On a few occasions the vote wouldn't go as expected, and this was one of those times. On the October 30th 2006 Raw days before Cyber Sunday, Dusty Rhodes was positioned to be the winner of the vote. For example on this night Ric Flair would come out for a promo. He would talk about the upcoming match, before introducing in order, Sarge, then Piper, and then Dusty. Each of the three men make a pitch for the fans to choose them like it's WCW Thunder on Playstation 1. Sarge talks mainly in military puns as he often did, however Piper blew him away with a single line. If I could play it for you I would, but sorry, you're getting my version. "Whats wrong with this picture? Nature Boy, world champion. Sargent Slaughter, world champion, Dusty Rhodes, world champion. Roddy Piper, nothing!" While raising his kilt by the way, for dramatic effect I assume. Piper did make a fair point here, I suppose having only reached the heights of Intercontinental champion in 1992, he was alluding to his comrades being more successful than him. Unfortunately for WWE, as great a promo Dusty was after him, Piper just by being Roddy Piper stole this segment, which was the last impression fans would get before Cyber Sunday. It also maybe doesn't help that to many fans Piper was a WWE legend for many more years than Dusty was, and so many will have voted based on that. I as a young fan at the time just wasn't as familiar with Dusty Rhodes as I was with Piper at the time, and I bet there were a lot of fans like me. Looking back though, how amazing would a team of long time rivals Flair and Dusty had been, but from where we go next, I'm glad things happened the way they did. It's not like Flair and Piper were strangers though. The two had a heated feud in WWE while Flair was in his first run there, and then in 99 they were co-WCW presidents in the truly dark days of Nitro that we don't talk about much.
Another factor to Piper winning is that he had a small bit of history with the Spirit Squad, as on an episode of Raw two months earlier (Sept 11th) he had teamed with the Highlanders to defeat three of the cheerleaders. On the night of Cyber Sunday, November 5th 2006 from Cincinnati Ohio, Rowdy Roddy Piper would win by earning 46% of the vote, with Dusty getting 35 and Sarge 19. When the vote was announced, a sly grin comes across the face of Piper as he heads to the ring. While he wasn't exactly in ring shape, Roddy and Ric don't just hold their own against the young cheerleaders, but they manage to win the Raw tag team championships. Flair and Piper would make one successful defence of the titles on the following night's Raw, where they would defeat Rated RKO despite the special referee being Raw GM Eric Bischoff. The legends would prevail thanks to the help of DX, who were feuding with Orton and Edge at the time. Piper would even participate in the UK tour that happened in the following week, competing in five non-televised house show matches, each being he Flair and the Highlanders defeating the Spirit Squad. Finally at the end of that tour on an episode of Raw taped in Manchester England (Nov 13th), Edge and Orton would get their revenge, beating Flair and Piper in a short match. In short, Piper would wrestle eight matches in nine days. While most were multi man tags where he could be in the ring for less time, this schedule not to mention all the travel involved can't have been easy for Piper. By my rough estimation thats over four thousand miles of travel in such a short time, not even including the at least three thousand more miles to fly back to the US.
As the story goes, because WWE expected Dusty to win the vote, they didn't have Piper complete a medical check before he got in the ring, which would end up being a blessing and a curse. In a 2021 episode of Something to Wrestle, Bruce Prichard told a story of an encounter with Piper while on the UK Tour, where something was clearly wrong with him. Roddy was said to be in intense pain throughout the tour, and would reveal in private to Bruce purple skin around his kidneys, which nobody saw as he wrestled with a t-shirt on. Bruce say's "He pulls me into a bathroom and says I've got to show you something, and he pulls up his shirt and down by his kidneys was all just purple." Piper would go out on his sword, dropping the tag titles with Flair to Rated RKO in Manchester, before rushing back to America to get checked out by his own doctors. Bruce notes that he wanted to get back to the US to see a doctor, presumably in fear that he would be admitted and therefore couldn't leave England. Here Piper would by diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma, which is a potentially fast spreading cancer. To be clear I'm no expert on this, but according to sites I've read for this video the disease is treatable even in late stages. Following surgery, Piper would undergo radiation treatment for a month which was scheduled to be completed in early 2007. He would eventually announce that he was cancer free.
In article published to WWE.com on December 4th 2006 WWE and Piper confirm these events, going into further detail about his treatment. Roddy Piper also specifically thanked the WWE fans for voting for him at Cyber Sunday, as that was the beginning of this chain of events. It's strange to think that all of this came about because he was voted into a wrestling match he wasn't supposed to be in. Life works in very strange ways sometimes.
Sources:
No comments:
Post a Comment