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As I see It: Remembering Roddy

Posted: Aug 2nd 2021 By: Bob Magee

This weekend saw the sixth anniversary of Roddy Piper's passing, here's a Piper story from back then...plus one other surprising and touching one.

Philly has always been known for our wrestling fans. The hardest core of us back in the day were NWA fans, who religiously went to NWA shows at the Philadelphia Civic Center, and blew off WWF. But we made an exception on one March 1992 Saturday afternoon matinee house show at the Philadelphia Spectrum which had a main event of Hulk Hogan/Roddy Piper vs. Ric Flair/Sid "Justice" Vicious.

A lot of us managed to get ringside popping for Piper and Flair, with signs asking them to go old school. Flair laughed his ass off at the signs, and audibly yelled at Piper to "look", pointing to the signs. Sid walked around pretty much going "duh", and Hogan wondered why we weren't popping for him like all the other sheep...er, WWF fans. Then he looked.

One of the touching stories seven years ago about Piper came from a Facebook of a group called Stand for The Silent. It's a group for children who are being bullied, who are considering suicide and/or self-harm to "talk with others who are willing to listen, accept you and offer their love and advice. A place you are safe to say how you feel without the fear of being judged."

Well, their FB had this from Kirk Smalley, their head..

"Today we lost a great man, a huge supporter of stfs [Stand for The Silent} and the most wonderful generally good hearted man a person could ever meet. I like to call him my friend.... Our hearts and love and prayers go out to Rowdy Roddy Piper and his family.... We love you....I love you Hot Rod. My heart is broken...."

I wasn't aware of this support until Friday. But it shows the man behind the character. Looks like the loudest mouth in wrestling had one of the biggest hearts.