RIP Rowdy Roddy Piper

040_Bret Hart  Roddy Piper_JB

Anyone who has read this blog for a length of time knows that I have a nerd side that will never abandon my wrestling fandom completely. I might go on hiatus for months at a time and then somehow Vince Mcmahon sucks me back in. A big reason for this is I grew up in the 80’s and early 90’s when wrestlers were larger than life, and more entertaining than Saturday morning cartoons.

Rowdy Roddy Piper was one of those guys, and he passed away yesterday from cardiac arrest at age 61. I lit a candle for Hot Rod in my own way, watching a couple of his classic matches. The guy had a well of telling a story with his matches and entertaining the ways that guys just can’t today. I’m not simply being nostalgic. He was a good one.

Josh Reddick who is around my age obviously felt a similar connection to Piper, paid tribute in a better way than making a post on a blog:

This is awesome. I always love when pro wrestling somehow bleeds over into baseball. The two things are simply too awesome not to have some type of silent marriage. And ironically on the day Roddy Piper passed away, the Miami Marlins continued the finest baseball promotional night in the Major Leagues. Legends of Wrestling Night.

1TsSwHjP

An article in the Miami Herald says that Piper was there, he obviously was not. I don’t think Jim ‘The Anvil’ Neidhart made a return appearance either.