Rowdy by Ariel Teal Toombs

Author:Ariel Teal Toombs [Toombs, Ariel Teal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

7

A Despicable, Disgraceful Display

Canadians have a way of finding each other. Sure, Roddy was in Toronto, but the dressing room might as well have been in Charlotte. Never mind its distance from North Carolina, Toronto was Ric Flair country. The talent coming through Maple Leaf Gardens every week was largely American and the fans weren’t much interested in locals, only greats.

A wrestler just a few years Roddy’s junior was standing inside the entrance to the arena floor, just out of sight of the fans. The Gardens crowd was going crazy as Roddy and Greg Valentine beat one another into bloody messes with a fifteen-foot chain. It was December 1983.

The young wrestler wasn’t well known yet, but his family was. Bret Hart was a son of Calgary promoter Stu Hart, who had trained many of the men Roddy had wrestled during his career. His Stampede Wrestling drew talent from all over the world.

“My conversation with Roddy was very brief,” recalled Hart, “but very cute, in a way. ‘Hey, little Canadian guy, how you doin’?’” In the Gardens dressing room that day, Roddy was pleasantly surprised to meet another wrestler from Western Canada, so close to where he’d grown up himself. For Bret, who was just beginning to build his name, meeting Roddy was a big deal. At twenty-nine, Roddy had been a star in the territories for several years. Very few names were placed higher on the marquee than Roddy Piper’s. The two Westerners met again in the months that followed. This time Roddy let his infamous mouth get ahead of his judgement.

“There was a story that some wrestlers had made up about my dad,” Hart said. “You still hear it sometimes from people.” Repeating the stories in full—there were two—would be just another way of perpetuating a cruelty, so we won’t. In essence, they involved Stu Hart not knowing or caring enough to wash his hands before he ate.

“Roddy told me this story,” said Hart. “Wrestlers would howl at how funny it was.”

It was never Roddy’s way to mock somebody upon meeting them, let alone mock another man’s father—that was our experience, anyway. Roddy was young still, though, and he had won the respect of his peers the hard way. Respect was a commodity he gave willingly to those who deserved it, but he didn’t part with it easily.

“That’s not funny. That’s not even true,” Hart said to Roddy.

Roddy tried to laugh it off, but Bret stayed serious.

“I know you’re a big name, and you’re a big star, but keep that stupid story to yourself.”

After the matches that night, Roddy apologized.

“You know what, you’re absolutely right. It was a stupid story.”

Roddy had made one of his lifelong friends, maybe his first true friend, after fighting him in a garage. He made another when Bret Hart stood up to him in a dressing room. “The fact that I shot that story down and got offended by it,” said Hart, “probably was the bridge to a respect and friendship that never, ever wavered after that.

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