Rowdy Dream :Remembering Hot Rod And The American Dream

Growing up in the late 80's- early 90's, being a wrestling fan is but of natural occurrence.

It had the crazy violence you'd come to expect from either Popeye or Tom & Jerry and a slew of
colorful and at times racial stereotype characters that you'd swear were lifted straight off
Mike Tyson's Punch-Out.

The concept of face,heel,heel turn, kayfabe, etc. never really came in to our usual conversations up until the advent of
wrestling forums/chats or what wrestling fans might refer to as : "SMARK TALK". All the while,
believing that Hulk Hogan was the ultimate good guy and anyone who opposed him was automatically a
villain or anti-America.

Living here in the Philippines, our earliest memories of WWF on free TV was from it's not so heydays on
IBC 13. The airing schedule of a single episode (or any episode for that matter) sucked major donkey balls! It was delayed by weeks and months. And there was no
way to catch up on where what you saw left off for neither YOUTUBE nor WWE.COM had been invented yet. Our situation would only slightly improve during the introduction of cheaper Cable TV and this was like what.... towards the Attitude-Ruthless Aggression Era.
And to top it all off, we never really gotten a glimpse of any of the major PPVS at the time.
Major PPV's that highlighted the career of Randy"Macho Man" Savage, The Ultimate Warrior and more
importantly Roddy "Rowdy" Piper.

Early on, I was never much of a Piper fan. He never really had anything going other than his kilt.

A look which will later on be adopted by both  
The Headbangers

&  
The Highlanders.

With the latter gaining more popularity and a legit Piper endorsement.

He was not much of stand-out character when compared to the likes of The Undertaker or Jake The Snake Roberts.

But what he lacked in-ring appeal he eventually made up for in terms of mic skills, charisma and personality. At the time when every wrestler were shouting at the camera, his promos actually made sense(We're looking at you, Ultimate Warrior) and were actually very entertaining.

The Rowdy One had feuded with the industry's finest, including Mr Perfect,

Jimmy Snuka

and even Mr.T.

 

 

He was inducted to the WWE Hall Of Fame in 2005.

He had worked at several other wrestling promotions including:
WCW:

TNA:

&
XWF:

Eventually we'd see less of him in ring and more of him at his very own talkshow, The Piper's Pit.

And several other times as a Hall Of Famer/Legend.

He'd also appear as the main antagonist Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling.

and in an episode of The Super Mario Super Show.

His big break came in the form of John Carpenter's They Live where he improvised this very memorable and "always imitated but never duplicated" one-liner.

Other Piper movies you might or might not have heard of:

 

 

His guest appearances were most especially noteworthy ones including that wrestling and time share episode in "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia" where he played the role of Da'Maniac.

An episode of Highlander.

And on reality TV shows like Wife Swap

and Storage Wars.

A class act till the end, The Boss would later on be involved in various campaigns like:
ALS Ice Bucket Challenge,

childhood obesity campaigns

and anti-bullying campaign for "Stand For The Silent" until his untimely death due to cardiac arrest on July 31,2015.

And speaking of having even lesser memories, Dusty Rhodes came before our time.
My fondest memories of him were from Battleground 2013 when The Rhodes feuded with The Shield.

 which culminated in to THIS glorious moment right here:

After wrestling pass his prime, the plumber's son would go on to work as a mentor, teacher, talent manager, booker and writer for various other wrestling brands/companies like
WCW:

TNA:

and eventually back to WWE under the NXT branch:

We might not have that much memories of the "American Dream" but Paul Heyman

Scott Hall

DDP

and Paige

sure does.

He was also cited by Dean Ambrose under the "Always makes you laugh?" category.

His signature move was the Bionic Elbow.

Best Promos:

He was inducted (by his two sons) to the WWE Hall Of Fame on 2009.

The American Dream also made an appearance in one of our books, namely : Enjuriki.
Where he got the cover and back cover spot of our DUST-y JACKET.
Lagyan ng jacket yan!

He died on June 11,2015(age 69) due to reasons yet to be announced.
He had indeed wined and dined with kings and queens, slept in alleys and dined on pork and beans and is now together with his wrestling bretherens.

These are not HARD TIMES, bruddah but rather...these are BETTER TIMES!
BETTER TIMES indeed!
Thank you, Dusty

&
Thank you, Piper!

 

Both wrestler are gone but definitely not forgotten, evidently by this extremely classy tribute by
local wrestler CLASSICAL BRYAN LEO at the recently concluded PWR Live.

Both photos courtesy of HUB PACHECO.
More photos available at:
https://www.facebook.com/hubpacheco/media_set?set=a.10206256472944779.1073741897.1054192785&type=3

And by "Rowdy" Ronda Rousey. It is worth mentioning that Ronda's usage of Piper's s signature moniker was with Piper's blessing. And she did The Top #VILLAIN proud by not only winning but retaining the title with her astounding 34 seconds KO win.

What a class act indeed!

May their souls wrest in peace and here's to hoping they never run out of bubblegum in heaven!