"Just When They Think They Got The Answers.."

-"Just when they think they got the answers, I change the questions."-
("Rowdy" Roddy Piper, Piper's Pit, 1984)
"Rowdy" Roddy Piper is a legendary name in professional wrestling. The Canadian-born Roderick Toombs made a career for himself playing a wild-eyed Scotsman with loud, arrogant interviews and a string of feuds with some of pro-wrestling's finest heroes, such as Hulk Hogan and Bret "Hitman" Hart.

Piper's interview style and charismatic, fearless work on the microphone earned him his own pseudo "Talk show" segment on WWF television. Known as "Piper's Pit" Roddy would sit in a nasty, three-walled set and interview various "good guys" usually mocking their answers and goading them on with his trademark fast-paced, witty comeback style. More often than not, this segment would be used to further feuds between wrestlers or start a feud between Piper and the star "lucky" enough to be invited on the Pit as a guest/victim of Piper's insults and barbs.

Piper's Pit was the scene of many legendary moments, Piper's berating and assaulting of journeyman Frank Williams (Which ended with Piper spitting the above quote to camera) Andre the Giant turning on his long-time friend Hulk Hogan, A verbal argument between Piper and Mr T. and, most infamously, Piper's violent, coconut assisted attack on "Superfly" Jimmy Snuka, an event that has gone down in pro-wrestling history.

Piper was at his best as the antagonist, and Piper's Pit allowed him to turn his volume to eleven. A truly despicable bad guy, Piper was able to use the interview segment given to him to raise the profile of wrestling feuds and storylines, either his own or by playing ringmaster to others.
Maybe it's a coincidence, but Piper, throughout his career, appeared to do some of his most despicable mic work when his opponent was of any ethnicity other than white. There's a world of Piper fans out there and I'm not trying to encourage their wrath, but fact is, even when Piper later became a face (good guy) announcer, very rarely would wrestlers of Mexican, Italian or other background be allowed to get by without some racial epithet being snuck into the commentary. Piper was good at everything he did on the mic, but his particular expertise seemed to be the field of racism. Piper once had the most surreal feud with African-American Bad News Brown, but that's a story for another day...

After Piper's first retirement ("Retirement" means nothing in wrestling) Various attempts were made to replace Piper's Pit with different interview segments featuring other stars and their gimmicks, but none of them featured the same level of energy and chaos that Piper brought to each and every one of his appearances.
Piper's Pit has made sporadic returns over the last ten years, with the now (much more rotund) Piper hosting interviews with the stars of today. Lightning rarely strikes twice though and many of these modern instances of the famous segment don't cut it.

Roddy Piper was one of the very best bad-guys in the history of the business. Piper's microphone style was such that he could not only raise and lower the public perception of himself, but also of anyone else that took the seat in his flimsy cardboard studio.