"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.

"For Those I Deeply Offended.. I Apologise."

-"So I choose to respect your privacy and your religious beliefs, and for those I deeply offended.. I apologise"-
(Raven, ECW Arena, 1996)
Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) was a small promotion running out of Philidelphia. ECW has a long and storied history, far too involved to discuss here, but it was basically a small scale, low budget wrestling promotion that managed to make a huge name for itself and compete somewhat with multi-million dollar rivals WWF and WCW. It built this reputation with a combination of truly incredible wrestling matches, showcasing some of the best workers in the world, mixed with wild brawls featuring untold levels of violence.

Raven was one of ECW's most iconic wrestlers, essentially a moody loner doing a grunge style gimmick, Raven was a trashy guy with no morals and would cut dark, grim interviews with a style reminiscent of a cult leader. Once in the ring, Raven would attack his opponents with an ugly, vicious, fast-paced brawling style. While not the most technical wrestler around, Raven made a legacy for himself by always performing at his best for the fans and soon became the poster boy bad-guy for ECW. Raven embodied the spirit that ECW presented to its audience.

Another such worker was The Sandman. Simply put, Sandman was a legit drunk guy who could barely wrestle but won the crowd over with his insatiable appetite for carnage, extreme violence and drinking, often popping beers and cigarettes mid-match. The Sandman is HORRIBLE to watch in the ring, but his dirty zubaz trousers, iconic entrance routine and penchant for drunken mayhem made him a solid fan favourite.

In 1996 a feud began between The Sandman and Raven, Raven started "dating" Sandman's ex-wife Lori and along with Lori came Tyler, Sandman's son, who was about eight at the time. Raven encouraged the boy to hate on his father for being a drunken thug and used his "cult-esque" mind games to poison Sandman's family against him.
During a taping at the ECW arena in 1996, after Sandman had taken a beatdown in the ring, Raven and his cohorts "crucified" him by tying him to a badly made wooden cross and forcing a crown of barb-wire into his head. Sandman hung awkwardly propped to this crucifix in front of the ring, whilst his eight year old son looked on, performing Raven's trademark pose. The usually raucous and loud ECW fans went deathly silent, a sign that for them, things may have gone a little to far.

Not long after Sandman was carried to the back, Promoter Paul Heyman sent Raven out to the ring again. Dressed in his street clothes, Raven took the microphone and delivered what is referred to as the "Sincerely Insincere" apology. Raven told the fans that the crucifixion was all his idea, the promoters had no hand in it and that he was sorry for what he had done. The look in his eyes and tone in his voice completely belying his words.
Kurt Angle, who had recently won gold wrestling in the Olympics was in the arena that night, brought in by Paul Heyman to potentially work with company. Angle was furious at the crucifixion and went off on Heyman. The general belief is that the apology order and denial by Heyman was a result of wanting to keep Angle interested in working with the promotion.

WWF would do a similar angle with The Undertaker a few years later and receive a billion complaints about it. It's funny, wrestling fans will sit, cheer on the violence, scream obscenities, call for weapons, sing sexist chants and encourage the bad guys to win, but every now and then, they will then decide that they're oh so offended by something they see.
The problem with pro-wrestling content is it's all or nothing. In my opinion, you can either be offended by it all or offended by none. It smacks of hypocrisy of the highest order to say "I'll cheer this women getting put through a table but how dare you do that crucifixion scene"

The only thing that offends me about pro-wrestling is idiotic booking and a lack of respect for the audience by the promotion. I learnt to ignore the cheap shock tactics a long, long time ago.