Roddy Piper Speaks Out - The Wrestler, Schedule, More
Roddy Piper recently spoke to Salon Magazine about several topics, here are the highlights:
On The Wrestler: "They just didn't go deep enough. Darren Aronofsky and Mickey Rourke called me for the screening before it came in the box office. They had brought my daughter Ariel Teal, a wonderful actress, and myself down in the theater, and they sat us toward the back of the theater, and they show[ed] us the movie. Afterwards Darren Aronofsky and Mickey Rourke come out and go, "I hear Roddy Piper is here, is that true?" And they go, "So what did you think of the movie?" And I'm thinking in my head ... You guys didn't even come close to how deep you could have gone. The guy with the staple gun, he's just a real guy who goes around and does that. But [the movie] didn't show the traveling, and the day to day, and what went through their minds, and what people put them through. In my time they hated me so much, I've been stabbed three times. Last time an inch from the heart."
On The Presentation on Minorities In The 1980s: "I think we had 444 hostages at that time when the Iron Sheik was big. Did we take advantage of opportunity? Yes. When you break it down like that, that's a really good point. And my business is a nasty business. We do exploit what's going on at the time. Is it good for kids to see that? I've never been asked that. I think as you're growing up, you can look back at the Iron Sheik and you can make that calculation ... but at the time as a kid did you hate the Iron Sheik? Yeah, and you know what? We should have, because they had 444 of our people. So yeah, it does dial it up, for sure, and it does take advantage of [the news], but it makes you question, it makes you go to Mom and Dad and say, "Is the Iron Sheik really like that?" It's provocative from the point of "we're exploiting it, but we're exploiting it right in front of you."
On The Schedule: "I was going nine times a week. You get to a point where you don't really know who you are. You're running on high octane, and you'll take all comers in every arena because there was no police. Every arena you'd take on everybody that would come in the ring ... One time I fought 90 fights in 90 days in 90 different places around the world. I didn't even know who I was, about 45 or 50 in, they just kept pushing me, and that's when I really get into a lot of trouble. You walk into an arena with 10,000 people, and no security and everybody hating you, it takes some gumption."
Source: Salon Magazine