PART 5
nWo History – Part 5
As screwed up as the Hulk Hogan-Roddy Piper battle was at the end of Halloween Havoc, it was still a classic. Piper and Hogan have a legitimate professional rivalry. That came across during the segment. They are a classic set of a top babyface and a top heel, both vying for their legacy in the history books.
Even though Hogan has been bragging about making pro wrestling what it is today as part of his heel character, he said the same things when he was a babyface. Hogan truly does believe he is responsible for any filled arena over the last 15 years, whether he was headlining or whether the headliner was Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Ultimate Warrior, Jerry Lawler, or Sabu.
Roddy Piper, though, more than any other heel was the primary foe for Hulk Hogan’s launch to international recognition and was as vital a part of the Rock & Wrestling Connection and the MTV and Saturday Night’s Main Event explosion of the WWF in the mid-’80s as Hogan. Because Piper was the heel and Hogan the face, Hogan received the accolades because he had the promotional vehicle of the WWF (and later WCW) pushing him as the true star.
Vince McMahon Jr.’s promoting style has always been to build around babyfaces. He has had more success building babyfaces than heels, although his greatest success came by taking ready-made and already-established stars from smaller territories – such as Hogan, Piper, Paul Orndorff, Andre the Giant, Jake Roberts, Randy Savage, and many more. It was Piper’s charisma that carried the WWF as much as Hogan in the mid-’80s and his Piper’s Pit segment that kept people tuning in to WWF Superstars when Hogan rarely appeared on television.
Piper’s body broke down sooner than Hogan’s, and he took hiatuses often enough that he never actually did do jobs to Hogan. It never got to the point with Piper that it did with Savage and Orndorff and Andre, the other top foes of Hogan during the first five years after the WWF expansion, where he was getting legdropped and pinned. It was a calculated move by Piper, in part because he wasn’t a great worker and needed his mystique untarnished to keep his heel (and later, his babyface) heat. Ric Flair and Ted DiBiase, on the other hand, were top heels during the ’80s who were able to lose often because, the rationalization was, they were talented enough to easily regain or reestablish their credibility during the next match.
It was Piper’s careful, guarded approach during his feuds with Hogan that has made this “last hurrah” between Hogan and Piper possible.
And don’t think Hogan, the guy behind the character, didn’t want those definitive clean wins over Piper. And don’t think there isn’t legit tension behind this feud. They may laugh off any suggestions that some of what happened Sunday was a shoot. They may credit such suggestions to fan gullibility and their own great acting, but don’t doubt that there was legit tension there.
Hogan was clearly trying to move the segment along quickly due to time constraints. Hogan may have also wanted Piper to cut to the chase before he built a strong case that he indeed was as big of an icon as Hogan. Piper had an agenda of his own – build his case that without a villain fans hated, there would have been no reason for fans to love Hogan so much. In most realms of entertainment, the villain steals the show, a recent good example being the Batman movies. Piper was a great talker with impeccable timing and wit that drove fans nuts, and eventually drove fans to cheer him. (In Piper’s case, those stages took more than five years, in Hall & Nash’s case it’s unfortunately taken all of four months.)
WCW has a lot to work with. Piper, whose mic work has been embarrassingly bad and out of touch in recent years, was back on track at Havoc. Had there been enough time to walk through the segment, it would have been a lot, lot better. The rushing by Hogan and stubbornness of Piper took away from the angle, but on another level it added to it, revealing the power struggle that will exist throughout this entire angle.
Piper is now the “leader WCW has been looking for.” The legitimate history between these two gives a boost to the WCW-NWO war, evens the sides out a bit, and gives WCW a chance to be cheered. So far fans have been siding with the NWO as much if not more than WCW. The Las Vegas crowd was as pro-NWO as any crowd WCW has faced yet, but Piper turned them against Hogan. Outside of Bret Hart, there might not be anyone else who could get fans to turn on the NWO. Piper could fall flat if he gets lazy, but if he plans his attack carefully, doesn’t let his ego get too out of control, but also doesn’t let himself get walked over like Flair has allowed since the NWO angle has begun, Piper could be effective at leading a team of WCW wrestlers against the NWO. He might even give fans faith that maybe WCW will eventually win.
