by The Rock N Wrestling boom period of the 1980’s for the WWF was built heavily on the Rowdy Roddy Piper vs Hulk Hogan feud. It was the first big time “good vs evil” the WWF ever put on, and it paid off in scores. The heated feud between the two entities led to the first ever WrestleMania main event and has lived in wrestling lore ever since.
What few people remember is that the WCW once tried to re-create this epic feud and it couldn’t have gone any worse. In the fall of 1996, the NWO angle was in its earliest stages and red hot. The game plan was for a 18 month build to an eventual Sting vs Hogan pay off. To fill time, that started recreating WWF rivalries for Hogan with the first being Hogan vs Savage, and then a quick turn to Piper.
Following the main event of Halloween Havoc 1996 that saw Hogan defeat Savage, Piper made his grand re-appearance to the wrestling scene. He proceeded to give the most boring nonsensical 25 minute rant in the history of his career. A terrible promo that would turned the fans on him instantly and put everyone at home to sleep.
The big payoff to this horrible bit of television was Hogan telling Piper to go in the corner and squat. Just plain garbage! In fact, the pay per view cut off before the epic meltdown could even finish. It was that damn bad.
But this was Piper vs Hogan, it had to get better right? Right? It didn’t, it got worse, much worse. In order to build their eventual Starrcade showdown at World War 3 in 1996. Hogan and Piper signed the contract to fight at that years Starrcade.
It led to a post signing beatdown of Piper from the NWO. That in itself wasn’t bad, it was Hogan forcing Piper to show everyone his hip surgery scar that did further damage to the feud’s integrity. It came off awkward and offensive. Just very off putting and kind of sad. You’re basically telling their fans that that their HERO is a beat-up old man.
Piper would once again let his ego get in the way, and it was a horrible match at Starrcade 1996, he actually put Hogan (and the fans) to sleep. No explanation was ever given as to why Piper wasn’t named champion after the victory, just the fact that he “didn’t lay down for anyone”.
Just like in WWF, Piper refused to put the company in front of himself. Their biggest PPV of the year, had zero payoff based on Pipers ego.
With the fans and writers already pissed at this horrible feud, things went from bad to worse. Their next bout would be at Super Brawl 1997. This is when things went from stupid to completely asinine.
The powers of be decided to send Piper to Alcatraz for a week. This was done in order to “toughen” Piper up for his clash with Hogan. It didn’t help as a heel turning Savage gift-wrapped Hogan the victory.
Piper had been back on the scene for 6 months and did nothing but destroy the once great legacy the WWF had built of their feud. Common sense finally took over and WCW decided to lay off the feud for awhile.
When WCW decided to pick the scab off one more time, it was every bit as painful. This time it was yet another non-title victory for Piper, in a cage at Halloween Havoc in October of 1997. No one cared about this match because yet again it was non-title, and just yet another motion to soothe the gigantic ego of Piper.
It was already leaked that the much-anticipated Sting vs Hogan match “for the title” was finally happening at that years Starrcade and that was really anyone even cared about.
Between the ego of Piper, the horrible storyline writing and the fans desire to see Sting and only Sting, it took the WCW exactly 12 months to bury one of the greatest rivalries in sports entertainment history.
This year’s worth of pointless feuding between Piper and Hogan didn’t do anything to advance either man and just left the fans feeling empty, confused, angry and bitter! More or less, WCW had their champion lose twice on Pay Per View and still keep his title.
It also went a long way into making Piper look like a moron. He won twice on Pay Per View against the champ, he wasn’t smart enough either time to make sure it was a title match he was in, and his biggest moment was spending a week in an abandoned prison?!
All this led to Starrcade 1997 and the night the WCW blew the biggest sure thing in Pro Wrestling history.
