The Gospel According To “Rowdy” Roddy Piper
By: John Devore
Tags: Wrestling, Politics, Masculinity, Sports, Trump

The President of the United States, with his styled hair and perfect teeth, is a true student of the Gospel According To “Rowdy” Roddy Piper. His preferred answer to any legitimate question is an off-the-cuff put-down. He once defeated wrestling impresario Vince McMahon at Wrestlemania, the high holy day of professional wrestling, back in 2007. Trump’s eventual victory would secure him a spot in World Wrestling Entertainment’s Hall of Fame. Ten years later he’s the most powerful man in the world.

I do not think anyone ever took the President aside and told him that wrestling wasn’t real.

My old man met my mother in the early 1960’s at a professional wrestling match in Texas. He was the ringside announcer. It’s one of the great family creation myths: a romantic story set in the early ’60s about the wild Mexico/Texas border, a rock and roll DJ moonlighting as a ‘rassling ref, and a troublemaking teenage Latina who would get into fights with the nuns who taught her. I don’t really remember the day my dad told me Santa didn’t exist, but I remember when he told me wrestling wasn’t real. I thought he was joking.

He’d seen me launch myself off the couch like Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka and had decided it was time. He patiently explained to me the basics of the profession. He taught me how to throw a fake punch (stomping on the ground as you pulled the punch helped) and how to take a punch (this was more important than the actual thrown punch — a truly accomplished wrestling knew how to “sell” getting a face full of knuckles.)

He told also told me stories about those old wrestlers he worked with. When I learned that they were performers, like the Solid Gold Dancers, I questioned their toughness. He’d insist that the wrestlers he knew were hard men who earned a few dollars on the side wrestling.

The truth was, like my father at the time, these wrestlers needed a job. Many were ex-cons and bikers and tough guys who were down on their luck. Yes, the fights were staged, but that didn’t mean people didn’t get hurt. He told me how wrestlers in those days would hide razor blades in their belts and cut their foreheads for bloody effect. He showed the best place to cut for the most blood. Right below the hairline.

He also told me how they’d use cold cream to wipe off makeup after the bouts and then sit at the bar and drink beers, greasepaint hidden in the wrinkles of their tired faces.

It was during this remarkable conversation that I think I permanently damaged my baby brother who, anxious to see what his older brother and father were doing, walked in on a demonstration by my father in the art of getting stomped on — I was on the floor, and my father fake stomped my stomach, and I really sold it. I sold it so well, my brother ran away crying.

I once called wrestling “Redneck Broadway” as a teenager to get a rise out of my dad. All teenagers are heels. I argued that professional wrestling was just a choreographed play with mostly improvised dialogue. He coolly reminded me that just a few years prior I thought wrestling was so real I asked him if George “The Animal” Steele was actually part gorilla.

To me, as a boy, wrestling was utterly captivating macho wish fulfillment. I loved it.

My hero was Hulk Hogan, the greatest “face” in wrestling history. I was a committed “Hulkamaniac.” The guy was a cross between a birthday clown and Hercules; he dressed like an extra in Flashdance and wore a handlebar mustache that was the color of the golden fleece. His wrestling matches always reached their narrative climax with Hulk on his knees, some heel twisting his arm and about to deliver what was clearly going to be a death blow. Hogan’s face would be scrunched up in hopeless agony. This time, surely, Hogan would be defeated. Then, as if on cue, Hulkamaniacs would begin cheering for their very lives. In the stadium. In their living rooms. I’d be jumping up and down, beaming Hulk my heart light. This energy would then fill Hogan with magical powers. He’d get more and more pumped up. He’d inflate with sudden, unbelievable energy! Hulk Hogan had the strength of one million nine-year-old boys! He’d then easily dispatch the heel.

During one particularly important Wrestlemania, I took a magic marker and drew a handlebar mustache on my face in support of the character. I swear I helped Hulk lift Andre the Giant, with the power of my love, up off the mat and into history. The man really deserves a Tony Award. Years later, I would watch in horror as Hogan, my hero, was used to gut a website that bravely — if recklessly — spoke snarky truth to power. Eventually, all your heroes grow up to become heels.

But, even though I idolized a popular face, I was also, equally, enthralled by the powers of a heel. I was a mouthy kid who loved to cause disruptions. Once, in Mrs. Sprouse’s fourth-grade class, my constant joking earned me a seat right next to her desk, so she could keep an eye on me. As I marched to the front of the class I threw up my hands as if to say “I don’t care. Do you?” The class cheered. My dad did not find my performance funny, and he let me know. Heels don’t have to take responsibility for their actions but I did and was punished.

My father was a good man. He’s been dead many years now but I can still hear his voice. He taught me many things about being a decent person. But that’s a preacher’s son for you. I will never forget watching wrestling with him. When the heel strutted to the ring we’d blow raspberries. When the face triumphantly won we’d applaud. We’d watch these morality plays in our underwear and eat Pizza Hut pizza and pretend the stakes were life and death. The truth was, he and I, like millions of others just like us, we’re having fun playing one big game of make-believe together. An hour of cartoon conflict without consequence. It was during one of these nights I told my dad I wanted to be a wrestler. It was a fleeting wish although, many years later, I would study theater in college and jokingly told him that dancing in costumes was in the family blood.

At the time he asked me whether I was going to be a face or a heel. My father wanted me to be a hero even though villains have more fun. Heroes get clobbered. Body-slammed. But they endure. They fight the good fight. They never cheat. A hero is a friend to children. A hero cares.