Quite a stretch. I would take whatever billy says with a grain of salt. Good guy but has issues. Also I remember the piper Austin podcast feud and as I remember they both addresses it and squashed that there were any hurt feelings.
What did Austin essentially say?I suspect Hanes has done his fair share of drugs as well. He is supposed to be part of some class action lawsuit against the old man and the WWE. I liked Roddy Piper - both as a performer and a person, based on what I've heard and read. It's all very consistent. My own conjecture is that Roddy lived the same lifestyle in a lot of ways as his fellow wrestlers, and it just took a while longer to catch up with him.
Piper loved his cocaine and booze. That's for sure.
Steve Austin quote: “…To Roddy, you’re one of the all time greats in the professional wrestling business. I cheered for you as a babyface, I booed for you as a hee, and respected everything that you did. Your Hall of Fame career speaks for what it is… to that, no hard feelings. I don’t want to back and forth on this; it’s a closed book… that’s my side of the story. I will not respond to anything else. What I have spoken is the bottom line, and what I’ve spoken is the truth. I had nothing to do with Roddy Piper leaving PodcastOne. End of story.”
I listen to Austin's Podcast regularly. I tried listening to Piper's once, but it just wasn't good.Could be Piper was jealous of Austin's superior Podcasting skills.
Part of it, I think, is that Piper stayed in character a little too often.He wrote a good part of his book that way, as well.
I think part of that is in his day you did not break kayfabe.
I was watching Summerslam 1991 on WWE on Demand a few nights ago....75% of the performers are dead. Unreal.
Man, Piper really was one of the all time greats. He is one of the people that just doesn't seem right to be gone because he was so active when he left. Doing radio shows, interviews, appearances on WWE etc etc. Such a shame, he is missed.
The party lifestyle caught up to him. When he would roll into Toronto back in the eighties / early nineties, he would party it up with his old buddies, chop rails, booze it up hard, go wrestle, go back and party some more and hope on a plane to the next town. Multiply that by how many years? Its suicide on your system. Pipe loved his blow. He was know here as "eight ball Roddy" because he could do an eight ball of coke literally in a sitting.
He lived life according to his own terms. Good for him!