I'm familiar with the incident, but I didn't know that was what initiated his face turn at that time.
I suspect he would have remained heel in WWF had the fans not done a 180 during his WMII match with Mr. T.
Piper was always a guy you loved to hate.
There were other heels who had their little cliques of rebel fans; guys like Superstar Graham & Flair, etc.
But, Mania 2 was weird.
Roddy was doing everything he was supposed to/could to stay bad, but the fans just started cheering for him like early shades of Austin 3:16.