A little background on this. Roddy was a WAY OVER heel, but pretty much had to turn face at the time. In real life he saved a little girl from some knife wielding maniac (it was reported on local news, not a work) and as word got out, Georgia championship wrestling put him behind the mic to let his wound heel (not sure if that part was real), but mainly to let things cool off. It became apparent that a better angle was to work it into the show to turn Piper face and this is how it went down....
If that’s the same incident I’m thinking of, Piper discussed that in his autobiography, only he told it slightly differently.
According to Pipes, the knife guy was coming at him, waving the blade around and taunting him.
Roddy wrapped his towel around his forearm and confronted the guy, when he felt a tiny pounding on his side. He turned to see WTF, taking his eyes off the knife (big no-no in a knife fight) and saw a little girl.
The knife guy lunged and landed his blade in Piper’s chest.
Finally, police got a handle on things, arrested the guy, and carried Piper – who was bleeding profusely – out on a stretcher. Fans were throwing stuff at him because they thought it was a work.
Turned out the little girl was the knife guy’s daughter.
It was cool how the promotion put a different slant on the events and used the incident as the basis of a story line.