"It sure is not an academic treatise on pro wrestling."

It sure is not an academic treatise on pro wrestling, however, if you are curious to have a peek behind the scenes of pro wrestling, renowned pro wrestler Rowdy Roddy Piper's book entitled In The Pit With Piper: Roddy Gets Rowdy may satisfy your appetite. In fact, after reading the book you may still ask the question why people pay good money to watch these brutes?

Piper began his pro wrestling career at the tender age of 15 and he asserts that at the time he was an outcast in society who was going nowhere fast. Recounting how wrestling provided him with the family he never had, the confidence he lacked, and the camaraderie of his fellow athletes, Piper invites us along to listen to his life story.

We learn about some of the downright obnoxious, and crass behaviour of Piper and some of his wresting buddies. Defecating in someone's shoes is not my idea of normal behaviour. You have to wonder with all of the extra curricular asinine activities how are these athletes able to keep in shape? We also get a glimpse of the unsavoury manipulative promoters who control the wrestlers and who often dupe them out of their earnings.

As Piper indicates, "wrestlers where shuttled around the country for fifty-two weeks a year and brought out to perform like circus animals by the promoters."

No doubt, many readers will be anxious to hear Piper's opinion pertaining to the legitimacy of pro wrestling. You may be disappointed. He never comes out with a clear statement if the matches are in fact "fixed," although he does use the term set-ups. On the other hand, he castigates anyone who poses this question. In other words, how dare you question the sport's integrity of the wrestlers?

Apparently what worked for Piper was fine-tuning the art of promotional interviews. The more noise and outrageous statements he was able to make the more fans clamoured to watch him wrestle. As he mentions, "my time on the mike was a big part of my success."

After reading the book, I was left with the impression that wrestling has not strayed very much away from its original roots. It is to be remembered that it originated in the world of theatre or more precisely the carnival. Today it is "big bucks", however, the average wrestler is not sharing in the booty and is constantly putting his life on the line.

Reviewed by Norman Goldman
Posted November 19, 2002

Summary

Here, in his own words, is the story of one of the greatest wrestlers ever-Rowdy Roddy Piper. The bagpipe-playing legend gets down and dirty about the world of professional wrestling-and his own career.

He takes readers back to his life as a teenage runaway and his first match, when he stepped into the ring for $25. He recalls his triumph as the youngest World Light Heavyweight Champion, and how he helped make the World Wrestling Federation the phenomenon it is today with little more than a microphone stand and a bow tie.

From a man who joined the game long before it emerged as big-time entertainment comes a story that tells it like it is-and that's filled with as much excitement as the jam-packed arenas where he fought his fiercest foes.