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In the Pit with Piper: Roddy Gets Rowdy

In the Pit with Piper: Roddy Gets Rowdy

List Price: $14.95
Your Price: $10.17
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: From The Heart AND The Gut!
Review: So Far I have read 5 books written by Wrestlers. Piper's TAKES THE CAKE!!! The last one before this was Hogan's and let me tell you...Hogan Needs to be locked in a room by himself so he can listen to himself BRAG about himself and drive himself CRAZY. Piper on the other hand tells it LIKE IT IS. From McMahon to Flair he talks about just about everyone in wrestling. The only one I was disappointed about was him not talking about Bad News Brown. I really wanted to know who was behind him painting his face half black and pissing Bad News off. As for "the sickness",it REALLY makes you think about how some of these guys really ARE treated like circus animals. Wrestlers NEED a union!!! They need to tell Mcmahon to go get health insurance coverage for them. Will they? Probably not. Piper leaves no stones unturned in this book. It's more honest than F Lee Bailey and Johnny Cocharan combined!!!!! BUY IT!!!! You WILL love it!!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent and honest
Review: There are so many awful books coming out which cater to Vince McMahon and dance around the truth and Roddy Piper does not go that route. He is honest about everything in his career. He doesn't hold back. This is an incredible read that really takes you into the ongoings of every major part of Roddy's career.

He tells it like it is. You really learn all about Piper's life, his career and all the controversy of drug abuse in the wrestling business that Vince McMahon likes to censor from his books. This isn't Jerry Lawler or Hogan's puff piece. This is one of the best wrestling autobiographies to put in your library. It is definitely one of the best books I have ever read and I recommend it to all real wrestling fans, not the casual fans.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: If you think you know Piper
Review: There's alot of things that could be said of this book in reference to wrestling. But, I think that Roddy depicts what these men go through for us the fans. He tells us about his struggles and about "the sickness" in the wrestling world. Sometimes he comes off alittle high and mighty, but, he deserves to. He's earned his position in this industry, by blood, sweat and injuries. At times you could swear to hear his voice reading to you. Don't expect this to be a literary experience, but for the hardcore wrestling fan, you will throughly enjoy it. And it has some information that is unknown to the fans as well. Really enjoyed this book read it in two days....

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The most fun I've had with a book in years
Review: This book is straight from the hip, just like Roddy is. Fast, furious, funny, and you feel like you've just spent several hours on a fast-paced trip through time with Roddy himself. I've talked with Roddy for several hours and know what he's like. I plan to make movies with him. He is a great actor as well, and his portrayal in THEY LIVE is a classic. This is the REAL Roddy, a chance for all his fans and friends and foes, too, to get to know the man's heart, which is huge; his mind, which fires faster than a speeding bullet; and, about wrestling as it used to be; as the travesty it has become; and, as Roddy envisions it becoming again. The way it should be. Hip Hip Hooray for Rowdy Roddy Piper, the Hot Scot, His Rowdiness, Mr. Roderick G. Toombs, also a fine actor, a good man, a decent man, a loving husband and father, and to this friend, the best. Get to know Roddy the way I do. You'll go back to it over and over again, because it will be so much fun to spend that time with Roddy. I can't praise this book, or this man, enough. It's the best money you'll spend this century.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Insight into Wrestling Secrets
Review: This book was amazing. I am a huge wrestling fan and couldn't be happier with this book. Unlike other wrestler's books, Roddy Piper uses his pages to tell many wrestling stories and give insight into different wrestlers and wrestling events. I love learning the dirt about different wrestlers and this book was awesome at delivering it. A highly recommend it to any wrestling fan.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Must have book for any wrestling fan
Review: This is a tell all book from a man that is known for being highly controversial and has seen just about everything first hand that the average wrestling fan of this generation can remember. In it's entirety, 280 pages, there is hardly ever a dull paragraph. In fact, I picked this book up one Saturday morning, spent the entire day reading till my eyes were burning, then finished it up on Sunday.

I'm a huge wrestling collector myself. I have boxes and boxes of wrestling videos, and out of the books, I have both of Foley's, Dynamite Kid's, Missy Hyatt's, Bobby Heenan's, Gary Michael Cappetta's, Ted Dibiase's, Lou Thesz's, etc. I only read the books that were not ghostwritten by other authors, or in any way affiliated with the WWF (who only lets out the material that they want to get out). The only way I can describe this book is as being for this generation what Thesz's book did for the past history of the sport. None of the other books in my collection can compare to Piper's book in any way other than Thesz's.

So do yourself a favour and pick this book up. You'll be glad that you did.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Piper Tells It Like It Is and Doesn't Have Any Regrets!
Review: To start I loved this book and could not put it down! I rarely read books but this one just clicked with me.
Roderick Toombs takes you back to the infancy of professional wrestling when it wasn't [poop] like it has become today. He let's you understand how hard it is to make friends outside the business and how impossible it is to keep them inside Roddy and his wife Kitty made a discorvery about wrestling and they dubbed it "the sickness" which you can read about in chapter 12. I believe their theory to be 100% true. His stories about ribbing on the square and the ruthless P's and everything inbetween are rather explicit and entertaining to read. None the less scary to think about happening to yourself. I have always overlooked Mr. Piper. I am 17 and my room is filled with loads of wrestling stuff, and only one Rowdy Roddy Piper item his book In The Pit With Piper. Piper's one item is the one thing that changed my most recent thought's about pro wrestling the most and also about wanting to become a wrestler, I will add though I still have the desire in me to become one and help change wrestling back to the former existence. His book will take you on a journey and make you realize the pain that every wrestler has to endure. His book also let's you know how serious things can get behind the curtains. I will tell you one thing a wrestlers life isn't as grand as you may think. Also never ask Mr. Piper if wrestling is fake...

R.I.P
Frat Brothers
Piper has 33 years under his belt and 33 beloved frat brothers resting in peace.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Fantastic book
Review: When I was a kid-living in the east-Roddy Piper was just one of those characters you would see on the cover of wrestling magazines with his head all bloody. Then he moved up east and became a super legend. Reading this book was like replaying the whole scene on a television set in my mind. The interview with Frankie Williams, rock n wrestling,the coconut,the steroid scandel and on and on! I could not put the book down. I even took a little extra time to read this slower than usual,taking every bit of it and letting it soak in. I loved the old W.W.F. days and all my favorite wrestlers are all talked about in this book.
Also it was cool to read about the dropout piper making a living of wrestling and how the old school wrestlers took him under there wings. Great Job Roddy!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Roddy¿s bagpipes generate much noise and some music.
Review: Whether on the side of good or evil, Roderick Toombs's professional persona always had the reputation of saying exactly what was on his mind.

Roddy Piper's autobiography demonstrates that this persona was very much based on his real personality. But to the extent that he intended this book as another "tell-all" about the business of professional wrestling, he only partly succeeds.

The book has three focal points. One is the evil and exploitative nature of the wrestling promoters, including Vince McMahon. Once you see that Bret "Hitman" Hart has written the forward to this book, you can guess that "Junior" is going to take a beating. Piper compares wrestling promoters to houseflies, and it's not clear whom he prefers at his dinner table.

Another focal point is the "sickness" that drives wrestlers to push their bodies and their psyches past the limits of normal endurance just to stay on top in their professions. It's a sickness that apparently is responsible for a mortality rate and a morbidity rate greatly in excess of the average profession or of the average entertainment field - or so Piper would have us believe. He dedicates the book towards those wrestlers who died recently, and the list is a long one. This actually ties in with the first point - promoters incite and exploit that "sickness" in a way that makes one think of cockfighting.

And the third focal point that comes in very clearly is the bonding that takes place among the wrestling talent, though this is obviously not without conflict and ego clash. Nevertheless, the reverence with which Piper often blesses his older colleagues as his fathers and his contemporaries as his frat brothers is moving. The bonding is clearly all the more real and all the more poignant because of the unique risks associated with the profession and with the "sickness" that it is responsible for.

Still, this is Piper's chosen profession, and he admits that it beat playing his bagpipes for change on a street corner. It's an entertainment profession, and he doesn't talk enough about the entertainment. He does talk about some of the famous events that he participated in, such as Wrestlemania I (McMahon and Hulk Hogan, the "good guy" and the winner, attended a publicity-saturated victory banquet; Piper and Paul Orndorff who worked just as hard in their roles as heel losers were abandoned and not even provided with transportation back to their hotel) and the famous "coconut" incident involving Jimmy Snuka (it was real!).

But what was it like to work with and feign intense hostility towards "enemies" who were his good friends in real life - Rick Rude, Ric Flair, and Adrian Adonis (Keith Franke), at whose funeral Piper delivered the eulogy?

What happened on the set when that first WWF album was cut - the one in which Piper's tirade breaks up the wrestlers' version of "Land of a Thousand Dances" and in which he sings an insane solo called "For Everybody"?

What was the story behind the creation of "Monday Night RAW" and the WWF/WCW Raw/Nitro ratings battles? Behind the creation of the New World Order (NWO), which caused Hulk Hogan to turn heel (!!!) and which led to a rematch of the Piper/Hogan wars from the 1980's with the "good guy"/"bad guy" roles reversed?

And, most of all, with his big mouth and his brashness and his bratty mannerisms, Piper was born to be a heel. So why did he waste almost the last fifteen years of his career as a babyface? Roddy Piper as a "good guy" was about as convincing as Michael Dukakis in an army tank.

It's not even clear from this book how much is "real" and how much is "fake" in the industry. The outcome of a match is determined in advance, Roddy tells us, but the blows that are delivered in the match and some of the shots delivered in the promos (such as the attack on Snuka) are real.

Yet, the mutual contempt between Piper and Mr. T, before the boxing match at Wrestlemania II, was real and there was apparently no predetermined outcome - the other wrestlers bet on the result. And yet Piper also claims to have pulled his punches. Was this truly a "shoot", and are "shoots" commonplace? I have a hard time believing that he intentionally took an honest-to-God piledriver onto a solid surface from the Undertaker without losing his life or the ability to move below his neck.

Piper is too busy giving us the lowdown on the "dark" side of the profession to talk about the fun side.

And for a streetwise guy, he's remarkably naïve. Having been willing, by his own admission, to do almost anything to anybody in order to promote himself, does he realize how silly it sounds for him to say that he objected to a particular staged segment of "Piper's Pit" as being offensive to his sensibilities as a Christian?

He's also naïve about the world outside his own. For all of the unique risks and sacrifices undergone by professional wrestlers, they are not EXTREMELY different from those undergone by others, even in (maybe ESPECIALLY in) the white and blue-collar worlds that Piper has never seen. The corporate CEOs, the corner-cutting entrepreneurs, and the pink-collar dominatrices that run so much of our lives are no less pernicious than the wrestling promoters that Piper swats.

And for every wrestler who died or suffered disability from a dangerous stunt or an overdose of painkillers in a frantic attempt to feed his family, there are thousands of workers with families who died or suffered disabilities from industrial accidents, coronaries, ulcers, and their own form of substance abuse - many of whom paid money to watch Piper perform.

Having drawn heat from the fans for over a quarter century, Piper spends too much time now asking for our sympathy - and not enough time applauding us for a change.


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