Hulk Hogan vs. Rowdy Roddy Piper (Jun 1984 – Mar 1985)

Background

By the start of 1984, the WWF had a new champion. Hulk Hogan beat the Iron Sheik for the WWF Championship at Madison Square Garden on January 23, 1984, the first wrestler to escape the Sheik's camel clutch.[2][4] Hogan was already a mainstream name, having played Thunderlips in Rocky III, the same film that made Mr. T famous as Clubber Lang.[2][6]

Roddy Piper arrived the same year, a Canadian billed from Glasgow, Scotland, complete with kilt and bagpipes.[1] Vince McMahon had contacted him in 1983, but Piper insisted on serving out his contract with Jim Crockett Promotions first.[1][18] He debuted in the WWF as a manager for "Dr. D" David Schultz and "Mr. Wonderful" Paul Orndorff, and he got his own interview segment, Piper's Pit.[1][18]

Piper's first big program ran through Jimmy Snuka rather than Hogan. On a Piper's Pit taped in March 1984, he smashed a coconut over Snuka's head and whipped him with his belt, and the two spent the summer in grudge matches.[4][5]

McMahon was also after a crossover, and MTV gave him one, with pop singer Cyndi Lauper at the center of it.[13] Lauper and Captain Lou Albano had become friends after meeting on a flight from Puerto Rico back when she was singing with her band Blue Angel, and Albano played her father in the video for "Girls Just Want to Have Fun," which premiered in December 1983.[7][8] Lauper's manager at the time, David Wolff, was a big wrestling fan, and he and Lauper invited Albano into it.[8]

The song wasn't getting much radio play at first, and MTV was where it took off.[7] Lauper went on to make several WWF appearances, and other celebrities followed.[16] The WWF built a storyline out of her friendship with Albano, and Piper's Pit is where it played out.[4][13]

Build-up

It started as an argument over credit. On the April 28, 1984 Piper's Pit, Albano claimed he was responsible for taking Lauper from nothing to pop stardom.[4] Two weeks later he came back with newspaper articles and records to prove it, and promised he could bring Lauper onto the Pit himself.[4]

On May 19, Piper read out a letter from Lauper's manager, David Wolff, threatening legal action against Albano for claiming to manage her.[4] Albano promised Lauper for the following week, then came out alone, saying her plane was delayed.[4] Wolff went on the Pit himself on June 2, called Albano a liar, and said he would bring Lauper on the show himself.[4]

She finally appeared on the June 16 Championship Wrestling and said Albano wasn't her manager.[4] Albano came out, told her to admit he'd made her a superstar, and said women were useless without a man behind them. Lauper thought he was joking at first.[4] When he kept insulting her, she flipped the table and went after both Albano and Piper with her purse until Wolff pulled her away.[4][8]

The next week Piper went to Lauper's recording studio to demand an apology. She refused and challenged Albano to find a female wrestler of his own, promising to bring one to prove he knew as much about wrestling as he did about music.[4] That set up The Brawl to End It All on MTV on July 23, 1984, where Wendi Richter, managed by Lauper, pinned The Fabulous Moolah, managed by Albano, for the WWF Women's Championship. The broadcast drew a 9.0 rating, the highest-rated MTV broadcast at the time.[4][7]

Piper forced his way back into the story at Madison Square Garden on December 28, 1984. Lauper was presented with an award for her year, and gave the WWF a record of her own, accepted by Hogan and Richter.[4] She then presented Albano with a record for helping her raise more than $4 million for multiple sclerosis.[4][9]

That was when Piper and Orton came to ringside. Piper smashed the record over Albano's head, kicked Lauper off his leg when she grabbed him, and bodyslammed Wolff, then went to the back when Hogan returned to the ring.[4][9][10]

The title match was set for MTV. On February 18, 1985, the network aired The War to Settle the Score live from Madison Square Garden, built around Hogan defending the WWF Championship against Piper.[19] The Garden sold out, with 26,092 counting several thousand watching in the Felt Forum next door, and the special drew a 9.1 rating.[19]

Piper came to the ring in a Hulk Hogan T-shirt and smashed a guitar to show what he thought of rock 'n' roll.[19]

The match went 7:40. Orndorff, who had come to ringside midway through, joined Piper in attacking Hogan after the referee was knocked out, and Hogan was awarded the match and kept the WWF Championship by disqualification.[19] Orndorff had already backed Piper's attack on Lauper, saying she "deserved to get busted" because she had no business in a wrestling ring.[16]

When Piper and Orndorff went to knock Lauper off the ring apron, Mr. T came out of his ringside seat and into the ring, and he and Hogan faced off with the two of them until officials and police swarmed the ring.[6][19] In a backstage promo afterward, Piper called Mr. T "this stupid guy with some ridiculous haircut."[16]

Orton had come out in a sling. Earlier on the card he missed a charge against Jimmy Snuka and hit the steel ring post, genuinely breaking his left forearm, and Snuka punched the injured arm before pinning him with a sunset flip at 9:59.[19][20] Orton later admitted the injury was not a work. He kept wrestling in a cast he claimed, on doctor's orders, still wasn't healed, and used it as a weapon behind referees' backs.[20]

On Piper's Pit on March 2, Piper and Orndorff accepted Hogan and Mr. T's challenge, on one condition: it had to be at Madison Square Garden, where they could finish what they started.[19] It became the main event of the first WrestleMania: Hogan and Mr. T against Piper and Orndorff, with Orton in Piper's corner.[3]

The Matches

WrestleMania I took place at Madison Square Garden on March 31, 1985, in front of 19,121 fans, and more than a million more watched on closed-circuit television.[3][11] Muhammad Ali worked as the outside official with Pat Patterson refereeing inside, Billy Martin was the guest ring announcer, and guest timekeeper Liberace danced in the ring with the Rockettes before the bell.[3][19] Hogan and Mr. T had hosted Saturday Night Live the night before, and former boxer José Torres was shown in the crowd during the introductions.[11][19]

Piper's team came to the ring behind a bagpipe band playing "Scotland the Brave," and Snuka walked out with Hogan and Mr. T.[3][19] Mr. T begged to start the match, and Hogan let him. Piper went nose to nose with him, and it started with a slap fest.[25]

When Mr. T kicked Piper in the gut, Piper took him to the mat with wrestling fundamentals, but Mr. T slipped out, then hoisted Piper into a fireman's carry and dumped him.[25] That set off a brawl among everyone at ringside, and Ali was the one who restored order.[25] When Piper later jumped Mr. T from behind, Gorilla Monsoon called it "a Pearl Harbor by Roddy Piper."[11]

Hogan and Mr. T knocked their opponents' heads together, and Mr. T slammed Piper a couple more times before a big boot from Hogan sent Piper to the floor.[25] Orndorff answered by clotheslining Hogan out after him, and Piper slammed a steel chair across Hogan's spine.[25]

Back inside, Piper choked Hogan on the ropes, and Hogan took a double atomic drop, boots from Piper, a suplex, and a top-rope elbow, kicking out of Orndorff's cover in between.[25] Orndorff hit a backbreaker, but Hogan avoided a dive off the top and tagged in Mr. T, who took a beating of his own before getting Hogan back in.[25]

Then, with Patterson distracted, Orndorff locked Hogan in a full nelson and Orton came off the top rope with a double axe handle, cast and all.[3][19] Hogan swung Orndorff into its path, and Orton knocked out his own partner.[25] Hogan pinned Orndorff at 13:33.[19]

Piper knocked out Patterson in frustration, then he and Orton retreated backstage and left Orndorff alone in the ring with Hogan, Mr. T, and Snuka.[3] Mr. T helped the dazed Orndorff to his feet, and Orndorff faced off with the two of them before leaving the ring himself.[19] Pro Wrestling Illustrated named it Match of the Year for 1985.[1][19]

Aftermath

The fallout played out on the first Saturday Night's Main Event, on NBC on May 11, 1985. On Piper's Pit, Orndorff ordered Orton to stand alone in the corner while he talked, and Piper asked him what it was like to be a loser and called him an embarrassment.[19]

Orndorff fought off both of them and went for the piledriver on Piper until Orton hit him from behind with the cast, and Mr. T came out to help Orndorff to the back.[19] Later that night Hogan beat Orton by disqualification at 6:54 when Piper punched him from the floor. When Piper and Orton went after Mr. T and cornered Hogan, Orndorff came out to help run them off, then celebrated in the ring with Hogan and Mr. T.[19] The broadcast drew an 8.8 rating.[19]

Hogan and Piper met one-on-one at The Wrestling Classic at the Rosemont Horizon outside Chicago on November 7, 1985, in front of 12,000.[19] With the referee down, Hogan hit Piper with a steel chair and had him in a sleeper when Orton interfered, and Hogan won by disqualification at 7:15.[19] Orndorff then ran out with a chair of his own and cleared the ring.[19]

That September, Piper had introduced footage on the Pit of the new Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling cartoon.[19] The CBS series set Hogan and the babyfaces against a stable of heels led by Piper.[21]

Orndorff's run alongside Hogan lasted until July 19, 1986, when he turned on Hogan too on Championship Wrestling.[23][24] Piper wrestled a match billed as his retirement at WrestleMania III in 1987 and left to act full-time, starring as John Nada in They Live the following year.[1] Mr. T stayed on as a WWF "boxer." To build their boxing match at WrestleMania 2, Piper shaved the Haiti Kid's head into a Mr. T mohawk on Piper's Pit, and Mr. T won in the fourth round by disqualification when Piper attacked the referee and bodyslammed him.[6]

Behind the Scenes

The Lauper angle had real edges. Appearing on Tuesday Night Titans in February 1985, after the December attack at the Garden, David Wolff said of Piper kicking Lauper, "He did a horrible thing to her," and said the bodyslam was so hard that he couldn't walk for a couple of days because "the muscles on my back were badly bruised."[9] The presentation, he said, had been meant to bring two industries together, and Piper wiped it out.[9]

Hogan and Piper didn't get along for a long time, and Hogan has said so plainly. "In the wrestling business for 25 years we couldn't stand each other, we were at each other's throats," he said. "I know it is predetermined and all that but he did not like me and I did not like him. That's just how it was."[17]

Arn Anderson, who was in WCW when Piper arrived there in 1996 and worked with Hogan again, put it the same way on his podcast: "The word is that Piper didn't like Hogan, that's for sure. Whether or not Hogan liked Piper or not, I don't know."[15]

As they got older, that changed. Hogan said they started talking, that Piper asked him about his faith, and that "we would text every single day."[17] A year before he died, Piper appeared on Raw to celebrate Hogan's birthday.[14]

Piper died on July 31, 2015.[1] Hogan has said that a voice message from Piper came in two days after he died: "I'm just loving you, my brother. I'm just walkin' with Jesus."[17] He told the same story on Piper's A&E special, where the message itself was played for viewers.[17]

Piper's dislike of Mr. T was real, at least on his side. He said he and other wrestlers disliked Mr. T because he was an actor who had never paid his dues, and in later interviews he resented a celebrity with no experience taking the main-event spotlight and payday, and liked to mention that Mr. T mixed Dom Pérignon with orange juice.[6][16]

Mr. T nearly didn't make the show at all. Hogan wrote in his autobiography that when Mr. T arrived, security wouldn't let his entourage into the building, and he was ready to skip WrestleMania until Hogan talked him out of leaving.[6]

There is also a secondhand story about Mr. T. On the B4 the Bell podcast, host Chris Burns said Piper once told him he had considered hurting Mr. T for real at WrestleMania. "If I just back suplex him and arch it a certain way, he lands on his neck, they can't tell me that I did it on purpose," Burns quoted him, before Piper decided, "I'm not gonna mess up WrestleMania like that."[16]

Mr. T has never described any such animosity. He has called Piper a consummate professional who treated him with respect, while admitting that wrestlers thought he was a "creampuff" for stepping on their turf.[16] Burns' account is one man's secondhand retelling, and Piper never said it on the record himself.[16]

Legacy

Vince McMahon never downplayed the risk. "It was a huge gamble. The biggest gamble I've ever been involved with. It was a roll of the dice," he said later in The True Story of WrestleMania.[11] He had sold a television timeslot for a million dollars after a failed expansion and put that money into the show.[12] "If WrestleMania I had not succeeded," he said, "we wouldn't be where we are today."[11]

It worked. WrestleMania was seen by more than a million people on closed-circuit television, at the time the largest closed-circuit showing of a wrestling event in the United States, and it became an annual event later described as the "Super Bowl of sports entertainment."[3][11] Two titles changed hands on the undercard, and André the Giant bodyslammed Big John Studd to win $15,000, some of which he threw to the crowd.[11]

Retrospective reviews of the show itself are mixed. Critics generally rank it among the most average WrestleManias, with the main event reviewed well and much of the undercard not.[3] John Powell of Slam! Wrestling rated it average, saying it "wasn't the greatest," but singled out Orton hitting Orndorff with the cast as a highlight, and named Mr. T's wrestling his least favorite part.[3]

Its success led to WrestleMania 2 the following year, and the event grew into the largest annual professional wrestling show in history.[3]

The feud made Piper the man fans paid to see beaten. Pro Wrestling Illustrated named him its Most Hated Wrestler of the Year in 1984 and 1985.[1]

Both men went into the WWE Hall of Fame in the same class, on April 2, 2005, Hogan inducted by Sylvester Stallone and Piper by Ric Flair.[22] Flair called Piper "the most gifted entertainer in the history of professional wrestling."[1] Piper died ten years later, at 61.[1]

See Also

Sources & Further Listening

1. Roddy Piper — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roddy_Piper
2. Hulk Hogan — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulk_Hogan
3. WrestleMania I — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WrestleMania_I
4. 1984 WWF results (television, pay-per-view and house shows) — The History of WWE. https://www.thehistoryofwwe.com/84.htm
5. "Roddy Piper and Jimmy Snuka: The Coconut Incident" — Pro Wrestling Stories. https://prowrestlingstories.com/pro-wrestling-stories/roddy-piper-jimmy-snuka/
6. Mr. T — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._T
7. "Cyndi Lauper's Rock 'n Wrestling Adventure" — Spin. https://www.spinmagazine.com/2026/01/cyndi-laupers-rock-n-wrestling-adventure/
8. "How Cyndi Lauper Was Essential in the Launch of WWE WrestleMania" — Bleacher Report. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2687433-how-cyndi-lauper-was-essential-in-the-launch-of-wwe-wrestlemania
9. "WWF Tuesday Night Titans episode 22 review: Roddy Piper smashes Lou Albano in MSG, stage set for Hulk Hogan vs. Piper" — F4WOnline. https://www.f4wonline.com/news/wwe/wwf-tuesday-night-titans-episode-22-review-roddy-piper-smashes-lou-albano-msg-stage-set/
10. "Roddy Piper interrupts Cyndi Lauper, smashes Lou Albano with gold record: WWE Greatest Moments" — WWE.com. https://www.wwe.com/videos/roddy-piper-interrupts-cyndi-lauper-smashes-lou-albano-with-gold-record-wwe-greatest-moments
11. "The first WrestleMania was a 'huge gamble' that paid off" — Nola.com. https://www.nola.com/entertainment_life/festivals/the-first-wrestlemania-was-a-huge-gamble-that-paid-off/article_9ef3d877-4729-55e9-924d-38ce136c5360.html
12. "Vince McMahon's gamble on WWF and WrestleMania" — UnderdogMindset. https://underdogmindset.com/feat/vince-mcmahon-s-gamble-on-wwf-and-wrestlemania
13. "Mr. McMahon's Masterplan: Hogan, MTV & WWE's Rise in the '80s" — Pro Wrestling Stories. https://prowrestlingstories.com/pro-wrestling-stories/rock-n-wrestling-era-vince-mcmahon-revolution/
14. "Was Roddy Piper Friends With Hulk Hogan?" — EssentiallySports. https://www.essentiallysports.com/wwe-news-was-roddy-piper-friends-with-hulk-hogan/
15. "Arn Anderson on Hulk Hogan's 'contentious relationship' with WWE Hall of Famer Roddy Piper" — Sportskeeda. https://www.sportskeeda.com/wwe/news-arn-anderson-hulk-hogan-s-contentious-relationship-wwe-hall-famer-roddy-piper
16. "'He Was Going to Kill Mr. T:' How Roddy Piper Almost Ruined WWE's First WrestleMania" — ScreenRant. https://screenrant.com/roddy-piper-kill-mr-t-ruined-wwe-first-wrestlemania/
17. "Hulk Hogan Recalls Receiving Voice Message From Roddy Piper Two Days After Piper Died" — Fightful. https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/hulk-hogan-recalls-receiving-voice-message-roddy-piper-two-days-after-piper-died/
18. "10 Things You Should Know About Roddy Piper's Wrestling Career In The 1980s" — TheSportster. https://www.thesportster.com/roddy-piper-wrestling-career-1980s-facts-trivia/
19. 1985 WWF results (television, pay-per-view and house shows) — The History of WWE. https://www.thehistoryofwwe.com/85.htm
20. Bob Orton Jr. — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Orton_Jr.
21. Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling (Western Animation) — TV Tropes. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WesternAnimation/HulkHogansRockNWrestling
22. WWE Hall of Fame (2005) — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWE_Hall_of_Fame_(2005)
23. "Paul Orndorff betrays his tag team partner Hulk Hogan: Championship Wrestling, July 19, 1986" — WWE.com. https://www.wwe.com/videos/paul-orndorff-betrays-his-tag-team-partner-hulk-hogan-championship-wrestling-july-19-1986
24. "When did Paul Orndorff turn on Hulk Hogan?" — Sportskeeda. https://www.sportskeeda.com/wwe/when-paul-orndorff-turn-hulk-hogan
25. "Wrestling Recap: Hogan/Mr. T vs. Piper/Orndorff (WrestleMania)" — Dr. K's Waiting Room. https://drkwaitingroom.com/2025/03/06/wrestling-recap-wm1/

Further Listening

• In Rowdy We Trust: Piper's biography, finished by his family — Piper's own perspective on the WrestleMania I build and its aftermath
• WWE Rivals: Hulk Hogan vs. Roddy Piper — a documentary retrospective on the origin of the two men's rivalry
• Superfly: The Jimmy Snuka Story (Snuka autobiography, foreword by Roddy Piper) — context on Piper's rise as the WWF's top heel before Hogan
• The True Story of WrestleMania (WWE documentary) — McMahon's own account of the financial risk behind the first show