Rowdy Roddy Piper vs. Superfly Jimmy Snuka (Mar 1984 – Mar 1985)

Background

By early 1984, Jimmy Snuka was one of the most popular wrestlers in the WWF. Born in Fiji on May 18, 1943, he had built his reputation on the Superfly Splash and a high-flying style.[1] His most famous night had come the previous October, when he lost a steel cage match to Don Muraco at Madison Square Garden and then dove onto Muraco off the top of the fifteen-foot cage.[1]

The company around him was changing fast. Hulk Hogan had come back to the WWF in December 1983 and beaten the Iron Sheik for the WWF Championship at Madison Square Garden on January 23, 1984.[15]

Roddy Piper was the new arrival built to run against that babyface roster. Born Roderick George Toombs in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan on April 17, 1954, he was billed from Glasgow, Scotland, complete with kilt and bagpipes.[2] Vince McMahon had contacted him in 1983, and after Piper served out his contract with Jim Crockett Promotions he started in the WWF in 1984.[2]

Piper debuted not as a wrestler but as a manager, aligned with "Dr. D" David Schultz and "Mr. Wonderful" Paul Orndorff.[2] Injuries from his dog collar match with Greg Valentine had left him needing a reduced schedule, so McMahon gave him an interview set called Piper's Pit, a talk show where he needled guests and cut them off.[2][12]

Snuka first sat down on the Pit on the March 24, 1984 All-Star Wrestling, taped earlier that month in Hamburg, Pennsylvania, and Piper spent it making fun of the Fiji Islands.[5][15] Snuka wanted another turn, because Piper hadn't let him get a word in the first time around.[3]

The office knew which of the two was going to carry the talking. Piper would generate the build for the feud, and Snuka, never the strongest talker, would do his work in the ring.[3]

Build-up

The angle that made Piper started on his own set. The most famous edition of Piper's Pit brought Snuka back as a guest, and Piper again refused to let him speak, pulling the microphone away and talking over him every time he tried.[3]

Then Piper produced a grocery bag. He pulled out a pineapple to remind Snuka of the women of Fiji, peeled bananas and lobbed them in Snuka's direction, and dropped coconuts on the table one by one, all of it mocking Snuka's island heritage.[3][4]

When Snuka finally moved toward the host, Piper smashed a coconut over his head.[3] Snuka crashed backward and brought the Piper's Pit set down with him. Piper smashed banana pieces into his face, took off his leather belt, and whipped him repeatedly, shouting "Come on boy!" and "You ain't nothin'!"[3] When Snuka cleared his head and charged, Piper ran into another room and slammed the door in his face.[3]

The segment was taped March 28, 1984, at the Fieldhouse in Hamburg, Pennsylvania.[3][15] It aired first in St. Louis, on the April 1 Wrestling at the Chase, to build to the first Piper and Snuka singles matches there in May, and didn't air nationally until June.[15] When it finally aired nationally on June 9, Gene Okerlund introduced the footage from the Pit set and then interviewed Intercontinental Champion Tito Santana about it.[15]

In St. Louis, the first singles match aired on the May 13 Wrestling at the Chase. Piper won by disqualification when Snuka headbutted the referee for refusing to let him jump off the top rope, and Snuka then dove over the top rope onto Piper and kept beating on him until wrestlers pulled him off.[15]

The rematch, on the May 27 show, had Lou Thesz as guest referee. Piper choked Snuka with Thesz's belt while Thesz was down, Snuka got the belt and started whipping Piper with it, and Snuka won by count-out at 6:54 when Piper left ringside.[15]

The two men had also crossed paths on the East Coast. At Madison Square Garden on March 25, 1984, in front of 26,092, Piper and David Schultz beat Andre the Giant and Snuka by disqualification at 21:42.[8] It had turned into a handicap match when Andre was helped to the back after Piper busted his head open with a foreign object. Andre came back, head bandaged, and helped Snuka clear the ring, and that was ruled outside interference.[8]

Once the coconut aired widely, the WWF turned it into a summer-long grudge on the house-show loop. At the Philadelphia Spectrum on July 7, in front of 15,529, Snuka beat Piper by disqualification at 4:37 when Piper crotched him on the top rope and hit guest referee Red Bastien.[15] On Piper's Pit later that month, Piper read out a letter from Snuka's son.[15]

At the Brendan Byrne Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey on July 15, 1984, in front of 18,977, Piper won by count-out.[9] Snuka had thrown him back into the ring just as the referee reached ten, and the crowd started chanting "bullshit!" right away.[9][16]

After the bell Snuka headbutted referee Dick Woehrle and kept attacking Piper until Tony Colon, Jose Luis Rivera, S.D. Jones, and Salvatore Bellomo came out to restrain him.[9]

The rivalry reached Madison Square Garden on August 25, 1984. Piper again won by count-out, at 7:05, after Snuka was dropped across the top rope going for a crossbody and fell to the floor.[8] Then Piper hit him in the back of the neck three times with a folded steel chair, and Snuka was carried out on a stretcher.[8]

That chair attack became the storyline exit. In late 1984 Snuka entered a rehabilitation facility, and the WWF explained his absence with a storyline that Piper had broken his neck with the chair.[1] To keep the heat alive, the office moved the Tonga Kid into the feud, billed as Snuka's cousin. He interrupted a Piper's Pit on the October 13, 1984 Championship Wrestling and challenged Piper for hurting his family.[12][15]

When they wrestled, the Kid pushed Piper hard until Piper sent him over the top rope and grabbed a chair.[12] The Kid ended up with the chair and turned it on Piper, drawing a disqualification, and kept landing shots even as Greg Valentine, Nikolai Volkoff, and the Iron Sheik came to Piper's aid.[12] He carried the fight onto the house shows while Snuka was away.[12]

The Matches

The Snuka and Piper program never had one blow-off match. Most of their summer singles matches ended in count-outs or disqualifications, from the Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland, where 15,000 saw the same count-out finish as the Meadowlands, to Pittsburgh's Civic Arena, where Piper won by count-out at 7:40 in front of 14,000.[15] Snuka won by disqualification in Los Angeles and Oakland in August.[15]

The one clean finish came in St. Louis. At the Kiel Auditorium on July 20, 1984, in front of 8,000, Snuka pinned Piper in a Fijian Strap Match with a flying bodypress.[15]

The closest thing to a singles climax was the August 25, 1984 match at Madison Square Garden. The bout itself was a 7:05 count-out, but the memory of the night is what came after the bell.[8] Piper stayed on Snuka with the chair, hitting him in the neck, and walked off while Snuka was put on a stretcher and taken to the back.[8] It wrote Snuka off television for the time being.[12]

The payoff came in a tag match on the biggest stage the company had yet built. The road to it ran through The War to Settle the Score on February 18, 1985, an MTV special built around Hogan defending the WWF Title against Piper.[13] On the same card, Snuka beat Piper's bodyguard Bob Orton Jr., pinning him with a sunset flip at 9:59 after Orton hurt his arm on the ring post.[17]

Hogan came out with Captain Lou Albano and Cyndi Lauper in his corner, while Piper had Orton.[17] Hogan won by disqualification after Paul Orndorff joined the attack, and the broadcast drew a 9.1 rating on MTV.[13][17] The WWF turned the chaos into a tag match for its first supercard.[13]

WrestleMania I took place at Madison Square Garden on March 31, 1985, before 19,121 fans, and more than a million more watched on closed-circuit television.[14] Muhammad Ali worked as an outside referee, Billy Martin as guest ring announcer, and Liberace as timekeeper.[14]

The main event put Hulk Hogan and Mr. T against Piper and Orndorff, with Snuka in Hogan and Mr. T's corner and Orton in Piper's.[8][14] The finish came with Orndorff holding Hogan in a full nelson. Orton climbed the top rope to knock Hogan out, hit Orndorff instead, and Hogan pinned him.[14] Piper knocked out referee Pat Patterson in frustration, then he and Orton retreated backstage and left Orndorff alone in the ring with Hogan, Mr. T, and Snuka.[14]

Aftermath

Piper kept rubbing it in while Snuka was away. On the October 20 Championship Wrestling, Greg Valentine congratulated him on the Pit for injuring Snuka at the Garden.[15]

Snuka's return was taped October 23 in Poughkeepsie, New York. When Piper came to ringside to distract the Tonga Kid's opponent, Snuka ran out for his first appearance in two months, ripped off his neck brace, and chased Piper, who ran off into the crowd.[15] The WWF reunited him with the Tonga Kid on the house shows.[12]

At the Philadelphia Spectrum on December 1, 1984, Piper beat the Tonga Kid by disqualification at 6:15 before 13,567 fans when Snuka came in to attack him.[10] Bob Orton Jr. then ran out and all four men brawled until Snuka and the Kid cleared the ring.[10]

A week later, on December 8 at the Boston Garden, Snuka and the Tonga Kid beat Piper and Orndorff in front of a sellout of 16,000, with Orndorff taking the fall.[11]

Their Garden rematches didn't settle anything. On November 26, in front of 22,090, Piper and the Kid went to a double disqualification when both Snuka and Orton got involved, and on December 28, in front of 26,092, Snuka and the Kid against Piper and Orton ended the same way at 14:58.[15] The Tonga Kid was gone from the WWF by the start of 1985. He came back later as Tama, one half of the Islanders.[12]

By early 1985 the whole thing had been absorbed into the Hogan program. Snuka's part was the win over Orton at The War to Settle the Score and a corner role at WrestleMania, standing with Hogan and Mr. T on March 31 as Piper's team lost the main event.[14][17]

Snuka left the WWF in July 1985, a few months after WrestleMania, though he still appeared in cartoon form on Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling that September.[1] Piper came out of the coconut angle as the man fans most wanted to see beaten. Pro Wrestling Illustrated named him its Most Hated Wrestler of the Year in both 1984 and 1985.[2]

Behind the Scenes

How much of the coconut spot was planned is the one part of the story the two men never told the same way twice.

In his book Superfly: The Jimmy Snuka Story, Snuka wrote that they spent hours planning the segment, and that during the rehearsal he told Piper to hit him with the coconut. "He looked at me like I was crazy, but I knew it'd heat the crowd up. He asked me if I was sure, and I was like, 'Brudda, you better hit me with that…'"[3][4] But in an earlier interview he said, "we hadn't planned it; he just did it out of the blue."[7] In a 2013 interview he described the impact: "thank God I had my bandana on, you know? But still it cut me open and I got so dizzy. I just kept going one way and I remember going into a wall and went down."[6]

Piper's version leaned toward improvisation. "I improvised almost everything I did. There was no rehearsal," he said.[3] Road agent Chief Jay Strongbow had shaved one side of the coconut so it would break easily, but Piper hit Snuka with the wrong side, and the blow was much worse than planned.[3][4] Piper was never really sure the coconut had been rigged at all. "Oh man, I hit him hard… so hard it would have killed a mule," he said.[3]

The set coming down wasn't in the plan either. Piper had two more Pit segments to tape that day, with Terry Daniels and Chief Jay Strongbow, and the set had to be rebuilt for them.[3] Snuka, still feeling the blow, wrestled a match later on the same show and won it.[3]

The belt-whipping was reportedly improvised too, and Snuka was said to be none too pleased about it.[3] Piper said that when Snuka got back to the dressing room, "he just sat there for like ten, fifteen minutes. Nobody could talk to him. He just stared down. He's never quite been the same."[3] Asked whether he regretted hitting him so hard, Piper answered, "Yeah. A little bit."[3]

Piper said Snuka, usually friendly off camera, became more reserved afterward and would stare blankly into space, and that one night after a match Snuka attacked him unprovoked in a hotel hallway.[3][4] It didn't last. Both men described themselves as friends who loved each other like brothers, and Piper credited his guest for the segment: "Jimmy Snuka is the one responsible for the popularity of Piper's Pit – not Roddy Piper."[3] Snuka wrote, "I loved [my feud] against my friend Roddy Piper."[3]

The segment's whole hook was mocking Snuka's Fijian background, with Piper trading on fruit and stereotype to draw heat.[3][4] It worked as heel heat in 1984. It is also the kind of ethnic caricature the business reached for without a second thought at the time, and neither man addressed that side of it head-on in the quotes that survive.

The darkest thread runs underneath everything Snuka did in this period. Less than a year before the coconut, on May 10, 1983, his girlfriend Nancy Argentino was found unresponsive in a room at the George Washington Motor Lodge in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and died a few hours later.[18] Snuka had called the paramedics but was gone when they arrived.[18] The death went uncharged for 32 years (covered in full in the Snuka vs. Muraco article).[18]

Legacy

One retrospective calls the coconut "one of the most memorable moments in wrestling history."[3] Piper himself always credited Snuka with the popularity of the Pit.[3]

It drew. The summer singles matches pulled 15,529 at the Spectrum, 18,977 at the Meadowlands, 15,000 at the Capital Centre and 14,000 in Pittsburgh, and the December tag rematch sold out the Boston Garden.[9][11][15] The War to Settle the Score that followed drew a 9.1 on MTV, and WrestleMania drew more than a million closed-circuit viewers.[14][17]

When Snuka was charged in September 2015 with third-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter in Argentino's death, his attorney said he had been diagnosed with dementia and showed signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy.[18] His attorney, Robert J. Kirwan, argued in court that the coconut had been meant to be shaved thin on one end to crack like an egg, that Piper hit him with the wrong end, and that the blow played a part in Snuka's cognitive problems.[3] Snuka couldn't recall many of the injuries of his career, but he could still recount that one.[3]

A judge found him incompetent to stand trial and dismissed the charges in January 2017, ruling that he would not regain competence.[1][18]

Both men went into the WWF Hall of Fame: Snuka in 1996, and Piper in 2005, inducted by Ric Flair, who called him "the most gifted entertainer in the history of professional wrestling."[1][2] Pro Wrestling Illustrated named the WrestleMania I main event its 1985 Match of the Year.[2]

Snuka died on January 15, 2017.[1] Piper died before him, on July 31, 2015, at age sixty-one.[2]

Both men made peace with the segment long before the end. Snuka said that when it was all said and done he told Piper, "I think we got them."[3][6] Looking back on the feud in his book, Snuka added: "The fans loved it, too."[3]

See Also

Sources & Further Listening

1. Jimmy Snuka — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Snuka
2. Roddy Piper — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roddy_Piper
3. "Roddy Piper and Jimmy Snuka: The Coconut Incident" — Pro Wrestling Stories. https://prowrestlingstories.com/pro-wrestling-stories/roddy-piper-jimmy-snuka/
4. "The Backstage Story On Roddy Piper & Jimmy Snuka's Coconut Incident In WWE" — TheSportster. https://www.thesportster.com/wwe-backstage-roddy-piper-jimmy-snuka-coconut-incident/
5. "Piper's Pit featuring Jimmy 'Superfly' Snuka: All-Star Wrestling, March 24, 1984" — WWE.com. https://www.wwe.com/videos/piper-s-pit-featuring-jimmy-superfly-snuka-all-star-wrestling-march-24-1984
6. "Jimmy Snuka Talks Getting Hit With A Coconut By Roddy Piper, His Cage Splash At MSG, Backlund" — Wrestling Inc. https://www.wrestlinginc.com/news/2013/01/jimmy-snuka-talks-getting-hit-with-a-coconut-by-roddy-piper-559768/
7. "In a dubious claim, Superfly says coconut angle with Piper was ad-libbed" — Boston Garden Balcony. https://bostongardenbalcony.wordpress.com/2012/12/27/in-a-dubious-claim-superfly-says-coconut-angle-with-piper-was-ad-libbed/
8. Madison Square Garden 1980s results — TheHistoryOfWWE.com. https://thehistoryofwwe.com/madison-square-garden-results-1980s/
9. Meadowlands / Brendan Byrne Arena 1980s results — TheHistoryOfWWE.com. https://thehistoryofwwe.com/meadowlands-arena-results-1980s/
10. Philadelphia Spectrum 1980s results — TheHistoryOfWWE.com. https://thehistoryofwwe.com/philadelphia-spectrum-results-1980s/
11. Boston Garden 1980s results — TheHistoryOfWWE.com. https://thehistoryofwwe.com/boston-garden-results-1980s/
12. "Right Place, Right Time: The Tonga Kid vs. Roddy Piper" — Voices of Wrestling. https://www.voicesofwrestling.com/2018/09/27/right-place-right-time-the-tonga-kid-roddy-piper/
13. The War to Settle the Score — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_to_Settle_the_Score
14. WrestleMania I — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WrestleMania_I
15. 1984 WWF results (television, pay-per-view and house shows) — The History of WWE. https://www.thehistoryofwwe.com/84.htm
16. "WWF @ Meadowlands 7/15/1984" — Culture Crossfire. https://culturecrossfire.com/wrestling/wwf-meadowlands-71584/
17. 1985 WWF results (television, pay-per-view and house shows) — The History of WWE. https://www.thehistoryofwwe.com/85.htm
18. "Homicide charges dropped against ex-pro wrestler Jimmy 'Superfly' Snuka" by Ellie Kaufman (Jan 4, 2017) — CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2017/01/04/health/jimmy-superfly-snuka-charges-dropped

Further Listening

• Superfly: The Jimmy Snuka Story (Snuka autobiography, foreword by Roddy Piper) — Snuka's own account of the coconut segment
• The War to Settle the Score (MTV, Feb 18 1985) — the special that folded the feud into Hogan vs. Piper
• Voices of Wrestling: "Right Place, Right Time: The Tonga Kid vs. Roddy Piper" — the storyline that carried the feud while Snuka was out
• Dark Side of the Ring S2E5: "Jimmy Snuka and the Death of Nancy Argentino" — the case that later cited the coconut