Wrestling legend “Rowdy” Roddy Piper has been diagnosed with lymphoma and will begin undergoing treatment immediately.
In a statement posted Monday on Piper’s web site, the 52-year-old Saskatoon native said doctors found a cancerous tumour on a disc in his spine. Back discomfort had forced Piper to leave World Wrestling Entertainment’s tour of Europe and return to North America two weeks ago.
Piper had been teaming with Ric Flair as tag team champions on Raw, and dropped the belts to Randy Orton and Edge in Manchester, England.
“It seems like I have been fighting someone, something, someplace, in some manner, my whole life,” Piper said in a statement. “But this fight is one I am gonna win!”
Piper, who was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2005, is married with four children and lives in Oregon. He was scheduled to tour Quebec and Ontario by train next week to help promote Wrestlemania — held next April in Detroit — and his DVD set, Born to Controversy, released Nov. 14.
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— SLAM! Wrestling staff and Canoe wire services