A kilt, bagpipes, maybe a dog collar chain … what would you pick out as Roddy Piper’s most revered items? Booker T, Lita, Mick Foley, and this week’s guest Drew McIntyre are on a mission to get their hands on some classic Piper merch, so let’s get to it.
Booker T starts off the show with McIntyre, one of the current standard-bearers for kilt-wearing wrestlers, admitting that hearing that Piper was from Glasgow, only about an hour from where McIntyre grew up, inspired him to realize he could live that dream. Finding out later that Piper wasn’t really from Scotland was, McIntyre laughs, a bit of a blow to him as a kid.
They decide to set their sights on a set of bagpipes (estimated at $7-$10), preferably from the SummerSlam show at Wembley Stadium in 1992, and also a leather jacket ($3.5K-$7), ideally from his Backlot Brawl at WrestleMania XII.
Baltimore, Maryland sees McIntyre meet Lita to begin the quest. McIntyre labels them “Good cop, bad cop,” which the program subtitles due to Drew’s brogue — and not for the last time in this episode. Lita references a Tuesday Night Titans episode and a piper named Tim Carey who played then, and at other times, with Piper, so that’s their first lead.
Carey recalls meeting Piper in 1972 when Roddy talked his way into Tim’s pipe band from Toronto. Lita changes gears to the business at hand, asking Carey if he has a set of pipes that Roddy played. Tim shows them a set that were in action in the 80s. Drew gets a quick lesson on them and he sounds … terrible.
Lita asks Tim if he’d be willing to sell them to the WWE for fans to see, and we have the usual, reality TV stressful humming and hawing as he decides. He says he’ll do it for the fans, but the deal dies with Carey’s starting ask of $15K.
Next up, Mick Foley is on the road in Burlington Vermont, and Booker T calls him to say that it was a strikeout on the bagpipes. Foley gets his marching orders to meet Piper’s daughter Teal in Florida, so Foley picks up McIntyre and off they go together to find Piper’s jacket.
Hold up, they’re not headed to Florida yet – they’re meeting Jeff Jewett, a WWE collector who somehow doesn’t go by “Double J”. They check out his Piper collection, with photos, a kilt, Hot Rod shirt, and other bits and pieces from his time in Georgia Championship Wrestling, too.
After a tense commercial break, Jewett reveals how he obtained the jacket through an estate auction after Piper’s passing , the same jacket that Piper wore in the Backlot Brawl for WrestleMania XII and then to WCW. Foley offers the ceiling of a $7K offer, and Jeff accepts.
Back in the WWE Warehouse, Booker T is checking out one of the sets of Piper’s Pit with archivist Ben Brown and fondly remembering the show. Now Foley is in Florida to meet Teal on his own, along with her husband, wrestler Deimos (who had been trained by Piper).
Teal opens up her box of memorabilia, including her dad’s boxing trunks from WrestleMania 2 and the dog collar chain from Starrcade 1983 featuring Piper against Greg Valentine. Next, she pulls out a jacket that Piper wore in his later years, and even reveals that she has a set of bagpipes that her dad used. It seems to me that they should have just started out here.
Foley starts the negotiating, with Teal saying she wants the items to be shared, but she can’t have them leave the family. She will loan it all, though: the kilt, the sporran, the pipes, the boxer shorts, and the leather jacket.
Foley delivers it all to Booker T and Brown, and there’s footage of the WWE Fan Experience from this year’s Royal Rumble, where Teal and Deimos visit the Roddy Piper exhibit featuring their loaned donation in front of the Piper’s Pit get-up. It’s understandably emotional for her, and she’s thrilled to have it available for the fans.
That’s it for this week — stay with SlamWrestling.net for reviews of each new episode of WWE’s Most Wanted Treasures!
RELATED LINKS
- Slam Wrestling’s Roddy Piper and family story archive
- Slam Wrestling’s WWE on A&E archive