Flipping through twitter yesterday, I saw the headline
“Roddy Piper dies of a heart attack at 61”.
And my heart sank a little because I used to be a fan girl. I texted my friend, V, to tell her the news and
that started a flood of memories from the mid to late 80’s when we were both
crazy for the WWF.
I don’t remember exactly how it all started; only that V was
the one who turned me on to it. We each
had our favorites. We would watch wresting almost religiously every Saturday
morning. Once a month after school we
would head to the newsstand at the local drug store and flip through the
current issue of WWF magazine; making sure there were picture of “our guys”
before buying it. Then we would take it
home and cut out the photos and articles we wanted and put them in scrapbooks.
We saved every magazine just in case, even if they were cut
into pieces and no longer readable. And
sometimes would use them to play jokes on each other. V was much better at it than I was. There were quite a few times I’d
unsuspectingly open my locker in between classes to find the whole inside plastered
with magazine cut outs of the villains of the week.
When the WWF came to Minneapolis, V’s mom; who was just as
crazy for wrestling as we were, would order tickets and drive us into the city
to attend. I don’t know how she worked
it out, but she always was able to get us seat right on the isle where the
wrestlers walked from the backstage area to the ring and we were always 5-7 rows
back from the ring, so we always had good seats.
We made tag board signs, proclaiming our love for certain
wrestlers and waved them as they would make their way to the ring. I’ll never forget the one time I made a sign
for Brett Heart and he grabbed it from me as he walked by. Once in the ring he proudly held it up for
the whole arena to see. I was on Cloud
9, until his opponent sneaked attacked him from behind and ripped my sign in
two. After the match I asked a security
guard, who we had gotten to know fairly well because he recognized us as
regulars to these events, to retrieve my sign.
He could only find half if it, but that was enough for me, knowing that
Brett Heart had touched it. I took it
home and stuck it in my scrapbook with the rest of his pictures.
The first time I got to see Roddy Piper in person, was
almost the last time I was allowed to go. I was finally going to be able to see
my guy in person, and up close. I was
giddy at the thought of being able to actually touch him as he walked the isle. I was
so excited for this event, I could hardly eat. The whole car ride into the city I was a nervous
ball of energy, hopped up on Mt. Dew and adrenaline. I had my program and waited anxiously for his
match to start. Finally his match was being announced, I stood up and looked back toward the black curtain
where they would emerge from back stage.
My heart began to race when I saw a red pair of wresting boots walking
toward the curtain. His entrance music
cued and I knew this was the moment I’d been waiting for all night. The music played for a few notes before the curtain
parted … and there he was. I screamed, I
jumped up and down, I reached way over the railing to get a good pawing as he
walked by, I screamed his name, told him I loved him. All in the hope of getting his
attention. Yes, I was that girl. Once he was out of my reach, I was so exhausted
from all of my over excitement I couldn’t even watch the match. I burst into tears, sat down in my seat and everything
went black.
The next thing I knew, I was being carried out of the arena
to the First Aid station by two security guards. V and her mom were being questioned if I had anything
to drink or taken any drugs. V’s mom was
kind of shocked and replied, “She’s only
13.” An ambulance was called and I was
taken to the ER for some tests. After
spending a few hours in the ER, the toxicology screen came back clean and it
was determined that I had hyperventilated and passed out. I was given a sandwich and something to drink
and released. The $300 ambulance bill
was enough to make my mom forbid me to ever go again. She must of forgot, because after a while I was allowed to go again, however I had to promise that I would contain my
excitement so I wouldn’t pass out again.
The next time I was allowed to go, the events had been moved
to a different arena. Before the matches
started we started talking to a lady who was sitting next to us and she offered
us some insider information about what hotel the wrestlers were staying in and
that they sometimes hang out in the bar afterwards. Turned out the hotel was practically across
the street, and we could walk there.
We didn’t know if this information on legit or not, but
figured it wouldn’t hurt to check it out.
Since the last match of the evening was one we really weren’t interested
in, we decided to leave early and head over to the hotel. At first we weren’t sure where we were going
or if we were even allowed to be there, but after wandering around for a while;
we found the bar and there wasn’t anybody there to kick us out. Since V and I were too young to hang out in
the bar, we sent her mom in to scope it out and see if she could find any
wrestlers in there, while we waited out in the hallway with some very pretty,
but overly made up women in tight short skirts and very high heels, who really
didn’t seem that interested in getting autographs. I never thought about it until now, but they
were prostitutes.
After a few minutes V’s mom came out of the bar and dropped
a few names of wrestlers she had seen, and confirmed that our inside info was good. The bar was located just off of a small lobby
area and we decided to wait in the lobby area away from the bar, in case
someone from the hotel saw us there and wondered why we were hanging around
when we were obviously too young to be there.
This spot gave us a perfect view of the bar entrance and the side door.
V’s favorite wrestler, Tito Santana, had fought that night,
and she was lucky enough to spot him as he came in the side door. She jumped up and ran after him so fast, her
mom and I didn’t have time to recognize him.
He stopped and posed for a picture with her and gave her his autograph,
before disappearing into the bar.
Another time, we stationed ourselves in the same spot and she spotted
another one of her favorites coming from the bar and heading through the
lobby. V chased after him, asking for an
autograph, without paying any attention to where he was heading. He tried to ignore her but she was right on
his heels. He abruptly stopped, turned around, and told
her he’d be back in a minute. If he
hadn’t stopped her, she would have followed him right into the men’s bathroom.
Shortly after Roddy Piper announced his retirement, the WWF
was coming back to Minneapolis and he was scheduled to fight. If I never went to another match again I had
to get to this one. It was my last chance to
see Roddy in person and I had to try and get an autograph afterwards. Once again we hung out in our usual spot but
we weren’t having much luck. V’s mom
went into the bar to look around and spotted a few of them at one table. She came out and snuck us into to bar so we
could meet them. I don’t remember who
they were because they weren’t exactly who I was there to see. We got to say hi and shake their hands, but
were denied a photo because one of them told us he didn’t take pictures in a
bar. On our way out of the bar, I spotted
him. He had just walked in but then disappeared
in the crowd before I could reach him.
We left the bar and waited out in the hallway for I don’t know how long
until he came out and was heading for the elevator. It was now or never.
Unfortunately, there were other fan girls
there too and I had to fight my way through them. We followed him to the elevator, and
somehow I managed to shove a piece of paper and a pen at him and got his
autograph as a friend of V’s mom, who had come with us that night, snapped
pictures. Security must have been tightened
by that time because somebody stopped me from getting on the elevator with
him. The elevator door opened, he
stepped in and turned around to wave. I
gave him a quick high five before the door closed and he was gone. That was the last of my groupie adventures
and shortly after he retired, I gave up on watching wrestling.
I never mentioned my fan girl behavior to my husband,
because by that point I was quite embarrassed by it, but thanks to V and our 10
year class reunion she told him all about it.
He thought it was quite funny and still, 20 some years later, teases me
about once in a while. He’ll be flipping
through the channels and will run across wresting and tell the kids “Oh, quick
change the channel, we don’t want Mom to hyperventilate and pass out.”
