Before They Were Stars: Rowdy Roddy Piper Breaks a Bottle on His Head

The wrestling world lost one of its all-time greatest legends when Roderick Toombs, a.k.a Rowdy Roddy Piper, recently passed away at the age of 61. Even if you’re not a wrestling fan, you’ve probably still heard of Rowdy Roddy Piper, mostly because of his lead role in John Carpenter’s cult classic, They Live. The immortal quote, “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass… and I’m all out of bubblegum”, is an original Roddy Piper creation, as he completely ad-libbed the line and it has been copied many times since. This is just more evidence that Piper was one of the greatest wrestling promos of all time and could literally talk people into buying tickets to see him. As a prime example of this, here’s some early footage of him with Vancouver’s All Star Wrestling in the early 1980s. In order to hype an upcoming tag team match against the Sheepherders, Piper busts himself open by breaking a BEER BOTTLE OVER HIS FOREHEAD! R.I.P.