The legendary feud between Hulk Hogan and Roddy Piper helped both WWE and WCW in different ways. WWE witnessed new peaks when Hogan and Piper became breakout stars on the mainstream level. Hogan was the face of the company drawing fans and Piper made the audience pay to root against him as a successful heel.

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WCW switched the roles when Piper debuted as a face to confront the heel Hogan leading the New World Order. Despite the older ages, Piper and Hogan did good business for WCW with strong buy rates. The long history between the two icons will always tie their careers together. However, quite a few tidbits about them have gone under the radar when looking back at Hogan and Piper’s rivalry.

Updated On 24th October 2022 By Andrew Kelly: The rivalry between Hulk Hogan and Roddy Piper was one of the biggest throughout the 1980s and even into the 1990s at times, with their feud managing to span within multiple different wrestling promotions in different eras, stretching from WWE to WCW and then all the way back to WWE again, with them having 19 years between their first and last matches against each other. There are several things to know about their rivalry, from behind the scenes goings on, to facts and figures, to storyline elements too. The pair are two all-time greats, and will likely forever be associated within the world of professional wrestling due to their feud with one another.

UPDATE: 2022/10/25 07:30 EST BY Andrew Kelly

The rivalry between Hulk Hogan and Roddy Piper was one of the biggest throughout the 1980s and even into the 1990s at times, with their feud managing to span across multiple different wrestling promotions in different eras, stretching from WWE to WCW and then all the way back to WWE again, with them having 19 years between their first and last matches against each other. There are several things to know about their rivalry, from behind-the-scenes goings on, to facts and figures, to storyline elements too. The pair are two all-time greats, and will likely forever be associated within the world of professional wrestling due to their feud with one another.

13 Roddy Piper Won Their First Ever Match

roddy-piper-pipers-pit-hulk-hogan

Although Hulk Hogan was one of the biggest winners in WWE throughout his reign at the top, and though Piper would never win the WWE Championship from Hogan, Piper actually won their very first match.

It wasn’t a very decisive win though, as Piper only won the match via countout, all the way back in October 1984 at a live event in Boston.

12 Wrestled At The First Non-WrestleMania WWE PPV

Hulk Hogan vs Roddy Piper Wrestling Classic

It is well known that Hulk Hogan and Mr T teamed up to take on Roddy Piper & Paul Orndorff at the very first WrestleMania event. Some fans may forget though, that they fought at the next PPV event, which was the first ever non-WrestleMania PPV that WWE had ever produced.

At the Wrestling Classic event, Hogan defended his WWE Championship against Piper, winning the match via disqualification. Piper was cheating all throughout the match but was caught by the referee when Bob Orton used his cast to strike Hogan. An ending like this to a PPV main event would surely be lambasted nowadays but at the time it was more commonplace.

11 More Matches On WCW PPV Than In WWE

Hulk Hogan Roddy Piper Steel Cage Halloween Havoc

The feud between Hogan and Piper feels more commonly associated with WWE, but by the end of their time in wrestling, they’d actually had more matches on WCW PPVs than WWE. In WWE, they fought at WrestleMania 1, The Wrestling Classic 1985, and Judgment Day 2003.

In WCW, they battled in singles matches at Starrcade 1996, SuperBrawl 1997, and Halloween Havoc 1997, whilst also competing in an array of multi-man matches on PPV too, including inside the War Games structure at Fall Brawl 1998, in what was one of the absolute worst War Games bouts of all time.

10 Piper Never Lost Clean To Hogan

Hulk Hogan Vs Roddy Piper

Most of the matches between Hulk Hogan and Roddy Piper had controversial finishes due to Piper refusing to lose to Hogan. WWE was never able to book a big PPV match between the two without tag partners.

Hogan won the few televised matches by DQ to avoid pinning Piper. The WCW matches did see Hogan scoring a few pin fall victories, but they always involved someone interfering on his part as a member of the New World Order.

9 Andre Used Piper's Talk Show To Turn On Hogan

Hulk Hogan Andre The Giant Piper's Pit

WWE turned Andre the Giant heel to feud with Hulk Hogan heading into WrestleMania 3 as a huge attraction match. Andre used a talk show segment of Piper’s Pit hosted by Roddy Piper to play off the heel turn.

There was already an established rivalry between Hogan and Piper heading into the segment that made the turn more impactful. Piper was starting to fade into a secondary role, but his presence helped Hogan’s next feud.

8 Piper Exposed Hogan's Biggest NWO Secret

Roddy Piper Eric Bischoff

The heel turn of Eric Bischoff to get revealed as a leader of the New World Order changed the dynamic of the group. Bischoff was instantly a great heel performer cutting hated promos and receiving strong heat from fans.

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Many people forget that Roddy Piper was the only face wrestler smart enough to figure it out. Piper called out Bischoff for his lying actions and it led to him getting saved by Hogan. The hatred between Piper and Hogan led to Hot Rod outing Hulk’s big secret of the nWo backer.

7 Jim Cornette Buried Their WCW Feud On WWE TV

Jim Cornette

WWE referenced the rivalry between Hulk Hogan and Roddy Piper continuing in WCW despite it discussing a rival promotion. Cornette received television time to give his controversial opinions about the world of wrestling.

There were insults thrown towards WWE’s own misfires, but Cornette usually buried WCW with most of his time. Hogan and Piper were trashed by Cornette insulting their ages and comparing their match to garbage when it gets old.

6 First WCW Match Was Non-Title

Roddy Piper Vs Hulk Hogan

WCW received one of their best buy rates for Starrcade 1996 main-evented by Hulk Hogan and Roddy Piper. Fans were confused about the WCW Championship not changing his hands or being on the line for Piper’s big victory.

Hogan losing to Piper’s sleeper hold confirmed the match was not for the top title. Fans were disappointed since Starrcade was WCW’s version of WrestleMania, and it felt off to have the WCW Champion not defend his belt in a singles match.

5 Hogan Asked Piper About Australia Comeback Tour

Hulk Hogan Vs Ric Flair Australia

One of the more ambitious projects of Hulk Hogan saw him co-promoting an Australian tour of shows with Eric Bischoff. The duo booked the main event of Hogan vs Ric Flair, with the Nature Boy breaking his WWE retirement to close every show. Names like Umaga, Mr. Anderson, and Val Venis were also on the tour.

Roddy Piper’s podcast shared stories towards the end of his life, and he referenced being invited to this tour. The belief of Piper was that Hogan wanted to wrestle him to continue their feud, but his body wasn’t in good enough shape to wrestle multiple nights in a row.

4 Piper Was Never Heel During Their WCW Matches

Hulk Hogan vs Roddy Piper Cage Match

The diehard WWE fan of the Golden Era will always think of Hulk Hogan as the ultimate face and Roddy Piper as the ultimate heel. That makes it even funnier that they never used that character alignment for their WCW matches.

Piper was a face in every single match against Hogan from 1996 to 1999. Hogan was in the New World Order throughout this time and Piper always made sense as an opponent when they needed someone. Piper did have a short heel turn in 1999, but he never worked against Hogan during that character change.

3 Final Match In 2003 Hurt Both Their Careers

Mr. America

WWE re-signed Roddy Piper as a talent in 2003 when Hulk Hogan was finding success with his comeback. Piper appeared in the WrestleMania 19 attraction of Hogan vs Vince McMahon, trying to cost the former the match.

The run of Piper continued and saw him working another singles match against Hogan playing the Mr. America masked character. This was a train wreck and hurt the momentum from Piper’s return. WWE placed Piper with Sean O’Haire, but he’d get released shortly afterwards for controversial comments about the company on HBO.

2 Hogan Mocking Piper In Front Of His Son

Roddy Piper Son

WCW did their best to make the Hulk Hogan vs Roddy Piper feud more personal than their WWE days. Piper’s family was involved when his son Colton appeared with him at a young age for what felt like a farewell segment from the legend.

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Hogan mocked Piper for wanting to walk away from a fight and disrespected him in front of his son. The segment doesn’t get discussed among the best Nitro moments, but it sold the match when Piper now had his family pride changing his decision to fight Hogan.

1 More Matches As Partners Than Opponents In WWE

Hulk Hogan Roddy Piper

The WWE tenures of Hulk Hogan and Roddy Piper are respectively tied to feuding with each other. Everyone remembers the hostile segments between the two, but WWE couldn’t pay it off with a big PPV match.

Hogan and Piper somehow ended up teaming up as partners on the house show loops more than they faced each other. Piper’s face turn in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s convinced WWE to book him and Hogan together against various heels. The duo had 25 matches as partners and 22 matches against each other in WWE, not counting battle royals.