It was back in 2006 when Rowdy Roddy Piper was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. On a recent episode of ‘Something to Wrestle with Bruce Prichard‘, Bruce went into detail about the events leading to Roddy being diagnosed, including wrestling a UK Tour while likely suffering from it.
Bruce said, “I remember Roddy telling me and showing me. He wore a shirt for his matches over there so nobody saw it, nobody saw his body. He pulls me into a bathroom and says ‘I gotta show you something’ and he pulls up his shirt. Down by his kidneys was awful, it was purple.”
Bruce revealed that Roddy threatened him to not tell anyone about it. Prichard insisted that Roddy get it checked out immediately, and eventually brought a doctor in to look at Roddy.
Prichard said the doctor insisted that Roddy get a CAT scan but he refused to do any medical tests in Europe. “He didn’t want to do it in the UK. He just flat out refused. He went home right afterwards and it was something, they didn’t diagnose it as Lymphoma at that point, it was just a bad bruise, maybe some damage to the kidney, and all that. They did a myriad of tests but at that point they didn’t make the diagnosis.” In November of 2006, Piper was eventually diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma after doctors found a cancerous tumor on a disk in his spine. He went through a lot of radiation treatment while spending time in the hospital.
Brice said that Roddy always had a ‘show must go on’ attitude, and he worked through it by just wrapping it up before his matches. Prichard proclaimed, “He was a hurtin’ puppy… I was scared just lookin’ at him. I can’t not tell someone about this, I have to get the doc in here.”
You can listen to the entire show below. Skip to the 43 minute mark to hear them discuss Piper’s condition.
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