As noted, Ring of Honor founder and RF Video owner Rob Feinstein had been involved in a dispute with an artist over the legitimacy of some art prints and the signatures on them.
Feinstein maintains he bought the prints, featuring “Rowdy” Roddy Piper inspired art along with signatures, from artist Chris Ott, and they were signed. In turn, Ott says Feinstein did not buy signed art from him and the signatures are fake. The two have been trying to clear up the dispute, including Feinstein noting former WWE/WCW star Sean “X-Pac” Waltman had seen him buy the signed items.
Click here to read Feinstein’s final statement on the matter; Ott issued the following entry, detailing his account of the events, including his evidence supporting his case.
I recently had an interaction with Rob Feinstein. Unfortunately, within days of meeting a dude I knew nothing about, I learned that he was someone that I’d wish I had never met. I can only tell you things from my perspective, you be the judge of what you read here.
The story starts at Monstermania convention, in NJ. On Friday, July 31, while working the show, a friend walks over to me and shows me his phone. Roddy Piper, a legend, a man I had the pleasure to meet and work with on several occasions, had passed away. Terrible news.
The next morning I arrive at the show at approximately 5 mins til 9am. VIP members are about to enter. My table neighbor tells me a guy was just at my booth and saw my Roddy Piper art hanging and got excited and asked him if it was his booth. My neighbor then told me “he said he’d be back.”
A little bit later, Rob and 2 friends came from the back room and approached my booth. He pointed at the Roddy Piper art and said “I like that piece, I really would like to buy all of what you have.” He asked if I could do a deal and I explained I didn’t have many so I really couldn’t. He went on to ask for a few other pieces in bulk also. He got 13 Hot Rod prints, 5 They Live, 5 Thunderlips, 5 Undertaker. Total of 28 prints. I did quick math in my head. We usually sell 3 for $25, and once people get 6 or more we do the rest for 5 dollars each. So 10 prints is 70 bucks. We did a total of 28 prints at 7 dollars a piece. 196 dollars. Rob paid with his card, the weekend moved on.
On Wednesday morning, August 5th, I woke up and someone posted a link to my facebook wall of Rob’s Facebook post in which he was selling signed Roddy Piper prints. MY prints. How?!?
Rob and I both have public profiles, so the comment came up quickly in other feeds. People started chiming in asking what was up with this. People start messaging me and asking me if I sold them to him signed. I want to make sure that I am not associated with this so I make a fairly observational shared post of the picture. “you do the math”
This is where things start to get nutty, Rob can easily come on and explain ANY single one of the stories he develops later in the day, and it would probably calm a lot of people down. Personally, I’d know it was still pretty phony (because this Hot Rod print has a distinct mark that we will cover later) but I may have given him a pass if he wanted to just drop this whole thing right here. However, that doesn’t happen… Rob goes through and blocks everyone that left a comment on the picture. He even blocks me, and then he deletes the picture completely.
People start posting on my wall. “I was blocked, this guy is kidding right?” and time passes. I post the screenshot I have of the picture and I urge people to share it. People start sharing it. After a little while Rob unblocks me and messages me.
Signed before Saturday? That’s not right. The Hot Rod print hasn’t been available long enough for him to have it signed before Saturday. Now I start getting really mad… you see I’m pretty good friends with Roddy Piper’s manager. Piper has been very kind to me and done a lot for me over the last few years. Now this guy is disrespecting his memory, AND using my artwork to do it?!?!?! A little while passes….
Keynotes for what you just read: “we had them signed before Saturday” “I trade with people all the time and had those for a while” “I am selling the ones that I traded for which was a few. Anything that we have are from signings that we do or people that I trade with who I know met anyone”
I already know he’s lying but I give this guy the tiniest little sliver of reasonable doubt. MAYBE the They Live prints have been lingering around his office. I don’t know. Maybe. He says he still has my unsigned ones so I ask him to show me the They Live ones unsigned.
“I’m driving right now”- sent from web
“everyone I deal with is real” also… what does “if they were fake I wouldn’t have bought them all from you” mean?
At this point, I am done. I am convinced this guy is full of it. Heck, you reading this have probably already come up with that, but let’s just go a bit more….
Rob decides to make a new post.Okay, looks like he’s just trying to save face and move on. A little weird he never mentioned the availability of unsigned prints to his customers before now. Even more weird that the markup for an autograph that is no longer able to be obtained is only 30 bucks more, but things look like they are over…
wait, what? I thought this was over. Where did this story come from? At this point I picture Roddy Piper smashing a coconut into Jimmy Snuka’s head and I’m furious. A fan came up to you and traded these on Saturday morning? You just got done telling me you had these for a while before Saturday. You just got done saying you only trade with people you know. You came and bought them from me before general admission doors opened, so this fan ran right to you? why am I even asking these questions when I already know he’s lying?
By now the story is getting noticed and wrestling sites are covering it. Rob is scrambling to save face… I give him the opportunity. An olive branch. If you’re telling the truth, Rob, this is me trying to help you redeem yourself.
Rob is defending himself everywhere at this point. His page. Message boards. Comment sections of websites. He blocks anyone from commenting on his page, if you aren’t a friend. He blocks you if you say or ask anything that goes against his story. Everyone is showing him this screen cap. He ignores it from EVERYONE. Acts like it’s written in invisible ink. Instead of just showing a picture of all the prints like he said he would in our private message. Or asking where to send them back, he decides to release the next twist.
Xpac saw the trade… okay. It was with some guy in his 20’s. Caucasian. and 5’8″? I thought you only trade with people you know? Anyway… Let’s see what the 123 Kid had to say.
Fuck. I’m pretty lost now. Did he see the transaction or did he see the prints on the floor? He says it was on Friday? Rob says Saturday. To be fair to Sean, a few people have said that maybe he did see a transaction. Maybe Rob’s forger took the prints and came back with them later and Pac witnessed it? Let’s just get back to what Rob is saying.
Okay, so now we are back at where the story started. It’s Saturday morning. The skinny caucasian, 5’8″ approaches Rob. Offers a “few of each” (as stated earlier) the They Live and Hot Rod print. Rob makes the deal. Gets excited, leaves his table to come see what else I have. I’m not at my table (so it must be before 8:55am. VIP isn’t even til 9 and I pass that line when I come in, so mystery man is a vendor?) and Rob comes back an hour later. HE NEVER ASKS ME IF I HAVE ANY MORE SIGNED ONES which is weird since that’s why he came over. Which is also weird because he said he only acquires auto’s from people he knows. We make our whole transaction, his card is swiped at:
9:38am… So, if that was an hour after the trade with skinny white guy, the trade happened around 8:38? okay.The doorman puts Xpac at arriving at 10:30am.
Come on Rob, let me just pay you 980 dollars (196×5) to buy the prints back and save your name. This is getting ridiculous. Rob goes to bed saying that I “just threw stones at a man with a machine gun” and then spends all day Thursday, and all day Friday to come up with this. HIS “SMOKING GUN” and the greatest favor he’s done me in the whole mess. Rob found someone on the internet, and dug through 166 weeks of my instagram to bring you this gem. What he calls his “icing on the cake”Rob took this and ran to every media outlet and claimed it was the proof he needed to close the door on this once and for all. He claims that I “KEPT” on saying that these prints were never available before that weekend. Except, I never said that even once, let alone “KEPT.” In fact, Rob even said himself that he had seen the They Live prints at my booth before.
and I told him, and clarified to others that it wasn’t the case right since the beginning…
So now you’re wondering about the Hot Rod print and the favor Rob did for me. Here’s a quick rundown about this print. We originally released this art as a set of prints for Mad Monster Party’s Wrestlemania Reunion they held last year. It was 5×7 prints and included the 3 guests at the show, Hot Rod, Hogan, and Mean Gene. Earlier this year, I decided to bring it out as an 11×17. I had them printed, and let me just say I CAN BE VERY OCD. The prints came back on paper I didn’t like and they had an error in the printing. Piper’s body started at the bottom of the print. I wanted a white border ALL the way around the print. I sold what I had at shows but I refused to put them on the website. I told my girlfriend “If people look at them in person and are okay with them, they’ll buy them… but I HATE the way they look.” It wasn’t until just recently that we reprinted them, and put them on the right paper, and made sure the border was fixed. I put them up for sale on July 4th. We sold A WHOPPING 3 PRINTS ONLINE SINCE THEN. 2 were this week, AFTER I already interacted with Rob. The other one was to someone I know in Chicago. How did ROB help me in this? Well, I didn’t have a picture of the ones with the shitty border issue. Rob went and dug that out of the internet for you guys… have a look and compare them. Look at the white border on the bottom of the signed one. Notice how Piper’s body comes to the bottom on the old ones?
BOTH OF THESE PICTURES ARE SUPPLIED BY ROB
Thanks for reading this far. I tried to keep it brief. I can’t force your opinion. I did my best to show you why I feel the way I feel. It’s up to you if you wanna agree.
Oh, one last thing… I almost left this out because it even seems so insignificant. The print wasn’t available before the last Piper appearances. I feel like Rob’s claims were disproven so long ago in this story, but maybe you guys will like this. It’s a text message from my friend Bill Philputt. He’s Piper’s manager, and friend. He’s the reason I ever had any relationship with Piper, and I am thankful for the couple of handfuls of opportunities he gave me to be around this great man. This week has been a tough one for him, but he has been following the story and sent this over to me
If you ever met Piper, you’d know that this is the point where he’d say
“I love you, champ. God Bless”
RIP Roddy!!after thoughts: this is a very brief version of what is out there. I wanted it to be as concise as possible. There are many different altering stories that Rob has posted in many different places. I have a ton of screen caps, and if you look around the web, you’ll see what I mean.
