Filmmaker Steve DeBro Recalls Contentious Interview With Late WWE Icon Roddy Piper

"Rowdy" Roddy Piper was forever protective of the wrestling business, and that was made very clear to filmmaker Steve DeBro, who was dressed down by Piper while interviewing him for a documentary on Los Angeles' Olympic Auditorium. Appearing on "Talk Is Jericho," DeBro detailed his initial encounter with Piper, who quickly became irked at the interviewer's use of what "Hot Rod" deemed to be insider wrestling terms as part of his series of questions.

"Roddy was annoyed at my line of questioning," DeBro recalled, "and he turned the camera on me. [It] wasn't my thought to take on Roddy, but it was certainly his thought to teach me a lesson which was really uncomfortable." Where DeBro went wrong, apparently, was getting too comfortable after an interview with another wrestler, The Destroyer, who didn't make any effort to conceal or disguise the lingo of the business.

"Before I'd interviewed Roddy, I'd interviewed The Destroyer," explained DeBro, whose film, "18th & Grand: The Olympic Auditorium Story," is now available. "He was openly using terms like 'babyface' and 'heel' so, I had started to use insider terms [with Piper, who] was all about protecting the business. He felt like I hadn't earned the right to start talking about those kinds of terms." DeBro noted that he and Piper eventually came to an understanding, paving the way to capture Roddy's important perspective for the film, but that didn't happen until Piper flipped the script and peppered the filmmaker with some questions of his own.

"[Piper] really wanted me to respect him as a wrestler first," recalled DeBro. "He didn't think I was doing that and so, he started asking me, 'So what makes a professional wrestler successful?' Displeased with what he thought were generic answers from DeBro, with the camera now pointed at the filmmaker, Piper drilled down deeper, "No, really. What makes professional wrestling?" before letting him off the hook and providing his own definitions, which led to them reaching an understanding.

"He wasn't pleased with me in the beginning and made it clear," said DeBro, "but it made for an incredible interview in the end and I was really honored to meet him and get a chance to see that brilliant mind at work." Coming out of their exchange, which also detailed Piper's legendary feud with the Guerreros including Piper's infamous rendition of "La Cucaracha" in place of the Mexican National Anthem, DeBro seemed honored to have spent time with the late Piper, who died in 2015.

"I worked with some really smart, brilliant people, like George Carlin," he said. "I consider Piper's brain to be on that same level of just someone who was sparkly sharp, how he understood wrestling, how he understood character development, how he understood the work." Piper's death surprised DeBro, as he was one of the younger interviewees for the film, though he recalled noticing his pain during their time together as something they needed to get through to accomplish their shared goal for the movie. "I could tell he was in a lot of pain. That was clear to me when he came in but I looked at it as a chance [to show that] history has a lot to teach us.

If you use quotes in this article, please credit "Talk Is Jericho" and provide an h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.