By James Caldwell, PWTorch columnist

Original question: On December 10, 1999, a group of WCW wrestlers appeared on ABC's "Politically Incorrect" show hosted by cynic and satirist Bill Maher to talk about pro wrestling during its peak popularity (mainly thanks to WWF at this time). On the four-person wrestling panel, who defended pro wrestling by dropping his pants to show scars from surgery?

(a) Sting
(b) Buff Bagwell
(c) Roddy Piper
(d) Ric Flair

The answer is (c) Roddy Piper. Piper lost his temper when Maher suggested to the wrestlers that today's wrestling fans are "in on the joke" that the sport is fake. Maher said it was just a figure of speech, but then tried to clarify that fans know wrestlers don't get hurt. At that point Piper stood up and dropped his pants to show scars from his recent hip surgery.

Torch Trivia expert Dusty Robinson sums it up: "The reason that Piper did this was because he got offended by Bill Maher's opening question, which was "Wrestling fans are in on the joke aren't they?" So Piper dropped his pants to show the scars from his hip surgery & talked about how wrestling isn't fake."

The show featured Sting, Piper, WCW announcer Bobby Heenan, and Madusa. Heenan tried to crack jokes to keep things light and Piper eventually settled down, while Sting just looked uncomfortable most of the time.

From Torch Newsletter #580 - After the show went off the air, Maher had to do an interview with "Entertainment Tonight," but the producers of the program applauded for the wrestlers as they walked to the back. They loved the program because it was bizarre. They took pictures with the wrestlers, too. ... The feeling within WCW was that it was good publicity, but Piper may have gone a bit too far, especially when it bordered on physical intimidation when he got in Maher's face.

-- Checking on the responses, our winners for the Dec. 17 Torch Trivia question were Sam Robinson (three in a row!) via email, and on the free site reader comments, our winners were Duenas (two in a row!), Christopher Rodney, David (seven in a row!), Jae Wiggz, and Dusty Robinson (seven in a row!). I'll be publishing a leaderboard at the end of this week to recap the first two weeks of Torch Trivia.

Torch VIP members could have looked up the answer in the Torch VIP Appendix by searching the 1996 Torch back-issue section. Over 1,000 TV reports, Newswires, and columns are available for VIP subscribers.

Be sure to check back tomorrow morning for another installment of Torch Trivia.

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