'Rowdy' Roddy by name, but not always by nature

Colt Toombs remembers when he found out what his father did for a living.

It was the day he watched prowrestler 'Rowdy' Roddy Piper fight Goldust in the Hollywood Backlot Brawl at Wrestlemania12.

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"I watched the entire fight from back there, watching my Dad break his hand and get bloodied and beaten and beat Goldustand then he came back and asked if I was OK and that was always amazing to me," he said.

"After everything that he just went through he was making sure I was OK."

Colt and his sister Ariel Toombs have written a book about growing up with the Saskatoon-born professionalwrestling villain, who "was always very good at getting people to hate him."

Rowdy: The Roddy Piper Story is their story of growing up with an entertainerfor a dad.

Colt said 'Rowdy' was an amazing father, but that was difficult for the public to accept.

"We'd actually get teachers coming in our class and pull us out of school or pull us away from our classroom, asking if he was a violent man and if he hit us or anything like that," he said.

"They would either see us as his evil spawn children, who they hated by default, or they'd see us as like a victim," added Ariel.

She believes her father was so good at being a bad guy because his smartmouth and cockiness got him into trouble when he was younger.

Colt said fighting was one of theonly skillshis father had as a young man, so he built on that to make a career in sports entertainment.

Ultimately, he said his father just wanted a family.

"Since unfortunately his child life didn't have the greatest close-knit family, that's what he wanted and prowrestling gave him the ability, financially ... to meet my mom and have a great family and be able to support us," said Colt.

Piper died in July, 2015 at the age of 61.