Can you smell what The Rock is cooking? It's a wrestling TV drama.

According to a report in Deadline, NBC has bought a pilot based on the professional wrestling boom of the 1980s, to be produced by former WWE star Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson.

For wrestling fans, the '80s were a golden era that gave rise to some of the sports most legendary stars, like Hulk Hogan, "Macho Man" Randy Savage, Andre the Giant, and Bret "The Hitman" Heart.

The show will be written by Brent Fletcher, who has worked as a writer for NBC on the football drama 'Friday Night Lights,' and Seamus Kevin Fahey, writer of 'Spartacus: Gods of the Arena.' Jerry Bruckheimer will be one of the co-executive producers.

"Rowdy" Roddy Piper, one of the most charismatic characters on televised wrestling in the 1980s, has been diagnosed with lymphoma. Up until two weeks ago, Piper, 52, was touring Europe with World Wrestling Entertainment, but then he returned to Canada to have a doctor check out discomfort in his back. It turns out, he has a cancerous tumor on a disc on his spine. He'll begin treatment immediately, with the support of his wife and four children. Piper told a Canadian newspaper that he's determined to defeat the cancer.

Piper shared the wrestling spotlight with Andre the Giant and Hulk Hogan in the 1980s, starring in the first of the Wrestlemania events. He even co-starred in a Saturday morning cartoon with fellow wrestlers. Piper's real name is Roderick George Toombs, but he chose Roddy Piper as his wrestling alter-ego, complete with bagpipe and Scottish "rage".

[Via Pop Candy]

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