why did hacksaw jim duggan win a royal rumble?

[covieo81]

i hope this is acceptable as a thread. can someone(if they have knowledge) explain to me why on erath was jim duggan ever given a royal rumble win?? i know back then it wasnt for a shot at the champ but it doesnt make sense. i dont believe he was ever gonna be pushed as a main eventer and if im wrong im sorry. to me he always sucked, basically all he did was carry a 2x4, say hooooooooo!! and start usa usa chants for no reason. please some one tell me why he was ever given that opportunity.

 

[The Crock]

Umm... back when he was younger he was much better. MUCH BETTER. Hacksaw needed a push and he got one. It's Pro Wrestling 101... put somebody over to give them a shot at being over with the crowd it's not that hard. Sure he didn't win the belt but this led him to a feud with Harley Race, and then Andre the Giant. He got a push... he became somewhat of a draw... why not let him win the Royal Rumble?

 

[covieo81]

i guess i can see yer point crock to an extenet but i been watchin wrestling since before that and it just dont make sense to me i never really seen him as getting over becuz of it. imo i think it was a wasted opportunity for someone else. harley and andre at this point really werent that big so i think the feuds with them were kind of moot. thats just my opinion.

 

[The Crock]

"King" Harley was on the back end of a push, and Andre was in cahoots with Ted Dibiase. There was honestly nobody else to give the push to so they decided that it would be a good idea to try to make another star, and although they didn't make another main event superstar they got a solid mid carder for many years to come... it was a smart move.

 

[holdingholder]

That Royal Rumble that Duggan won wasn't even a PPV, it was a USA special and only had 20 guys in it. It had nowhere near the fanfare that it does now, it wasn't until the third Rumble that it started to become a big event. That first one was more of a undercard type event so Duggan's win wasn't that big of a deal.

 

[fenfool]

The basic idea behind this thread kind of summarizes the problem I have with the Rumble...going in you have 30 wrestlers competing, but only 3-4 of whom fans have come to expect, or even accept to win. Kind of takes the fun out of it. To me a battle royal or royal rumble are matches where anyone should have a chance of winning. You put that many people in the ring, and anything could happen. Right now, going into the next rumble, you pretty much have Cena, Orton, Edge, HHH and maybe Sheamus and Taker who are considered possible winners, and two of those will likely be in a separate match, bringing it to 4 people out of 30 who could win. Maybe Evan Bourne lasts an hour, but gets knocked out by a fresh HHH at #30. If Kofi Kingston wins, the IWC would be wash with "why??" and "he doesn't deserve it" threads. At best, people will be immediately constructing the scenario where he loses his title shot.

Now the Duggan win was different, Duggan was much younger and at least somewhat of a player then, and as was pointed out, the Rumble was new and not as meaningful. But I'd like to see a random upset here and there...a Tyson losing to Buster Douglas, a Kimbo Slice getting his butt kicked by a relative unknown, a U.S. hockey team beating the Russians. I'd love to see HHH & Cena eliminate each other just as #30 Yoshi Tatsu's name is called. It can happen in sports, but is virtually impossible in wrestling (at least without some massive build-up or outside interference, or screwjob copy).

 

[Doctor Awesome]

As stated before, it was the first Rumble and was a cable special, not a PPV. With that being said, in 1987, Jim Dugan and Ted DiBiase were big grabs for WWF from Bill Watts promotion. Ted DiBiase walked into a great situation and quickly was established as a top heel immediately and Duggan slid in perfect to his mid/high midcard role. He had fan support and was a good fit at the time. Who else would you have had win it at the time? It was a good way to establish him, and helped do just that. Hacksaw sold a good amount of merch @ the time (I sware I still have his sponge 2 x 4 somewhere @ my parents) and was relevant in the midcard for 4 good years. I'm not exactly sure about the timeline, if it was before or after the Shieky-Baby Garden State Parkway incident; but if it were after they rehired him, Vince obviously had some faith that he would draw money at one level or another. Let us not forget, he was the King of Wrestling for a cup of coffee. HOOOOOOOOOOOO

 

[THTRobtaylor]

Bear in mind there was only 20 men in the first Rumble too... I'd disagree slightly with Dr. Awesome... if only because Duggan was NOT as well known to WWF fans as a success at that time... UWF was a mainly Southern based promotion and Duggan had not wrestled in New York prior to 1987... (DiBiase had had several successful runs there in the past) and he barely scratched the surface of a debut at WM3 before he was fired... when he returned he was eliminated quickly at WM4's tourney (ironically to DiBiase)... When he had been in the UWF Duggan was their top man... to WWF television fans he was just a buffoon who lost a lot.... today sites would have reported the reason but in 88 there were no sites to read...so fans just saw Duggan lose a lot... In fact I'd say the situation was the same as HHH faced after the Curtain Call and his aborted King Of The Ring win... he got it a year later...

When the Rumble was tested it was seen as a way to "rehabilitate" Duggan into the credible mid-carder he was hired to be... and to back up the "anything goes" theme for the event... just like starting with Ax and Smash...

Duggan's win over OMG also served another purpose... it didn't overshadow the contract signing between Hulk and Andre for the infamous title switch the following fortnight... it proved the point that the concept worked, showed a cable crowd that Duggan was the real deal and didn't distract from Andre, Hulk and DiBiase...

 

[boozinjedi]

I think that back then the Rumble winner was pretty much a pick out of a hat!!

So I thnk it was just a random face to get the win instead of a heel.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

It was never random... nothing in the WWF ever was... of the faces in the match, Duggan was the one most in need of a shot in the arm so he got the nod... The Warrior was there, but so new that it may even have been his on Cable...

 

[The Holy One]

The Royal Rumble wasn't as important back then as it is now. The match was pretty much filled with mid-carders and jobbers that were competing in a battle royal of little significance. Although, his win did helped establish him as a popular face in the WWE at the time. So while the rumble really was just a filler for the show, it did help get Duggan over which could be the main reason why he won it.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

The 88 Royal Rumble was a test for a new PPV format...and a cable event that would build for the title switch and tourney that Vince was planning for WM...

Vince wanted a 4th PPV and the concept of a battle royale based PPV was worth considering as well as the tourney... Had WM4 done better I would imagined that the King Of The Ring would have been the new PPV...