Why Didn't Jim Duggan Become The Next Big Face Of The WWF?

[Pay Per Ghost]

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!​

Well now that I have that outta my system, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, trusts me, beat people up.

Man was someone who always, ALWAYS gotta monster pop when he came out. I remember seeing a colliseaum video of the guy and it was a show in UK (keep that in mind). So Duggan comes out to a regular pop and the roof is intact. He comes out and as was his custom would start a USA chant pre-match. Now where were we? That's right, the United Kingdom. So he says as loudly as he could 'USA, USA' twice. That's it.


And the whole place erupts in a USA chant as if they wanna say 'f*ck the Queen, we wanna be the 52nd state'! Someone dig up that video, it's insane.



Anyway the man had the fans in the palm of his fan. And it wasn't as if he was boring. He played to the crowd beautifully when he was in the ring, coming to the ring, holding the tagrope, in a sleeper hold, knocked down and then some. Man was funny as hell too. Anyone remember him hitting one of the Rougeau brothers on the back of the head with his plank and then hiding it behind back and giving the most funniest poker face to the fans? This was in a 3 man tag team with the Hart foundation.

Brilliant he was.

So why wasn't he the next Hogan or Warrior? I followed wrestling properly from 96-97 and it was primarily WWF. So I missed out on his big days and couldn't understand why he wasn't pushed as a bigger deal and then I stumbled upon this:

In early 1987, "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan jumped from Bill Watts' Universal Wrestling Federation to what was then the World Wrestling Federation. He quickly got into a feud with the Iron Sheik.

Duggan was the goofy patriot, Sheik was the evil Iranian. It was exactly what you'd expect from the WWF at that point.

On May 26th, after a show in Asbury Park, New Jersey where they had faced off in a tag team match, they went against normal wrestling protocol and carpooled together. Big mistake.

Suspecting a DUI, the police pulled them over on the New Jersey Turnpike, and both wrestlers were arrested. Duggan for marijuana possession and driving under the influence of alcohol and Sheik for possession of marijuana and cocaine.

Thanks to the two rivals driving together and revealing that pro wrestling may not be on the level, the arrests became a major national news story. Both wrestlers were fired. Duggan eventually received a a "conditional discharge" while Sheik was sentence to one year of probation.

With the mess this caused in the media, the WWF instituted drug testing for the first time, with Vince McMahon announcing to the wrestlers that "The days of a six-pack and a b*** j** are over!" according to Bret Hart.

They were only testing for cocaine, but by most accounts, the program was relatively well executed.

This incident has been cited one of the most assinine move by wrestler/s in the history that hurt the business. That is dramatic, but in the era when the whole 'Good guy vs Bad guy' myth was gospel, this thing made national news and was all over the tabloids.

So did this really keep the WWF from pushing him to the moon?

 

[PlayTheGame]

I'd probably guess that's why he never achieved a lot of success in the WWE. He was certainly over with the WWE, but I guess they saw him as expendable, especially after his "incident". I mean, he was sort of like another Hogan, a babyface, charismatic patriot. Just not as buff or as big as Hogan. The WWE probably figured that he rather one-dimensional and limited in the ring, which I'd say are some of his more obvious limitations. He didn't exactly have the look or versatility of a "top" guy. Nothing really made him that special. Sure, he was really over. But the "patriot" gimmick is pretty easy to get over with, especially during those times. Where could he really go from there after that gimmick ran its course?? But, I still could've seen him getting a little further along in the WWE than he did... But I guess that incident made the WWE realize that they didn't need him, especially with Hogan (a better, more over version) leading the way.

 

[CasualNinja]

He won the Royal Rumble the following year, so I doubt that incident really led to him having a mediocre career

 

[thebarber]

Duggan was a shitty mouthpiece, incoherent. His wrestling was just a brawling style. It is amazing he got as high on the card as he did. He had a cult following with the 4x2 and flag, but he was not a WWE main event talent. He was nowhere near the same league as a Hogan or Warrior or Michaels or Savage or Hart. Duggan was there for the support role with Snake Roberts, DiBiase, Muraco and guys of that ilk.
Duggan only got the push in WCW as he is mates with Hogan. Going over Austin in 43 seconds was a joke and showed just how pathetic WCW was when Hogan and Beefcake and Earthquake and Iron Shiek and One Man Gang and Honytonk Man and Big Bossman and Tugboat and Duggan and Valentine and Haku turned up.

 

[GameOver]

as thebarber said he was incoherent at the best of times and not visually appealing. and he couldn't actually wrestle for shit, worse then hogan.

 

[THTRobtaylor]

Irony is in the UWF he was an awesome heel... that was the guy WWF hired, and in those early days, they weren't sure how to use him. I actually think that WWE could have made a lot more off of putting him against Hogan in a "battle of the patriots". Have Duggan patriotic but more that the American way is do for yourself by any means rather than Hulkamania. It strikes me that the "buffoon" character he played only came about after the bust...

 

[Potatogod93]

I alwayswondered the opposite. Why was Hacksaw always pushed. Not a very good interview I mean who couldn't yell "Tough Guy!?!" and his wrestling was terrible. I never understood Hacksaw and he would typically just annoy me even as a kid.

Then, to make matters worse WCW put a title on him? Sure, he's more worthwhile than say David Arquette, but there's much more talented guys than Hacksaw Jim Duggan. Mid-card title matches should be good matches not guys like Hacksaw.

 

[Defekt]

There's no doubt Duggan was massively over in the 80's, but he was still never as big as Hogan or Warrior. It wouldn't have made sense to push him above those two.

Duggan was used more as a supporting player, like Jake the Snake. He was a really over face that could get heels ready for Hogan.

 

[Arsenal]

He was hugely "over", but guys like Hulk Hogan, Ultimate Warrior, and Macho Man Randy Savage were even more "over" and were much better bets as champion due to either wrestling skills, charisma, look, or some combination of all those things. Duggan was an incoherent slob, not someone who looked like the face of the company. He was properly used as a midcard mainstay. The WWE only wishes their midcard guys now could be as "over" as their midcarders were in the 80's and early 90's. Nowadays because of the lack of talent and weak roster, anyone who is even a tiny bit "over" gets gold thrown at them. Times were different back then... just because you were "over" didn't mean you got the gold.

 

[JAZ]

Duggan doesnt exactly yell Face of a Franchise to me. He was great when you needed an ally for defeating the heels that were against America and helping a good guy overcome bad.

 

[Arsenal]

Duggan doesnt exactly yell Face of a Franchise to me. He was great when you needed an ally for defeating the heels that were against America and helping a good guy overcome bad.

He was also great as cannon fodder to put over an anti-American monster heel, which he did with Yokozuna. I really enjoyed seeing that slob Duggan get Banzai dropped over and over again and then having the American flag placed over his broken body, and being Banzai'd again! Excellent work there putting over Yokozuna as a monster to be feared!

Here it is!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ki6-J6Dr84&feature=related

 

[Hulk Hogan's Brother]

There was nothing too likable about Jim Duggan once you took that American Flag away. I mean he played a loud mouthed homeless looking guy who carried around a two by four and randomly screamed "HOOO!". I am guessing that people cheered him for the flag because I cannot think how he can symbolize America in any other way.

His character was one dimensional and unlike the other big stars of the WWF at that point like Hogan, Savage and Warrior, he did not have a great body. Like I said earlier, he looked like a homeless drunk. He did not look like a heroic figure at all like the top babyfaces of that era. Hogan was a patriot too but he was like the hero America wanted to have. Duggan was the guy whom people thought might win a match due to his patriotism willing him to do so. No one wanted to be Duggan and that is the biggest difference between the two.

Sure, he got pops but you have to remember that it was 1987-90 we are talking about. Numerous guys got pops but never won a championship, Jake The Snake being a prominent example. Not that Jim Duggan was anywhere as good as Jake Roberts.

 

[Mustang Sally]

Hacksaw seemed as if he should be a rough, tough brawler, as he was in his younger days in WCW (or NWA or UWF, or whatever). By the time he reached WWE, he was more of a novelty act than a serious competitor. He presented as dangerous, but more for that damn 2 x 4 than for his own ring prowess.

As a personality, he seemed a blend of Tony Atlas and Zack Ryder: a super patriot who would pause during a match to lead a "U.S.A." chant, while showing a goofy, awkward side in his interaction with the audience, strutting around the ring, yelling "Ho!" as he pounded on his opponents. How seriously could he be taken as a force?

I remember Hacksaw being proclaimed as "the only man to knock out Andre the Giant in the ring." But even at 9 years old I wondered why they were making a big deal of it when he smashed a piece of wood over Andre's head to accomplish it. Even when he won a Royal Rumble, he seemed more a comedy act than anything else.

Twenty years later, he's essentially still doing the same thing. He was popular then, and still is.....but Hacksaw was never going to be the big man in WWE back then any more than he could be now.