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Jim Duggan

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Jim Duggan United States
BornJanuary 14, 1954
Glens Falls, New York New York (state)
Professional wrestling career
Ring name(s)Big Jim Duggan
The Convict
"Hacksaw" Jim Duggan
Trained byFritz Von Erich
Debut1979

James Stuart Duggan (born January 14, 1954), better known by his ring name "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan, is an American professional wrestler, currently signed to World Wrestling Entertainment wrestling on its RAW brand. He is best known for his appearances with the World Wrestling Federation and World Championship Wrestling. His best known gimmick is that of an American patriot.

Duggan is a survivor of kidney cancer, an illness he was diagnosed with during his employment with WCW. His real-life struggle with the disease was very public and his comeback to wrestling after fighting off the ailment was a triumphant affair involving his entire immediate family. Duggan has claimed to have wrestled in all 50 States in America as well as in the countries/territories Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Belgium, Bermuda, Canada, Dominican Republic, England, France, Germany, Guam, the Netherlands, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Poland, Scotland, Spain, and Switzerland.

Early life and career

Duggan grew up in Glens Falls, New York where he became a star athlete in high school. His father was the Chief of Police for the City of Glens Falls. Duggan was a letterman in football, track, wrestling and basketball. In wrestling, he won the New York State High School wrestling championship, unlimited weight class division - the first wrestler from Glens Falls to do so.

He was recruited by the football programs of several major universities, including Penn State and Ohio State, but would play at Southern Methodist University (SMU), where he was eventually voted team captain. After college, Duggan was signed by the Atlanta Falcons of the NFL, but was released after being plagued by knee injuries.

Jim Duggan broke into the professional wrestling business thanks in large part to wrestler Fritz Von Erich. The two met while Duggan was on a recruiting trip to SMU. Duggan's first professional match was in 1979 against Gino Hernandez. Duggan began his career as a heel. Training at the Sportatorium in Dallas, Texas as well as with Samoan wrestling promoter Peter Maivia (grandfather of The Rock), Duggan gained the attention of Vince McMahon Sr. and the WWF.

After a brief stint with the WWF, Duggan began to work regularly for Georgia Championship Wrestling. During this time, Duggan was known by two in-ring aliases: in the United States as "Big Jim Duggan" and in Hawaii as "The Convict", a masked wrestler. After wrestling for a Birmingham, Alabama-based promotion, Duggan began wrestling in a promotion based in San Antonio, Texas where he adopted the "Hacksaw" nickname. He then worked for Mid-South Wrestling from 1982 to 1986, and at one time he belonged to a heel stable called the Rat Pack with Ted DiBiase, Matt Bourne, and Mr. Olympia. After DiBiase aligned himself with Skandor Akbar, Duggan refused to go along and turned babyface for the first time in his career. As a babyface he won the Mid-South Tag Team Championship with Magnum T.A. and later won the Mid-South North American Championship. After the Mid-South North American title was retired when the Mid-South became the Universal Wrestling Federation in 1986, Duggan lost to Terry Gordy in a tournament final to determine the first UWF Heavyweight Champion. Duggan then teamed up with Terry Taylor and won the UWF Tag Team Championship. After losing a loser-leaves-town match to the One Man Gang, Duggan left the UWF and signed to the WWF.

World Wrestling Federation

Duggan was signed to the World Wrestling Federation, in January 1987, making his first major appearance with the WWF at WrestleMania III, running to ringside prior to a match between The Killer Bees and The Iron Shiek and Nikolai Volkoff, interrupting Volkoff's pre-match singing of the Russian national anthem, which Duggan had previously done on TV matches leading up to the event.

Although he did not win any major titles in the promotion, for 7 years, he was a consistent fan favorite with his patriotic gimmick. His character was mainly comical, as he rarely was in major contention for titles. During his time in the WWF, he feuded with the likes of Harley Race, Haku (whom he beat to earn the title of "King of Wrestling"), André the Giant, and Randy Savage (who beat Duggan to become the "Macho King".) Duggan also claims to be the only wrestler to "knock out" André the Giant in a WWF wrestling match. Duggan won the first (non-ppv) Royal Rumble matchup in 1988 which only had 20 men.

He also feuded with Nikolai Volkoff in 1987. Three years later, after Volkoff's face turn, Duggan and Volkoff joined forces in tag team matches.

Duggan also served as commentator for the opening match at WrestleMania VII As well as teaming up with Virgil, Sgt. Slaughter, and Big Bossman against The Nasty Boys, The Mountie, and Repo Man at WrestleMania VIII. After this he was involved in a fued with the then near 600lbs, Yokozuna. Yokozuna at the time was bad mouthing America, and of course Duggan challenged him to a match. The odds were against Duggan as no one even knocked Yokozuna off his feet at this time. On February 6, 1993, the two men met on an episode of WWF Superstars. Duggan was manhandled by the much bigger Yokozuna and was defeated after a Banzai Drop. After the match Yokozuna gave him about 4 more Banzai Drops off the ropes, sidelining Duggan for about 4 months.

World Championship Wrestling

Duggan signed with World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in 1994. In one of his first matches with the company, he won the WCW United States Championship from Steve Austin in less than one minute. For most of his tenure with the company he was seldom used in major storylines but often appeared on the company's minor wrestling show WCW Saturday Night (WCWSN). Duggan later claimed Saturday was "his night" as a way explaining why he appeared almost exclusively on WCWSN.

Duggan disappeared during 1998 after he was diagnosed with kidney cancer and eventually beat the disease. Under the tenure of storyline writers Vince Russo and Ed Ferrara, Duggan became involved in a storyline where he became a janitor for WCW, though during this period, he found the WCW World Television Championship which had been thrown away by Scott Hall earlier and claimed it for himself. He would make title defenses exclusively on WCW Saturday Night, and was still champion when the title was retired. During this time, Duggan lost confidence in himself as a wrestler. On an episode of WCW Monday Nitro, Duggan was attacked by a then heel Goldberg. Duggan then challenged Goldberg to a match and nearly defeated him before falling victim to the Spear and Jackhammer.

Near the end of his career in WCW, he became involved in more major storylines, including one that involved him abandoning the patriotic gimmick for a short time to join Lance Storm and his heel faction Team Canada. This was the first time Duggan worked as a heel since breaking away from the Rat Pack in Mid-South Wrestling.

World Wrestling Entertainment

Duggan appeared at WWE Homecoming on October 3, 2005 along with several other WWF and WWE alumni. He and the other legends would end up attacking Rob Conway after Conway came to the ring and insulted them. He was also one of the "legends" available for fans to select to team with Eugene in a match at Taboo Tuesday 2005 on November 1, 2005 to face the team of Conway and Tyson Tomko (Jimmy Snuka was chosen instead of Duggan).

Duggan poses to the fans.

He returned to WWE again at Royal Rumble 2006, with a message from John Cena to Lita after Edge lost the WWE Championship: "HOOOOO!"

After feuding with Edge and Lita, he became mentor and tutor to Eugene and the two feuded with the Spirit Squad. He has won numerous matches on Heat and has main evented Heat on several occasions. On the November 6 edition of RAW, Duggan and Eugene faced the Spirit Squad in which the losing team would disband and never team up again. After Duggan was caught off guard after the other Spirit Squad members interfered and then pinned for the win, Eugene snapped and attacked "Hacksaw", signalling Eugene's first ever heel turn in WWE.

At New Year's Revolution Hacksaw teamed with Super Crazy in a Tag Team Turmoil match to determine the #1 contender to the titles, in a losing effort.

The next night on RAW, Duggan was dragged out by Rated-RKO and was beat to a pulp. Edge and Orton feared Hacksaw would help out Shawn Michaels in a handicap match (referencing, without explanation for viewers, the fact that both Duggan and Michaels were in Mid-South Wrestling together 20 years earlier) and wanted to set an example for anyone else backstage that wished to do the same. While still wrestling as a part of RAW, Hacksaw competes mostly on Heat as a high-profile competitor.

Smackdown Vs Raw 2008

If you like many other fans of Hacksaw Jim Duggan think he should be included in the raw roster of Smackdown Vs Raw 2008 please contact THQ and request or start forum threads about this.

In wrestling

Championships and accomplishments

References

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