“Hacksaw” Jim Duggan recently spoke with the Times Union in Albany, NY to promote his one-man show this weekend.
During the interview, the 2011 WWE Hall of Famer commented on his lengthy in-ring career, where his trademark 2X4 came from, and more.
You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On his Q&A show: “I’m lucky that I wrestled during the ‘Golden Age’ of wrestling: Hulk Hogan, Macho Man Randy Savage, Andre the Giant, those guys were like Gary Cooper and Jimmy Stewart. It’s not stand-up, ‘ha ha jokes,’ I’m telling stories about my time in WWF. Folks still want to hear about the Golden Age; I’ll get asked things like, ‘Hey, do you remember that time in ’87 when you wrestled Andre the Giant in Baton Rouge?’ It’s like sitting in a room with old friends, telling stories. So much of what people hear is negative, they hear about (TV series) Dark Side of the Ring. The people that come to see me are wrestling fans, happy to see an old-timer like me telling stories.”
On his lengthy in-ring career: “I joke that when I started, people didn’t have 200 TV channels. There was the news, game shows and wrestling. After 40 years, the last thing I want to watch is wrestling. But I saw firsthand how it evolved, from high school gyms and auditoriums to 100,000-seat arenas. I like to tell people that I wrestled Dusty Rhodes, Ted Dibiase and “Cowboy” Bob Orton in WWF and by the time I retired, I wrestled all their kids in WWE. It was hard to stick around in a major company, working major angles. But folks remembered me.”
On where his 2X4 came from: “We only had these little rope barricades; I’d come back to the dressing room covered in loogies and bruises from the fans and local tough guys taking a swing. Bruiser Brody used to say, ‘Carry something you can use’ to the ring and as luck would have it, I looked down in the dressing room and here’s this piece of wood. I started swinging that on my way to the ring and the crowd was parting like the Red Sea! ‘Hacksaw’ was from my football days and the way I used to play. My character is just who I am. No one was writing my verbiage or telling me how to act in the ring.”
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