Top 30 Thursday - Mid-South #30. Buzz Sawyer vs. Jim Duggan (Dog Collar Match), 12/27/85

I assume that Jim Duggan was one of the bigger surprises for a lot of people watching these 80s sets. I started watching wrestling on 9/10/88, which was some episode of WWF Superstars where Rick Rude got his tights pulled off by Jake Roberts. I knew Jim Duggan as a goofy wang whose tongue hung out the side of his mouth as he hit people with a board and I thought it was awesome that he was the first guy to take Yokozuna off his feet. It wasn't until my twenties that I saw the *other* Jim Duggan, who had the same goofy face and the same thumbs up and goofy stomping...but who also punched people in the face. I think there were many people who never had that moment in their twenties where they watched 20 yr. old Jim Duggan matches (they were probably doing other things like making friends or getting pussy or starting careers). So I think a lot of people went into the Mid-south set and were perplexed by the number of Duggan matches, until they saw them. Buzz Sawyer was likely also a new discovery for these people as he died young and hardly worked WWF at all.

We start with Boesch saying this is "a battle of wits" and then almost instantly realizing how retarded he sounds, so stammers his way backpedaling by saying "erm uhhhh and also a battle of violence....very violent". Precisely? Dog collar matches can be a problematic thing, as even if you whip a guy as hard as you can with a chain, sometimes it won't look as violent as a good old fashioned fake punch. So you have to REALLY be committed to taking some nasty shots to make the premise work. Luckily these two don't seem to have that problem. Duggan whips Sawyer and punches him with the chain wrapped around his fist (which looks awesome), but you know what looks just as painful? When they're having a tug of war and Sawyer whips Duggan's knuckles with the chain. Good lord that's like something they used to do to card counters in casino basements.

Not many guys look like more of a pro wrestler than Buzz Sawyer, by the way.

Duggan and Buzz have a battle of who can whip their heads into ringposts uglier, and Duggan wins (?). Man he whipped his face right into that thing and then the BLOOD! Screaming bloody babyfaces punching wildly on a comeback are something that just doesn't happen anymore, and that's a shame. I like the idea of a bloody babyface who starts seeing his own blood, then flies into a rage while the heel realizes he's gone too far and begs off. And so we go, with Duggan beating Sawyer senseless with a chain.

The finish could not have been set up more perfectly, as in a neat moment of foreshadowing Sawyer gets thrown to the outside and Duggan smashes Sawyer's face into the back of a folding chair. One minute later Sawyer gets thrown to the floor again, same spot, and comes up with that same chair and introduces it to the side of Duggan's head for the win. Well, you can't ever count a mad dog out of a fight, Jim.