Jim Duggan's Best WWF Match

 

Jim Duggan vs. Shawn Michaels WWF Raw 5/10/93

ER: I think, from other wrestling writers, when reading a lead such as "Jim Duggan's Best WWF Match" you might think it was some kind of trick. Then you read the review and it's just talking about the 1992 or 1988 or 2009 Royal Rumble and Duggan is barely mentioned and you realize you have indeed been duped by Sensational Pro Wrestling Headlines That Are Technically Correct. I'm not here to trick you. You know that by now. I'm not interested in tricks. I'm just here to talk plainly about Jim Duggan's Best WWF Match, and regardless of your interpretation of that statement I think you will be satisfied. This is both a) Duggan's Best WWF Match, b) The Hardest Duggan Worked in a WWF Match, and c) The Best Duggan Ever Looked in a WWF Match. Whatever definition of "Best" you came into this with, I think I will have your bases covered. 

Admittedly I am higher on Duggan than most, recognizing the strengths and weaknesses that he brought to the last 30 years of his career. But even as a supporter of his strengths (and someone who was even a fan of his 2006-2008 WWF comeback) I can admit that often the best WWF/WCW Duggan matches were due to his opponent. That doesn't mean that Duggan brought nothing to these matches, but I would say the vast amount of "From WWF On" Duggan matches that I enjoy are due to an opponent working around Duggan as an opponent. Duggan is often more of an obstacle to work around than a guy to work with. This was even more true by the time he was in WCW. Regal vs. Duggan, Craig Pittman vs. Duggan, even Roadblock vs. Duggan, these are match-ups that were entertaining due to fun wrestlers working around a large obstruction. Jim Duggan was not someone who was interested in having Great Matches, and I love how durable and popular he remained by working a safe style. He was clearly a smart man, working as a stupid man. 

So I have no idea what got into him for this one match. I can't think of another WWF match he had anywhere close to this match, the longest recorded singles match of his entire WWF tenure. We're not really buying the accuracy of the supposed 20-25 minute house Savage matches, anyway. Until I see video evidence I think it's far more likely that whomever reported those numbers was actually watching a 15 minute match that felt like a 25 minute match. This match was an actual long TV singles match that goes through two commercial breaks, not some house show fantasy. It's a lumberjack where all the lumberjacks - Bam Bam Bigelow, Mr. Hughes, Typhoon, Terry Taylor, you know the real big guys - save Yokozuna were actually wearing flannel shirts. It's absurd, and their appearance made me assume before the match started that the lumberjacks would be heavily involved in cartoon fashion. And yet, the lumberjacks were hardly a factor, except for Yokozuna's very important involvement in the finish. 

Oh, well then surely Shawn Michaels was the one covering for Duggan! This was a long singles match that was clearly made palatable by the great Shawn Michaels slipping on banana peels! Nope, that's not it either. Michaels bumps like a normal man, still taking great bumps, but not as one bumping in service to himself as he often does. Did he take one of the highest backdrops a man could possibly take? Getting vaulted up higher into the air as Duggan shoves his already-high-in-the-air-knees up and over even higher, resulting in one of the highest non-Rick Rude backdrops in company history? Yes. Michaels was great in this match. But I think Hacksaw was even greater. 

Duggan takes an actual furious attack to Michaels and keeps the attack going nearly the entire match. It is the most energetic I have seen Duggan in a WWF ring and it's a sight. His strikes have purpose, he drops elbows with weight, he does a vertical suplex! This man doesn't just do a vertical suplex, he does a delayed vertical suplex! Think about it. Explore the Hacksaw corners of your brain, and try to recall if you've seen Jim Duggan do a vertical suplex, let alone hang onto one for awhile. This was a match for a title, and Duggan was fighting like a man who really really wanted to win that title. Michaels had shown up for the match in street clothes on crutches, trying to duck the challenge, and here's Duggan ripping clothes off Michaels back. This proves the theory that, If Jim Duggan Is Ripping Another Man's Clothes Off During A Match, You Are Watching A Great Duggan Match. He looks incredible. His Johnny Ramone shag was his best ever haircut, and his large American flag singlet-covered belly hangs down like a pregnant dog's. When he misses his Old Glory kneedrop, he misses it like a man who doesn't care about his knees. 

Michaels is a guy who wears cowboy boots whenever he gets the chance, but this match is the match where he finally takes one of those boots off to do the best thing you can do with a cowboy boot in wrestling: hit a guy with a big belly directly in the head with the heel of that boot. But Jim Duggan has a similar-but-different asset to black wrestlers and islanders: His head is not so hard as to be impervious to headbutts, but it is a head that is so empty that the heel of a cowboy boot cannot began to damage it. The same goes for Michaels desperately trying to lock in a sleeperhold and chinlock: You are only expending your own average trying to cut off blood flow to the man who already has limited brain activity. This was the last big Duggan match. Duggan went on to have a US title reign the next year and a TV title reign during the Russo era of WCW, and neither of those actual title wins felt like anywhere close to as big a deal as this title challenge. The US title reign felt like something written into Hogan's contract, the TV title  run was written as "who would be the funniest guy to put a literal garbage title on"; this match was the last time Duggan felt like he was actually fighting for something. 1993 WWF is the easiest year to re-book in hindsight. This match, ending when Duggan is thrown to the floor and flattened by Yokozuna, leading to Mr. Perfect going after Michaels for the DQ, clearly set up programs that never got satisfyingly paid off. Duggan should have challenged Yokozuna for the World title on PPV, Perfect should have challenged Michaels for the IC title at King of the Ring, Crush should have slammed Yokozuna on the Intrepid after Duggan softened him up, etc. The Luger turn ruined everything that the first half of the year had been building to...

but somewhere in all that mess we got an actual great Jim Duggan WWF match.