Hacksaw Jim Duggan reflects on going Canadian in WCW.
When you hear Hacksaw’s name, you may tend to think of the American flag-waving, two-by-four-toting WWE star. But there was a time where he represented another country in a different company. Duggan recently spoke to Dominic DeAngelo of WrestlingInc about how his early days in WCW unfolded.
“Well, if you go back and think about what was going on, it was WCW days. Vince Russo just came in, and Vince Russo and I didn’t mesh at all. We didn’t get along at all. And so first, he made me the janitor of the WCW… Russo was trying to get me to quit. He wanted to push me out of my contract. So they said, ‘We’re going to make you the janitor.’ Well that backfired because the janitor gimmick got over. Put me on TV. I’ll get myself over.
“So they fly me back up to the CNN Center in Atlanta, big meeting, and they’re like talking, ‘We’re going to turn you against America.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ I’m thinking to myself, ‘Is this Iraq, Iran? Where are we going to go with this?’ And they’re like, ‘You’re going to be part of Team Canada.’ And I’m like, ‘Well sh-t, we got a lot of heat with the Canadians.’ You know, what the hell? And I joke, I said, ‘Well, Major Gunns was part of that team’ … I cut my hair and shaved my beard, and we were on the road and I wore a suit. And I went to the show that night, and guys I’ve known for 20 years didn’t have a clue who I was.
“Oh, it was great. I was sitting in the dressing room. I didn’t say nothing to nobody. I’m just sitting there, and everybody’s eyeballing me. They thought I was a new commissioner or something. Nobody knew who I was, but it just was the way I make my living.”
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