goodhelmet Posted May 15, 2005 Report Share Posted May 15, 2005 Ted DiBiase vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan (No DQ for the North American Heavyweight Championship, 1985) Play By Play Immediately, you know you are watching some old-school wrestling. Prior to the match, DiBiase wants to make sure that the match is no DQ and as soon as he gets confirmation, immediately blinds Duggan with the Evil~! powder to the eyes. Then in an instance, he throws Duggan over the top-rope and immediately blasts him into the ringpost? twice Duggan opens up a gusher and the crowd is going batshit the entire way. DiBiase not only starts to heel it up, but also shows some strategy by attacking the cut. He unloads the punches to the head, rams the bloody Duggan into the turnbuckle and even starts biting him. Then, he starts dropping the patented falling fists. He finishes it off with an axe-handle off the top-rope. A blinded Duggan tries to fight back but DiBiase holds him at bay. DiBiase chokes him out with the 2nd rope and the ref tries to break it up? but it is a no DQ match!!! I don?t know if the ref was trying to reemphasize the stipulations or forgot about them. At this point in the match, the tide turns. DiBiase goes for a suplex but it gets reversed, giving Duggan some time to recuperate. DiBiase is up first and tries another axe-handle. This time, Duggan punches him on the way down and gains control for the first time. Duggan just punches the shit out of DiBiase. I never noticed before but Duggan has some great punches. A bodyslam sets up a 3-point stance and the shoulder tackle. Duggan?s pin is broken up by Gen. Skandor Akbar. Another shoulder tackle by Duggan sends both men to the mat while knocking the referee out. Dr. Death comes to ringside and hands Ted the coal miner?s glove. He gets up and knocks Duggan out for the pin at 7:48. The only way to settle this is in the ultimate gimmick match? Loser Leaves Town, Tuxedo, No DQ, Coal Miner?s Glove on a Pole, Cage Match!!!! Analysis ---If you noticed, I did play-by-play with no analysis of the match. Typically, I feel this is a shallow way to do a review but I wanted you guys to read the match and understand the absurdity of it all. This match had powder, a coal miner?s glove, outside interference, a ref bump, a run-in and set-up one of the most insane gimmick matches of all-time. Must be a shitty match, right? Not so fast. This match works and it works when it could have easily been a jumbled mess. In the beginning of the match, after DiBiase establishes he is allowed to cheat, he cheats and cheats often. The first sequence is a powder, a throw off the top rope, and two rams into the ringpost. Early on, DiBiase establishes he has to go the cheap route in order to win the match. Once inside, he exploits Duggan?s gusher by pounding away at the head. He never waivers and is always attacking the injury. He does it by cheating (choking him on the rope), using his patented moves (fist drop) and by taking chances (top-rope axe-handle). DiBiase is a heel?s heel. For his part, Duggan does only three things? bleeds, punches and tackles. Yet, he doesn?t have to do more. His expressions carry him through. When he makes the comeback, he reminds me of Kenta Kobashi in his will to fight back. His expressions aren?t like Hulk Hogan?s illogical waving the finger, puffy-face, Hulking up. He looks like he is trying to fight through the blindness, the blood and the pain of having his head bashed in. He is such an easy babyface to rally behind. It makes you wonder what happened when he went to WWF. He became a joke character. In this match, he really is the everyday tough guy he tried so hard to convince us he was in WWF. Did I mention he also throws some great punches? The end was an exercise in overbooking 101. Akbar gets involved, Dr. Death runs down, the ref gets bumped, and DiBiase uses the coal miner?s glove. You really have to suspend your disbelief to believe this is somehow real. However, you never doubt for a minute that the crowd is buying every bit of it. I guess this is what Loss was talking about when the fans can make a match and should act in appropriate ways. In the end, I was buying it to. This may be my favorite match under ten minutes. Hell, this may be my favorite match with blood? my favorite match with interference? my favorite match of Duggan?s? my favorite match with a ref bump. Now, onto the payoff? EDIT: Duggan didn't get nailed with a coal miner's glove. It was just a "loaded" glove. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted May 15, 2005 Report Share Posted May 15, 2005 I love this match! I'm wondering if the no-DQ match you mentioned is the same one I have. Is DiBiase wearing a green shirt? Are they dressed in the first match like they're having a bunkhouse match? If so, I've seen that one. If not, I don't think I have. Great review! I can't wait to get this stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goodhelmet Posted May 15, 2005 Author Report Share Posted May 15, 2005 No, this isn't the same match, This one, both guys are in regular wrestling tights. You should have this no later than Wednesday if the post office comes through. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Some Guy Posted May 15, 2005 Report Share Posted May 15, 2005 my favorite match with a ref bump. You like this better than JBL vs. Eddy? If so hook me up and if not I'd like it anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goodhelmet Posted May 15, 2005 Author Report Share Posted May 15, 2005 OK, my favorite match with only ONE ref bump Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Some Guy Posted June 7, 2005 Report Share Posted June 7, 2005 My two cents: The first thing I noticed was how over Duggan and DiBiase were in their roles as face and heel, respectively. That is what made this match work even better, the crowd popped huge for all four of the hope spots and was deflated with DiBiase squashing them out. Other than a bodyslam, a vertical suplex and two running headbutts/shoulder blocks all Duggan does is punch and as GH said, they are very good punches.\ The biggest thing that stood out to me was how they worked the crowd after Duggan bladed. DiBiase threw him back into the ring and punches him down tot he mat with Duggans shoulders over the bottom rope. Duggan makes a it a point to lean back so that the crowd on that side of the ring sees the blood. Then DiBiase takes him to another corner slams his face into the buckles which Duggan sells by draping himself throat first on the top rope. That's now two sides of the ring who have seen the blood up close and personally. Duggan fights back with some punches that Ted quells, drops three fists and hits a second rope double ax (which sets up a later spot) and takes Duggan over to a third corner and beats on Duggan over there. Duggan starts to fire up for a comeback and walks sideway around 1/2 of the ring, facing the crowd to show off the juice a little more. Within 3 minutes they, in a non-forced way told the crowd the whole story of the match, which was the blood and that Duggan would not stop fighting back despite it. DiBiase cuts off the Duggan comeback with an eyerake and then chokes out Duggan on the second rope. DiBiase hit a dropkick, which on first viewing I didn't think fit into the context of the match, but Ted pointed down at Duggan and mouthed off the crowd, basically saying, "this is your hero?" Duggan makes another comeback by punching DiBiase as he attepted another double ax off the second rope (DiBiase did his signature front flip bump off of the punch). Duggan starts firing off a ton of great looking rights and lefts as the crowd goes apeshit and DiBiase bumps like a pinball and then begs off. Duggan hit a running headbutt, but Skandor Akbar breaks up the pin which allows DiBiase to take over by kneeing Duggan in the back as he went after Akbar. Duggan countered an Irish whip with a leapfrog(!), rebounded off the ropes with a shouldblock that caused a ref bump. This all set up the finsish with Docter Death giving DiBiase a loaded glove to knock out Duggan for the win. The match was announced as being 7 minutes and 48 seconds. I think they could have and should have gone a little longer. If they went 12 minutes and gave DiBiase a little bit longer to draw more heat off Duggan it would have been even more effective everytime Duggan's hope spots were cut off. Overall it's is one of the better 8 minute matches I've seen. I would call it a ***** classic but it was very good and accomplished it's job, which was to set up the big money rematch. Which I will try to watch tonight and post my thoughts on tomorrow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest teke184 Posted June 7, 2005 Report Share Posted June 7, 2005 Helmet, Does this appear to be the infamous match Bill Watts referred to where Duggan split his skull on the ringpost and, as a result, got blood poisoning? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Some Guy Posted June 7, 2005 Report Share Posted June 7, 2005 It might be. It's hard to tell for sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goodhelmet Posted June 7, 2005 Author Report Share Posted June 7, 2005 I have no idea. It very well could be BUT you can clearly see Duggan blading after the ringpost shot. My guess is they did the same match around the circuit and he got it in one of the similar matches. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted July 20, 2005 Report Share Posted July 20, 2005 Oddly enough, I have never, not even once, been able to catch a wrestler blading on camera. Anyway ... I watched this match tonight and was sort of impressed, but this wasn't something I'd really want to watch again. Don't get me wrong -- it was fun and had awesome heat -- but it seemed to be missing something, and it's something that I don't think the rematch had either, which I'll get to momentarily. The main thing that bugged me was that Duggan had both shoulders up in the air when the ref counted three to finish the match. Besides that, I just didn't feel like I was watching anything remarkable. DiBiase controlled the match, which was cool, but he didn't really do any wrestling moves outside of his (admittedly great) punches and fistdrops. As you know, I don't place nearly as much emphasis on offense as some, but the offense here was so pedestrian. What they did looked great, but they didn't do much. I realize that the nature of this match was that it was a brawl, so it's going to mostly be punching and kicking, but the match honestly bored me because there seemed to be nothing going on. This just came across as an eight-minute slugfest with some cool facial expressions from Duggan and a nice blade job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goodhelmet Posted August 24, 2005 Author Report Share Posted August 24, 2005 I know you re-evaluated the stipulation match, what about this one? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted August 24, 2005 Report Share Posted August 24, 2005 Good match, but nothing all that special. I liked it about the same as I did before, maybe a *little* bit more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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