APW Open Tryouts, "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan On Gimmick Changes

– All Pro Wrestling is holding open try outs to anyone who wants to achieve their dream of becoming a pro wrestler and win a full ride scholarship. They take place on October 29th at 12 PM at the APW Garage in Hayward, CA. To sign up and for more information, call 510-785-8396 or e-mail info@allprowrestling.com.

– AWE recently spoke with "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan about how he received his famous nickname:

He wasn't always the Hacksaw. Nope. Jim Duggan used to be plain ol' Big Jim Duggan, whose look was, as Duggan describes, "short hair, clean-shaven, red and black trunks, and a long, gold bathrobe."

"A wrestling promoter came up to me and said, Kid, you might have a future in this business, but come up with something better than Big Jim Duggan, and get rid of the gold bathrobe," Duggan said.

Duggan then tried a gimmick in which he was the masked Convict. The mask had Cs on either side to denote him being, you know, The Convict.

"And people were saying, Why did you put those ears on your mask?" Duggan recalled.

Next up, he was Wildman Duggan. He grew his hair and beard long and scraggly, and wore an outfit with fur and chains on it.

"Didn't work, either."

Four years into his career, he finally hit it – as "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan.

"I had the opportunity to see this business come from National Guard armories and high-school gyms to going all over the world in huge, giant arenas," Duggan said. "It's evolved to where it's not just two guys rolling around in trunks no more. It's costumes, it's music, it's fireworks. But if you want to keep the people's interest, if you want to have the people standing up and going, Ho-o-o-o, you've got to give them something more than fancy-dan outfits. And that's what Hacksaw Jim Duggan does. Nothing fancy-dan about me. A 2?4, the flag of the United States of America."

Duggan will appear at AWE's Night of the Superstars this Saturday in Woodstock, VA, you can get more details by clicking here.