The Assassination of Jim Duggan By the Coward Bill Goldberg | WCW Monday Nitro 6/26/00
Despite happening on a show that exists to destroy the emotional sincerity that is core to pro wrestling, Goldberg/Jim Duggan transcends.
June 2000 is getting to be perilously close to the end of the line for WCW, but if anybody knows, they’re not too pressed about it. Ernest “The Cat” Miller is an authority figure, constantly talking about “ratings” as if there’s a prayer of World Championship Wrestling getting good ones ever again. Rules don’t matter, kayfabe is a distant memory, and everybody working for the company looks absolutely miserable about where their life has taken them, except Tank Abbott, who looks happy when he’s dancing.
And yet, there’s still life pulsing through this soon-to-be-corpse. On this occasion, that life is “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan vs. Goldberg, a surface-level unlikely candidate for the praise that I am about to heap upon it, but look: BIG EGG and the WCW MONDAY NITRO MASTERLIST are all about honesty, and honestly, Jim Duggan and Bill Goldberg fucking rock. History says that the Vince Russo/Eric Bischoff idea of turning Goldberg heel was an all-time blunder, but that’s also what history says about Stone Cold Steve Austin’s future change of attitude, and if you can turn off the accountant in your brain who believes that the best wrestling is the kind that draws the most money, you’ll come to the right side of history.
With Austin, you’ve got a full year and various shades of black to explore. With Goldberg, there’s far less. This night, against Jim Duggan, is the peak of the experiment, and a real showcase of what Duggan was capable of as the emotional anchor of an evening’s worth of wrestling — something he probably hadn’t done since Mid South, or the 1987 Slammy Awards. See, in 1998, Jim Duggan announced that he had kidney cancer and that he was going away for treatment and recovery. He returned, minus one kidney, and kept working. I haven’t seen much of his run as a janitor/the WCW Television Champion, and I’m not sure why commentary is surprised that Hacksaw was on the job on June 26, 2000, but he’s in a “the hero we have” role tonight, stepping up when the evil WCW commissioner announces that he’s giving Goldberg a bye into the main event, laying down a challenge to Da Man.
This is, of course, patently insane. Even if Duggan wasn’t a cancer survivor, he’s well past his prime, and Goldberg is a monster. What hope does he have? This line of logic is presented to him by commentary, by The Cat, by his wife, but he’s had enough of this shit, how WCW, the sport that he loves, has been ruined. Someone has to stand up to Goldberg, and he is decidedly someone. It’s a great story. Flat out. Despite its flaws (The Cat), it is an emotional masterwork, an old gunslinger filling his hands like Rooster Cogburn and charging headlong into the abyss. What hope does he have? A fucking fighter’s chance. A slim hope, but hope all the same.
I try to keep promos and backstage segments out of my consideration of matches for this project and for BIG EGG in general, but that’s pretty tough to do here — everything plays out over the course of an hour, somehow soulful despite WCW’s car crash style of editing and pacing. So much shit happens on this show but Hacksaw Jim Duggan makes a case for himself as being the most important of them and keeps building on that until he’s finally in the ring with Goldberg. I’ve put all of this before the paywall as a means of saying that you need to watch Goldberg/Duggan. Go do it.
Colette Arrand
UP NEXT: We're hitting 200 matches with the next installment of the WCW MONDAY NITRO MASTERLIST, so why not bust out the 288-sided die to figure out what that's going to be? Why, it's episode #115, the 11/24/97 edition of Nitro emanating from lovely Saginaw, Michigan. And receiving the honor of being match #200? Why, it's Prince Iaukea vs. Alex Wright! One of the most WCW-ass WCW matches ever!
Sean O’Haire & Mark Jindrak vs. Rey Mysterio Jr. & Juventud Guerrera
O’Haire and Jindrak are new to Nitro, having graduated from the Power Plant after six months. I love how in World Championship Wrestling you could go from trainee to “seen by millions” after like a semester of study. They’re jacked and wearing the kind of gear that looks like fruit roll-ups and they’re wrestling one of the most totally on drugs wrestlers in the year 2000 in Juvi, the conditions are perfect for a memorable debut. That’s exactly what this is, too. Some of the double team ideas are convoluted, but they’re ideas, and it’s really fun watching everyone run them as fast as possible, especially when they result in happy accidents like Juvi landing on Jindrak after a missile dropkick, right into a cover.
I’ve been watching a lot of Jackass lately and there’s a bit in one of the point fives where Bam and Ryan try to dropkick each other such that they collide balls first. They fail, claiming it’s impossible, but Rey and Juvi do it here. They’re kind of fascinating at this point, treading water and handling it in the exact opposite way: Rey’s happy to collect a paycheck, Juvi thinks he’s the most famous wrestler in the world. I think both of them relished working two dudes who could go like this and are absolutely game to bump their asses off — they even lose clean, in WCW, in the year 2000.
Rating: ** & ¾
3 Count vs. Chuck Palumbo & Sean Stasiak
This is for the WCW World Tag Team Championships, as Tank Abbott has had it up to here with The Perfect Event meddling with 3 Count’s music! It’s Shane Helms and Shannon Moore in there for 3 Count, Evan Karagias at ringside. Palumbo and O’Haire are Lex Luger and Mr. Perfect, in case you’re wondering how the frequent Russo praise “he gave everyone something to do” works in practice. It’s crazy how much larger they are than Moore and Helms. This is a slight downgrade from the opener, as Palumbo’s not my favorite Power Plant guy, Stasiak didn’t have it, and OMEGA bois are a downgrade over Rey and Juvi, but it’s in a similar lane and is plenty enjoyable, especially when Moore and Helms are doing crazy shit or getting thrown around. 3 Count should have won to keep the upset theme going, but whatever.
Rating: ** & ½
Hacksaw Jim Duggan vs. Goldberg
Again, I don’t want to give too much credit to the pair of geniuses who did more than anyone shy of Vince McMahon to ensure that WWE would enjoy a nearly 20-year monopoly over the great sport of professional wrestling, but turning Bill Goldberg heel makes a certain amount of success. He’s big, he’s powerful, and the majority of his matches end in the complete and utter destruction of his opponent. It’s entirely possible that someone like that would see the writing on the wall in the summer of 2000 and say “fuck the remaning few fans who come out to see me, I’m getting my bag” in choosing to become a hired gun.
Goldberg’s disconnect from it is noble on the surface — he likes being a hero, he hates making kids cry — but the reality of it is likely that he was savvy enough to know that he wouldn’t actually be making a bag, as top heels tend to make less money and garner fewer press opportunities than top babyfaces. There are exceptions to that, of course, most notably Hulk Hogan, but if Goldberg the wrestling character was seeing the writing on the wall in the summer of ‘00, so was the Goldberg of reality: if you were doing appearances with Mark McGuire and picking up roles in JCVD movies and had achieved a kind of global fame beyond the dreams of most men in his chosen field of football and the one he randomly went into in wrestling, you’d be insane to want to give that up.
It probably didn’t help that neither Russo nor Bischoff seemed to much like Goldberg and felt like this was a presentation of his character somewhere closer to the objective truth. In that light, hoo boy, I can’t imagine “you’re an asshole who is going to punch this cancer survivor in his remaining kidney” was a fun assignment to be given. Regardless, Goldberg takes to this role like a fish taking to water. He is big, he is imposing, and he doesn’t give a fuck about Jim Duggan or what he represents — he’s an obstacle standing between him and a shot at the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. His mistake, if he makes one, is assuming that Duggan wouldn’t be much of an obstacle at all.
It’s a three minute match, the kind of thing most would call a squash, but I wouldn’t go that far. This got build: the opening segment, two backstage segments with Duggan and his wife, and a promo package about Duggan’s courage in coming back to wrestling in 1999. Notably, the flag he waves in that promo package isn’t the red, white, and blue of his country, but the purple and gold of WCW. When he was waving that thing around in 1997 it felt like he was trying to insert himself into the WCW/nWo angle, where he arguably didn’t belong, but with the names and players shifted around to make room for the New Blood and Millionaires Club, with Duggan talking so passionately about what WCW meant to him and what he thought Bill Goldberg could have meant to WCW, it works: this motherfucker bleeds purple and gold, and so do I!
What good is passion against a cyborg? Plenty, it turns out. Duggan, stalking the ring and mean mugging Goldberg as he comes out to his march, elevates this match to something that, frankly, he hadn’t had many of in quite some time: a serious PPV-level encounter. Having wrestled at or near the top of the card for two extremely different promotions in the 1980s, he’s someone worth studying if you’re a wrestler struggling to connect to the crowd. You can’t just get what Duggan had, but he’s pissed, he’s desperate, and he’s in for the fight of his life, and all of that is conveyed through his body language and facial expressions, which read as loud and clear as Goldberg’s. It’s not that he doesn’t fear Goldberg in this situation, it’s that he does and fights on anyhow. When Duggan comes out on top of the opening punch exchange with Goldberg, driving him into the ropes with his loopy old haymakers, the crowd is so electric you’d mistake them for a peak Nitro audience in a bigger venue in a more storied wrestling town than Des Moines, graveyard of dozens of monopoly-era Raws and SmackDowns.
The scrap that follows referee Mickey Jay separating the two is very bulls locking horns — Duggan’s not a graceful bumper, having rarely been required to do so, and Goldberg’s facing a new learning curve in working heel. Like the Regal/Goldberg match I reviewed some time ago, I think the match benefits from the slight translation error between the two — it makes Goldberg seem meaner, more feral. When he catches Duggan in a headlock, he cranks it once before throwing him out of the ring to the floor — he’s powerful enough that one crank is all he needs to assert his dominance over Duggan. Hacksaw doesn’t stop, though, throwing rights and lefts to the head and body until Goldberg counters an attempted battering ram by shoving him into the ringpost.
It’s all over from there. It was all over when the bell rang. It was all over when Duggan laid down the challenge. Nothing Goldberg does here is necessary to beat Hacksaw Jim Duggan, but that’s the point — he’s so far gone that he follows up the ringpost shot with a punch to Duggan’s sole kidney. Most of Goldberg’s offense from here is focused on Duggan’s back, continuing to work the kidney, with the exception of a neck crank that spurs on a classic old school hope spot, Duggan responding to the crowd’s USA chant with a big thumbs up instead of letting his arm fall for the three. His bodyslam on Goldberg shortly after is thunderous, but in the grand tradition of WCW/NWA/JCP muscleheads going back to the height of the Road Warriors, it isn’t enough to keep Goldberg down for long. Sadly for Duggan, Goldberg gets up while he has his back turned to set up his three point stance tackle. When he turns, Goldberg spears him, Jackhammers him, and wins.
That’s not enough for Goldberg, who begins punching at a downed Duggan’s kidneys, laying in six shots before leaving the ring. Duggan’s eyes glaze over as blood pours from his mouth, his wife running down to the ring. Goldberg’s music plays the whole time as he’s wheeled out on a stretcher to the ambulance. Nobody in the locker room is happy about this. It feels like a legitimate point of no return for Goldberg and World Championship Wrestling. For the sake of this post I will ignore the fact that it isn’t, other than to say that with all of the new health problems Duggan experiences as a consequence of this match, is it any wonder he burned his Social Security card and moved up north to Canada? Those medical bills are no joke. Neither is this match. It’s the peak of Duggan’s WCW career, and is pretty close to Goldberg’s. Required viewing.
Rating: ****
Mike Awesome vs. Kevin Nash
One reason WCW ruled is the sheer number of times they ran Powerbomb Dude vs. Powerbomb Dude. Didn’t matter what weight class, either. Mike Awesome’s WCW debut was at Kevin Nash’s expense, but Nash isn’t thinking about that — he wants to get his hands on Goldberg, who will be in the main event. “This isn’t the guy whose gimmick is being late to the building” says Scott Hudson, and it cannot be overstated just how fucking terrible WCW commentary of this era was. I didn’t mention it during Goldberg/Duggan because it rose above Mark Madden trading in his Jay and Silent Bob quotes for Shakespeare, but they’re incapable of letting a moment speak for itself, and this is a moment that, frankly, deserves better than Madden saying, of the weight Nash carries into this match, that “if any man can carry it, it’s the Sexecutioner.” Anyhow I guess Big Kev is doing the Disco Inferno gimmick of being a great wrestler who lacks focus, but here he’s got a mission.
Nash and Awesome also don’t quite know how to wrestle each other, which is something I’m going to lay at Nash’s feet since he historically struggles against dudes who are as big or tall as he is. Like, for Patron Saints of Sick Sons of Bitches I just watched a Diesel/Typhoon match that ends with a Diesel diving clothesline because he can’t get Typhoon up. Here the issue is that he doesn’t really want to bump, which I can’t blame him for given WCW’s penchant for booking people two or three times a night, but in working around that limitation he and Awesome are on different pages. There’s a bit where Nash calls a spot in the corner that particularly sticks out, where Awesome is supposed to counter Nash, go for a German, and get elbowed out, but this blows two of Awesome’s signature spots — the diving back elbow from the second rope and the German suplex — but muscle memory forces him to start going for both of them. The audible on the elbow is awkward looking, but not as much as when he actually hoists Nash for the suplex, letting him go when he gets elbowed.
It’s still fun, though. Awesome’s such a little shit, constantly jaw-jacking, especially when Nash is about to counter him. What happens later in his WCW run is fucking criminal, obviously, but he’s a funny guy in addition to being a menace and an utter spectacle. I had some Thunders on in the background and it’s crazy how little they cared to protect him right after he jumped from ECW. The move would have been to do a Goldberg run, but instead his matches were choked by overbooking, never allowing him room to do what they presumably hired him to do. This Nash match isn’t exactly a marquee encounter, but we’re all about burning big matches in the year 2000. Nash wins, not with a powerbomb, but with a medium boot to Awesome while he’s holding a chair.
Rating: ** & ½
Buff Bagwell vs. Scott Steiner
Another ECW alum WCW booked to look like a fucking idiot was Shane Douglas, though that’s really no loss. This is a qualifying match for the main event four way for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, originally booked to be Douglas vs. Steiner, but Douglas wanted no part of Big Poppa Pump and instead chose to put his ex-partner and current rival Buff Bagwell three seconds away from a world title match. Incredible logic! I’m grateful though, as instead of a Shane Douglas match, I get this, where Buff does his little strut and flexes, to which Scott Steiner responds with a middle finger. 10 star match, no questions asked.
They’re fucking sprinting through this match, and it is to neither man’s benefit. Goldberg/Duggan was a three minute match, but neither Nash/Awesome nor Bagwell/Steiner should have been. Nitro lost its third hour, but instead of adjusting it just became overstuffed — there are things you could absolutely cut to give two big matches and the main event a little more time. The Big Vito segment, the Kanyon pretapes, the Miss Hancock/Daffney segment, the show-long Lance Storm/Filthy Animals stalking angle that leads to a Storm/Disco Inferno match … all of that could wait for Thunder. (Dale Torborg’s sick highlights were absolutely necessary.) Instead you’ve got Steiner and Bagwell trying to blitz through their stuff and not entirely succeeding. It’s all on Bagwell’s stuff, so you could blame him, but part of roster management is knowing that the guy who suffered a nearly career-ending broken neck isn’t as fast and agile as he was and giving him the time necessary to do his shit effectively. Instead, he nearly kills himself on a Buff Blockbuster. Amazing. Steiner pins Bagwell clean with a belly-to-belly suplex after kicking out of his finishing move. Holy shit Buff Bagwell has a naked lady airbrushed on his tights. That’s worth half a star.
Rating: **
Lance Storm vs. Disco Inferno
UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. SHUT THE FUCK UP GLENN. This absolute waste of steroids is a terrible vehicle for Lance Storm’s WCW debut, but whatever, here’s year five of “the Disco Inferno is wrestling a surprisingly focused match, oh wait never mind he’s dancing.” Ideally you’d put Storm in against someone who can keep up with him on, uh, a headlock, maybe even promote it as part of the PPV, but nah. Storm wins with the half crab and immediately eats a Chartbuster and a Filthy Animals beatdown, necessitating a save from Billy Kidman. LET THINGS BREATHE. PLEASE.
Rating: **
Jeff Jarrett vs. Goldberg vs. Kevin Nash vs. Scott Steiner
Everybody I know has had such a fun time talking about how good Jeff Jarrett is over the past couple of years, but I don’t think WCW 2000 is going to make a convincing case for him. Can a six minute four-way match be any good? Given my dim view on four-way matches in general, probably not! Oh wait, Goldberg took Nash out in the back, so this is a three-way — also a kind of match I generally think stinks! Jarrett attacks Steiner to kick things off, and it’s one on one for a while, Steiner dominating with power moves. Goldberg hits the ring after Steiner shitcans Jarrett and levels Big Poppa Pump with one punch before lifting him in his insane gorilla press powerslam. YEAAAAAAHHHHHHH.
For all of the guff Steiner gets for being unpredictable and unpleasant to work with, dude really was willing to give of his body and aura for the sake of the game. Steiner manages to avoid the spear and land a belly to belly, THE VERY SAME MOVE THAT BEAT BUFF BAGWELL MIND YOU, only for Jeff Jarrett to pull the referee out before he can count three. From there, Goldberg and Jarrett stomp out Steiner, who sits in Goldberg’s cross armbreaker for an eternity while Jarrett checks the ramp to see if the next narrative beat is about to happen. It does when Mike Awesome steals the United States championship, but Steiner doesn’t notice until Awesome pulls him out of the ring, breaking WCW’s iron clad and very serious no interference rule. It’s three on one on Steiner until, to quote Tony Schiavone, “Kevin Nash finally wobbles down” to the ring to get him some. Nash manages to powerbomb Awesome and throws like half a dozen medium boots before Goldberg superkicks him, allowing Jarrett to pick up the win. Schiavone invokes the Bret Hart superkick to make it seem extra dangerous while the fans shower the fallen hero with a bunch of trash. If you told me this match was AI slop, I’d believe you. It is, at the very least, what comes of the philosophy that wins, losses, and titles in wrestling don’t matter.
Rating: * & ¾