Mid-South #33 Page #2

The anticipation built for the grudge match between the two former gridiron stars, as Mike Jackson lost an opener to the returning Missing Link.

After that match, the fateful moment was at hand. Jim Ross made the ring announcements, first introducing Steve "Dr. Death" Williams, then referee Carl Fergie. Duggan, however, was not in the ring, or headed toward it.

"Hopefully, he'll be joining us here in just a few moments," Ross said.

Williams was less patient. "Where is he? Where are you, coward? Jim Duggan, you talk about how rough and tough you are. Where is he? He's a coward! He's afraid of me!"

The crowd suddenly reacted sharply, but not because Duggan was coming to the ring. Instead, it was Ted DiBiase, making his first appearance in a Mid-South ring in one year! DiBiase climbed in wearing a suit and carrying a Southern Methodist University helmet just like Duggan's.

DiBiase told Williams he had taken care of the Doc's problem for him. According to DiBiase, he was on his way into the arena to make his debut, when Duggan attacked him from behind and tried to cave his head in with the football helmet. "Being the athlete that I am, I ducked that helmet and gave one punch to that glass jaw of that no-good, drunken hippie, and I left him right out there where he belongs, in the gutter!"

DiBiase announced he was back to take the North American title and pick up right where he left off. Ross had a hard time believing DiBiase had knocked Duggan out with one punch, and a harder time believing he'd had a fight with Duggan and hadn't gotten his clothes wrinkled. DiBiase brushed Ross off and gave Duggan's helmet to Steve Williams as a souvenir.

Watts was even more skeptical: "Something stinks in Denmark."

When Mid-South Wrestling returned from an important commercial message, Watts announced that someone had found Duggan in the parking lot outside the building and that he was in "pretty bad shape."

After a Brickhouse Brown-Butch Reed match and a Jim Cornette interview, Mid-South fans beheld a grisly scene. Bill Watts apologized for interviewing a bloody Hacksaw Duggan in torn clothes, but Duggan had demanded a chance to explain his no-show before allowing anyone to take him to the hospital he desperately needed to visit.

"I bent over .. bent over to get my bag out of the trunk. I don't know who it was, but three or four guys grabbed ahold of me. I'm doing OK, I'm holding my own," Duggan said, stopping occasionally to wipe blood out of his eyes. "Then, BOOM, from behind, a blackjack or something. The only guy, yeah, hold onto me, I look up and the sonova --, the only face I can make out of the group ... was Ted DiBiase."

Duggan continued, growing increasingly emotional over what he seemed to feel was his letting down of the fans, until he seemed near tears. "And DiBiase took it to me with a slapjack. But I made it here. He said I couldn't make it here, and he left me in the m--*cough*, in the mud. But I told you people, I told you I'd come back, I'd come here and I'd stand up to Dr Death. I'd stand up for what he did to other people."

Finally, the emotion focused into rage. "DiBiase ... DIBI--*cough**cough*. It didn't work! I'm here, and I'll -- I'll go on."

Bill Watts called the display one of the most courageous moments he had experienced, and told the officials helping to keep the wobbly Duggan upright to get him to a hospital.

And so, despite the fact that fans had not seen either man lay a hand on the other, the DiBiase-Duggan feud was back on all cylinders, despite lying dormant for a year. The two would meet in a new series of singles matches that might have even exceeded the savagery of their 1983 go-round.

Would Duggan get his revenge? Well, Mid-South fans had to wait about seven months for the answer, but you only have to wait one. 

NEXT MONTH:

We'll go through the matches that ended the DiBiase-Duggan feud once and for all in Mid-South.

Back to Mid-South Main