WWE's Duggan to Newsmax: Holding Off Intruder 'Terrifying'

WWE Hall of Famer "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan for years carried a 2-by-4 to the ring and got used to throwing people out during his matches, but he told Newsmax on Thursday that earlier this month when a stranger came through the front door of his South Carolina home, he threw the man out and held him at bay by using a different weapon until the police came — his "Dirty Harry" style .44 Magnum.

But Duggan, 68, told Newsmax's "National Report" that said he's glad he didn't have the gun in his hand when the man entered his home, as he likely would have shot him.

"So thank goodness I didn't have a gun in my hand when he broke in," said Duggan. "My first reaction was to grab him and throw him out. By the time I got the gun, I realized he wasn't a threat, so it could have been a horrible, horrible deal.

"As it was, my poor wife, her blood pressure and heart rate went through the roof. It was a terrifying ordeal. We went to bed that night and I was like, 'Honey, we don't need to go to the movies.'"

He recalled that on the night of the incident at the rural home he shares with his wife, they'd left the doors open to let their dogs and cats in, and while his wife was packing to go on the road and he was watching television, "there's just a huge pounding on the door."

"This guy opens the door and he goes to step in, but he trips over our front steps into the house and he falls in," Duggan said. "I had a flashback to the old days and I grabbed him and I threw him out to the front porch and he's screaming, 'No! Help me! Help me! Stop, no!'"

Duggan said his wife "kind of helped hold him down" while he reached inside for the gun, which he keeps there to scare away animals like foxes and coyotes.

"I'm holding him down with one hand and he's screaming, 'They're trying to kill me,'" said Duggan. "So my first impression is, it was a home invasion. I'm checking the back door, but nobody came in. So I'm holding this guy down and he's screaming … I'm thinking, Oh, my gosh, what did this guy bring to my house?"

Meanwhile, there were two men on the road, yelling that they were "gonna get you," said Duggan.

He said his wife called 911, and then his other neighbors showed up and said the man had been pounding on their doors as well.

"A lot of folks blast the police," said Duggan. "But when you need one, they can't get there quick enough. This man, I have no idea who he was. I had never seen him before. I have him held down with one hand. I got a gun in my other hand, looking around to see who else is coming.

"My heart's pounding out of my chest, and I tell you as soon as I first saw that first blue light flickering, it was a huge sigh of relief."

As it turns out, the man was running from someone else when he crashed into Duggan's house.

Duggan said he learned from the county sheriff that the suspect, 25, was under a restraining order at a nearby house "from a young girl" and had broken into the home.

"Two males in the house had guns [and] they were pistol-whipping him," said Duggan. "He ran down to every house on our road, to five houses, and pounded on the doors."

The man had seen the outside Christmas lights at the Duggan residence and came there for help.

Duggan said the suspect didn't know whose house he'd landed in.

"At first he was afraid of me, and then afraid of the gun, and then I realized he was actually terrified of these two men in the street," said Duggan. "We don't have a whole lot of folks on the property, so it was quite a shock that only have a guy in the property and come right through our front door."

Duggan said that even though he threw the man out physically, that doesn't mean he wants to get back in the wrestling ring."

"After it all happened, I'm like, I'm lucky I didn't pull a hamstring jumping off the couch," he joked.