By Lee Stevens, PWTorch Specialist

So much has changed since the first Royal Rumble match in 1988. The initial event was actually called The Rumble Royale and it was televised free on the USA Network. It consisted of a smaller group of 20 participants who came out at two minute intervals and it wasn't even the main event of the night.

The Islanders and The Young Stallions were considered main event worthy (at least for that night), Vince McMahon was still a broadcaster, and Hacksaw Jim Duggan was still an active wrestler.

I guess some things haven't changed.

The first Rumble match featured WWE Hall-of-Famers Bret Hart, Tito Santana, Harley Race, and Don Muraco, but it's Jim Duggan who remains the unlikely success story of the inaugural January event. Duggan can't match those men for titles, but 21 years later Hacksaw still laces up the boots on prime time television.

Race and Ron Bass were near the end of their careers by this time, and sadly, Junkyard Dog and Dino Bravo never had a chance at Duggan's longevity. Bravo died in an unsolved shooting in 1993 and JYD's life came to an end in an auto accident in 1998. Meanwhile, Duggan continued to wrestle.

Duggan did leave the scene briefly in the mid-1990s and successfully battled kidney cancer, only to reappear in WCW. Throughout this time, while everything else changed in the world around him, he stayed the same. His look remained the same with the basic blue trunks, the scraggly beard and his trusty 2x4. His matches remained the same with the usual set of moves consisting of mostly clotheslines, slams and shoulder tackles. His gimmick remained the same as America's patriot. Even when he portrayed a janitor on WCW TV, he was America's patriot janitor.

When big men ruled the wrestling world, there was still a place for Duggan. He managed to stick around through "The Attitude Era," extreme wrestling, and a switch to aerial assaults. When lengthy interview segments became popular, Duggan stayed with his trademark "Hooooo!". Somehow, it still worked.

Duggan is the exception to just about every rule in wrestling. You must impress with great interviews or high-flying skills. He doesn't. You must have a chiseled physique or the looks of a model. He doesn't. You must have trendy catch phrases. I'm not sure how trendy it is, but Duggan can still get most of the fans chanting "U-S-A" even if his opponent is from the states.

Despite his apparent limitations, two decades later he goes into Rumble weekend as the oldest active member of the WWE roster. Although he hasn't been announced as an official entrant, the man who just celebrated his 55th birthday has a chance to be the only member of that first Rumble to step through the ropes this weekend.

He certainly doesn't belong in the same class as Hart or Race - two of the men he competed against that night - and he'll never be mentioned as one of the greats of his time, but Duggan has survived. He has somehow managed to stay in the mix long enough to compete with "The Natural" Butch Reed and "The Gold Standard" Shelton Benjamin.

He's stood beside Nikolai Volkoff and Boris Zhukov and Vladimir Kozlov. He worked at the same time as Neidharts, both Jim and Natty. He's not the greatest technical wrestler and he certainly doesn't have the accolades of some of the men he defeated that night in Ontario, but 21 years after that victory, he's still rumbling along.

Nice work, tough guy.

Lee Stevens also examines Raw and Smackdown with "Under The Microscope." You can leave comments for him below or e-mail him at GLStevens.Torch@gmail.com

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