Shawn Daivari has been in the news recently for something a bit out of character. The bad-guy wrestler turned face for a few minutes on a subway train in Minnesota to confront a passenger who was threatening another man – putting the aggressor in a chokehold until he was subdued, then throwing him off the train for the police to deal with.
A brief flurry of attention came after initial news reports hailed Daivari as a hero, but wrestling fans just as quickly reverted back to past history, booing him as lustily as they ever had before, almost as if he had never done his good deed for the day.
Which brings us to New Year’s Chaos, where Daivari is matched up with, ahem, American hero “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan, who will no doubt have the fans on his side along with Old Glory and his trusty 2×4.
Daivari would not comment for this story, but a close friend reached out to us to share some insight into his thoughts heading into the match.
“He’s p—-d,” said the friend, adding that Daivari feels a bit like he’s being “set up.”
“I think Shawn feels that he’s being typecast as this bad guy from the Middle East, and that putting him up against Duggan only reinforces that perception,” the friend said.
Fueling the fire is a feeling from Daivari that Duggan is no authentic hero.
“What has he done, other than come up with a gimmick wrapping himself literally in the American flag and making a career pretending to be something that he isn’t?” the friend said.
Duggan readily concedes that he isn’t a hero.
“A
lot of times, you know, a young guy will come up and say, Hacksaw, you’re an American hero. I say, No, sir, I’m not an American hero. The American heroes are the brave men and women that are out there keeping my family safe, keeping all of us safe here in our country,” Duggan said in a recent interview for the Top Rope Pro Wrestling podcast.
Duggan said he is proud to be a part of the upcoming New Year’s Chaos show because of the ties between Top Rope and the Virginia Wounded Warrior Program, which provides an array of programs and services to men and women suffering from physical and mental ailments related to military service.
“The least that we can do is honor and respect and try to help out the Wounded Warriors any way anybody can. These are the guys making the ultimate sacrifice – being away from their families, putting their lives on the line, and a lot of them getting hurt very badly,” Duggan said.
‘There he goes again, wrapping himself up in the flag, pretending to be this big hero,” said the friend of Daivari when he was read the quote from Duggan in a followup phone interview.
“The guy is nothing but a phony. Maybe Daivari needs to choke him out like he did the guy on the train in Minneapolis,” the friend said.
More online at www.TopRopeProWrestling.com.
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