Hulk Hogan vs. Rusty Brooks (and other Dream Matches!)

… my god. Super obese, simply horrible haircut, wimpy facial hair, and a terrible-fitting singlet. This is like the Supreme Jobber. The High King of Job Mountain. I am in awe.

Welcome back to more Dream Matches! This week, I have some of the most ridiculous jobbery matches imaginable! Starting off with an ultra-rare 1985 HULK HOGAN squash, as he takes on Rusty Brooks- the potential King of the Jobbers!

Next up, it’s a classic “Randy Savage Template” match against the failing Monster Heel, Mr. Hughes, from 1993 WWF! After that, it’s one of the most low-rent Name vs. Name matches in the history of wrestling, as Rodney from the Mean Street Posse takes on Headbanger Thrasher in mid-2000! I mean it’s WWF Jakked, BUT STILL! Then it’s over to WCW as we get a horrendously low-rent Jim Powers vs. Wayne Bloom match on 1998 WCW Pro, then Hacksaw Jim Duggan dropping shoot-ish comments on WCW Saturday Night so he can take on a singlet-clad Barry Darsow! Then it’s TWO Evan Karagias vs. Lenny Lane matches, as I use the singular awfulness of Karagias to learn more about how NOT to do pro wrestling!

… What? I’m on vacation still! I needed some random stuff and didn’t have time to find proper headliners! EAT YOUR RODNEY vs. THRASHER AND LIKE IT!

HULK HOGAN vs. RUSTY BROOKS:
(WWF, 1985)
* I was looking for Hulk Hogan jobbers quashes (a rarity after his World Title run started) and OH MY GOD, look at this jobber. Short, fat to the point of ridiculousness, and a tight green & white singlet over his porcine body. Tremendous. Hogan, in white, is formally challenged by WWF newcomer “Macho Man” Randy Savage & Miss Elizabeth for their first feud. Liz gets on the mic and, with unexpected sass given how her character evolved, asks “Why you don’t wrestle anybody with any credentials?”, and Hogan immediately tells Savage to bring it, only to get attacked from behind, and it’s on!

Amazingly, Brooks batters Hogan around the hard cam until Hogan just decides to no-sell and OHHHHHHHHHH SHIT, fat boy gonna die. Hogan has such amazing timing with his no-selling, stopping in mid-sell like he realized “… WAIT”. He just stares Brooks down, ignores another shot, and it’s three punches into an Axe Bomber which has the porpoise flopping all over the ring. Hogan then follows with the bodyslam & Legdrop at (0:39), and before he’s even on his feet and raising his arms, Savage comes off the rope with a Flying Axehandle! He lays boots to Hogan, but the Hulkster quickly comes back and punches him over the top rope, sending Savage running.

Rating: 1/4* (only 39 seconds, but phenomenal selling by Brooks, who bounces all over the place despite his size)

“MACHO MAN” RANDY SAVAGE vs. MR. HUGHES (w/ Harvey Whippleman):
(WWF Coliseum Video, July 26th 1993)
* It’s a Coliseum Video exclusive with no commentary! Macho Man vs. Mr. Hughes, then deep in his feud with the Undertaker (he’s currently carrying around the urn). Hmmm, I predict this one will have Mr. Hughes dominating Savage for nearly the entirety of the match, only to lose via a last-minute mistake.

Savage attacks before the bell, but Hughes quickly turns the tide as the entire hard cam looks the other way like there’s a vendor going around behind them or something, haha. No wonder they never used this match. Speaking of, Savage takes a slow beatdown to no heat, and then messes up a whip-reversal, having to stumble backwards into the ropes and improvise. Savage charges into a backbreaker as he enters his patented “get mini-comebacks but get crushed so you’ll still think he’s fighting”. Savage gets tossed, goes into the post, Harvey cheats, etc., then Hughes pulls the hair and clotheslines him down. However, he crotches himself in the ropes and eats the flying axehandle, so Harvey jumps onto the apron and tosses Hughes the urn. But Hughes smashes Harvey by mistake and gets rolled up, netting Savage the win at (5:07)! HOLY SHIT I AM NOSTRADAMUS!! Who could have ever predicted this but me! I wonder if I can use this power for good? I predict that all wrestling fans will soon realize that Jon Moxley sucks! I predict that they will make more Disney Fairies movies! I predict that I will marry Jade Cargill! I predict… ah better quit while I’m ahead.

This was pretty dreadful, as Hughes is stiff as ever, only doing slow punches to the kidneys and “lifting choke” with no energy, Savage botched a spot in weird fashion, then did his usual “Savage Template” with mini comeback attempts until Hughes finally made a mistake and took a fall. You’d think Hughes would be kept strong, but this appears to just be a filler match for the live crowd.

Rating: *1/2 (a really weak effort all-around- House Show Mode plus Hughes being terrible)

THRASHER vs. RODNEY:
(WWF Jakked, July 22nd 2000)
* OH COME ON! In what world should THIS atrocity ever made television? One half of the Headbangers versus the least-interesting member of the friggin’ Mean Street Posse? Where they THAT hard up for guys to work the D-Shows? Rodney has dropped the iconic (?) sweaters of the MSP for… a white shirt with torn sleeves to reveal his shoulder tats, making him look every bit like 2000’s stereotypical college douchebag? Well I guess it fits.

Rodney starts out slugging away, but Thrasher soon comes back with the ugliest backslide in history. Trasher with a clothesline but Rodney gets a swinging neckbreaker for two, but Trasher gets another clothesline and now it’s a double-down after this scintillating batch of offense. Trasher with a powerslam but eats a DDT, but Rodney goes up and misses a cannonball, getting small-packaged for the Thrasher win at (2:51). Jesus Christ, beating RODNEY with a small package reversal? So weird. This was hilariously bad even for a 3 minute match- nobody was really botching anything but every move looked ugly and like neither guy really knew how to wrestle (to be fair, Rodney barely did and was in that “trying kinda hard” phase as he was trying to justify his salary). Add to that doing the “RAW Sell” twice in a 3 minute match and you have some true filler nonsense while the commentary talks about the angles of the day.

Rating: 1/2* (SO BAD considering it’s a competitive match and not really a squash)

JIM POWERS vs. WAYNE BLOOM:
(WCW Pro, Aug. 8th 1998)
* Oh yeah- one half of the Young Stallions versus one half of the Beverly Brothers- now THIS was a reason to watch the WCW D-Shows! A true battle of the nobody undercard guys, Powers, who’s either a jobber or a JTTS, takes on Wayne Bloom, who usually isn’t even at that level. Powers is in a black/white/red singlet and Bloom’s in black tights. Bloom is MUCH taller than Powers, who is squat and super-roided.

Bloom works over Powers from behind but bails off of a hiptoss & clothesline, then gets dragged into the ring over the ropes. Powers gets slammed back telegraphing a backdrop and side-slammed, then Powers gets his boot up in the corner, but Bloom dodges a charage and finishes him with a BUTTERFLY SUPLEX at (2:22). Haha jesus, a friggin’ butterfly suplex? And Bloom actually WINS, even though Powers was the one with the bigger push (Bloom almost never got on either of the big shows and even then was usually paired up with Mike Enos). The match was ridiculously simplistic and fairly lazy, Bloom spending a chunk of it on the floor or methodically trying to work over Powers, then finishes with a transition move. Bloom was also moving pretty stiffly throughout, not looking very athletic.

Rating: 3/4* (not actively horrible but weak)

“HACKSAW” JIM DUGGAN vs. BARRY DARSOW:
(WCW Saturday Night, July 24th 1999)
* Duggan cuts a promo about his return from cancer treatments, talking about prayers and the Lord and all that, then makes some quasi-shoot remarks about how he’s been exiled to Saturday Night, but that’s okay “Since this is where my FANS are!”. Darsow, at about 40 years old, looks super-flabby, balding and unimpressive, like a total jobber in his black singlet (Duggan is older and uglier- barely- but still looks like a burly bruiser). He finally charges in and immediately gets slammed.

Darsow sells the back and the two basically do the most brawl-heavy match ever with zero moves at all, and no-selling at random as they often have to throw a second shot just to get the other guy to acknowledge them. Duggan clobbers Darsow, who bails and chokes away on him, Duggan barely registering two eye-pokes before he hits a back elbow in the corner, does the ten punches, the three-point stance, and drops Old Glory (his new kneedrop finisher) for the three at (2:25). Now THAT’s an easy night at the office! As a match it, uh… always kept moving! I mean there’s no resting and was constant fighting, though it never really had a flow and for the most part neither guy sold anything until it was time for the end. Like they had no plan and just went out there to throw shots and ended up bumping into each other a few times, then Hacksaw won.

Rating: 3/4* (I mean, it wasn’t a LAZY match!)

EVAN KARAGIAS vs. LENNY LANE:
(WCW Saturday Night, April 13th 1999)
* The first two two Karagias/Lane matches! Why Karagias of all people? Because I’ve learned he’s a great example of someone so bad at wrestling it ends up informing my knowledge of how the in-ring stuff works! Lenny has douchey sideburns (man this is such a late ’90s thing), long hair and yellow trunks, while Karagias is in baggy blue pants, stripping down to black trunks with “Outrageous” written on his ass. Wait, his last name is already a pun- why does he need a nickname that rhymes with it?

Lane for some reason turns around and jaws with the fans on the ropes, so Karagias, after messing up the first try, nails him with a punch, then buggers a neckbreaker (Lane appears to get caught on Evan while he’s twisting). Lenny catches him with a powerslam and gets annoyed by a “Lenny Sucks!” chant, getting clubbed from behind and suplexed, but he hides behind the ref on a springboard attempt from Karagias, then dumps him. Evan does some complicated trip-up on the floor and I have NO idea what he was going for there, as he trips Lenny AND wristlocks him, which looks super-dangerous. But Karagias gets necked coming in and takes a wheelbarrow slam after a weird set-up (trying a “back kick” that looks like gently putting his leg against Lenny to set up the move). Karagias gets one comeback cut off, but catches Lane, only to have his horrible delayed springboard crossbody rolled through for two in an ugly tangle. Karagias lands on his feet from a clunky powerbomb attempt, then they do a weird leapfrog spot (was Lane supposed to just land face first and get clubbed from behind?), leading to Karagias hitting a Twisting Splash off the top for the pin at (5:33).

Oh man, Evan didn’t disappoint here. In five minutes they managed to have like ten ugly spots, often with Evan doing the “one-second hesitation of death”, an overly-clunky set-up into a move (the wheelbarrow slam & powerbomb reversal spots), doing weird shit (often attacking from behind or appearing to change his mind mid-move what he was going to do), and more. Lane wasn’t great either (he’s always been Dollar Store Chris Jericho, and can’t even do the “Cruiserweight Moves”) but nobody looks good against Evan.

Rating: 3/4* (pretty dreadful “competitive jobber match”, though at least the botches kind of look more “realistic” in that you’d expect an actual contest to look more clunky and weird than smooth and choreographed… but Karagias sucks)

EVAN KARAGIAS vs. LENNY LANE:
(WCW Thunder, May 27th 1999)
* The second match! They even have the same gear on to save me typing!

They do jobber-fu for a sec, but Lodi comes down to watch. Karagias does ten corner-punches and hits a springboard clothesline, then Lenny does a shitty spinning gutbuster- Larry Z of course disses them for stalling, but admits to his own failures as a youth, with “a million butterflies” in his stomach, so he gets it. Lenny sells “being dizzy” from that and flops onto Evan’s nuts. He recovers and hits a gutwrench ligerbomb while we see Tank Abbot in the stands. Evan gets a cross-body for two, but Lane comes right back with a lariat for two and Larry Z compliments him for stomping the hand, talking about the ways it messes a guy up (“you can’t lock your hands together so you can’t put on holds”). Karagias comes back with a facecrusher, but leaps onto Lenny’s shoulders and eats a sit-out bomb for two. But Evan just counters him with a regular front powerslam, and his Twisting Splash at (5:35), winning easily. Wow, that’s surprising.

Technically better than the first match, but so boring and basic it kind of doesn’t read as better. At least the last one had a lot of informative botches, haha. They did everything right, but mostly messed around and kept it simple (possibly because they screwed up so much of the last match and this was a bigger show).

Rating: * (the most “meh” match ever- technically fine but boring)