Rob Van Dam & Sabu vs. Stan Hansen & Takao Omori (and other Dream Matches!)

Welcome back to more Dream Matches! Today, I finally get to one I’ve been meaning to cover for months- Rob Van Dam and Sabu in ALL JAPAN, taking on all-time legend Stan Hansen with Takao Omori as his partner! I mean, RVD & Sabu working their ECW spots with Stan in the “King’s Road” company is pretty frickin’ nuts. It’s also a great look at the “All Japan TV Style” I’ve seen many times before.

Then it’s over to the “Super Indie Championship” tournament as AJ Styles takes on CM Punk in the first round! See two of the biggest indie/ROH legends of the era in some high school gym! Then over to WCW as Jamie Noble & Evan Karagias play “arguing tag team partners” as they take on the super-rookie duo of Mark Jindrak & Sean O’Haire! Come watch poor Noble have to thread these hopeless idiots into a good TV match if it kills him. Then it’s the laziest indie match you’ll EVER SEE, as the Road Warriors fight in an embarrassingly tiny ballroom against indie nothings Da Hit Squad in 2001, with some of the weirdest, most unprofessional selling I’ve ever seen from Hawk. Finally, more indie nonsense as Quiet Storm of “Early TNA” fame takes on current WWE referee Bandido Jr. in a horrifically-bad too-long indie disaster where the highlight is the big deer head in the VFW hall where they’re wrestling.

ROB VAN DAM & SABU vs. STAN HANSEN & TAKAO OMORI:
(All Japan, Jan. 20th 1997)
* Oh sure, why not? ROB VAN DAM AND SABU doing a run in All Japan of all places. Rob actually wrestled there back in his early days, saying that Giant Baba was the inspiration for his trademark airbrushed gear- Baba told him that he should try to get something to make him stand out. That they’re taking on one of the all-time legends is just icing on the cake here, but AJPW was actually really good at getting weirdo dream matches, as their thing was bringing guys in for a tour or two to fill up the midcard. I’m unfamiliar with Omori, but he has that “generic black trunks” look. Jumbo-sized ears, though. Rob’s in the “brick wall” singlet and Sabu’s in yellow.

Sabu/Omori go first, Sabu of course doing his trademark “dive at the guy’s legs” thing. Omori, instead of being bewildered by it like guys in the West sell it, just tries to stomp him and then facelocks him as the commentary actually says “Arabian-style long-u tights”. Thankfully Sabu actually knows how to chain-wrestle- watching him catch a hammerlock and shoot the half in the early going is always funny. Omori barely sells RVD’s kick series but gets blasted back by the wheel kick and eats Rolling Thunder/Arabian Facebuster to a “WOH!” pop from the surprised fans. Omori trips up Sabu and Hansen comes in, leading to Rob working spots with him- Stan gets his head bopped around but manages to sneak in a kick and back elbows him for two, the only really over guy in the match. RVD/Sabu work double-teams on him, but Omori lands an impressive dropkick on Sabu, only get caught in another crowd-pleasing double-team (an ab-stretch/rolling punch). Omori works the leg but ends up in a surfboard/flying sledge. Omori keeps making his own comebacks like he’s begrudgingly selling but gets sick of it, then Stan backdrops RVD (“chotto” sez the commentator, since Rob missed his cue and just charged into him), then gets a weak short powerbomb for two.

Omori lays a beating on Rob on the floor as the pace remains slow. He works the back as commentary keeps talking about RVD’s ponytail for some reason. RVD gets tossed, but misses a moonsault springing off the guardrail, unable to catch wily ol’ Stan. Omori with a Dory Funk-style European uppercut, but he eats the slingshot kick, Stan misses an elbow, and Sabu… royally buggers his springboard thing, Omori almost selling it before realizing he missed utterly. Aw that woulda been cool. Poor Omori was left hanging there. Sabu improvises with shitty stomps and the Arabian Press (of course mashing his knees into Omori’s face) then a running no-hands springboard moonsault. Omori rolls to the floor as the fans get excited for Sabu bringing in a chair, but his running spring off the chair leads to him eating the guardrail. Sabu springs off of RVD’s back but misses, RVD kicks a charging Omori, and Stan bulls over both guys when they try to stuff him, only to get sandwiched by dual slingshot kicks. Sabu with a Super Frankensteiner on Omori, but Rob SAILS over Stan and Sabu gets bullrushed down for two. But RVD gets involved and they try the Super Frankensteiner on STAN, who is like “the fuck are you kidding?”, grabs the ropes to halt the move, and IT’S THE LARIAT with perfect timing, absolutely turning Sabu inside-out for the pin at (13:51).

A very “basic TV match” pace with a bit of the “sudden spurt” offense as RVD & Sabu’s double-teams need a bit of time to execute, but seem to impress the crowd a bit. Having watched a fair bit of All Japan, I definitely recognize the “template” here- do a slow-paced match to show off the offense of the guest wrestlers, do some token kickouts, then end it with a regular-old finish and not some wild frenzy. Too bad Sabu fucked up his springboard- kind of shameful, too, considering he had all that time on the apron and it was a spot with some build to it. Omori seems pretty good, if “Generic AJPW Style”- his Eurocuts and dropkicks are PRECISE, though he seemed like he was only begrudgingly selling things as the “token offense-absorber” of his team to show off the RVD/Sabu spots. Like he’d just trip up someone or nail them and then walk out like nothing had happened. Sabu kept getting clumsy throughout the match, too (even by 1997 he was faltering badly), even nearly botching the finish and having to grab onto Stan to avoid embarrassment, but good ol’ Stan was a 10/10 Wrestling IQ genius, hanging onto the ropes the whole time and being ready to counter the move, then BLAMMO! No getting up from the resulting Lariat. Mostly it’s just kinda fun seeing the weirdest damn guys thrown into the “All Japan TV Style”- I’ve seen Misawa take apart Hayabusa in this same style of match, and it’s an eye-opener to how versatile it is with such disparate opponents.

Rating: **1/4 (fun, goofy nonsense- mostly “TV Filler” and a pretty decent, methodical pace in the AJPW Template, but Sabu’s clumsiness was hurting things. Great finish, though)

SUPER INDIE CHAMPIONSHIP TOURNAMENT:
AJ STYLES vs. CM PUNK:
(International Wrestling Cartel, March 20th 2004)
* Oh yeah, you know you’re getting the good shit when an indie show has a basketball hoop on the hard cam. Styles was at this point a big name in TNA and a surefire star, while Punk was like… AROUND and getting attention but wasn’t that big yet. He’s a year from his first ROH World Title, though. He’s wearing red shorts (I think all his early stuff is him in shorts, to be honest) and Styles is in purple short-shorts. This is a bit clipped with “fade-ins”.

They do simple chain-wrestling to start, Styles doing that “rapid-fire foot-placement switch” thing. Punk bails when a kip-up is met by an elbow, then Styles cartwheels out of a reversal of the Styles Clash. Punk manages to catch him with a backdrop suplex and slowly works stuff- it’s funny how his stuff isn’t botchy but is just so UGLY- he’s so unathletic, especially compared to Styles. At least he knows what he is- when he does an International with AJ, he doesn’t try anything fancy- he just smashes the back of his head on a charge and hits a delayed vertical suplex, then intercepts Styles shoulderblocking him from the apron with a knee, then neckbreakers him in the ropes. I always liked how… practical and smart Punk’s offense was. Like it was always the ideal tactical decision in any given spot. Punk hits some precise stuff to work the head & neck while commentary has to repeatedly make excuses for the slow pace because they have to pace themselves here and for a later match (like… IN-UNIVERSE I get it).

Punk tries some methodical back-work but gets caught with the Pele kick on AJ’s backswing. Styles goes for The Phenomenon (lionsault to inverted ddt) but Punk catches him in mid-air and backbreakers him for two, then wins a slugfest with kicks and hits True Till Death (guillotine legdrop) for two. But Punk flies balls-first into AJ’s knee and eats two enzuigiris, but ducks a third and Germans him, but Styles turns the momentum from a forearm sell into The Phenomenon for two- clunky, but it worked. Commentary makes two comments on the mid-move stall-out (“coming off kinda off-kilter to prevent Punk from catching him again…” “Styles didn’t hit the move the way he usually does, but…”), then both slug it out again and Styles hits a discus clothesline for a double-down. Punk recovers first with a Shining Wizard (running knee) but Styles goes right to the floor- a tired Punk barely hauls him into the ring, then tries the world’s shittiest springboard and ends up RIGHT in a powerbomb, threaded right into the Styles Clash for the win at (16:23 of 16:52 shown)! Styles wins! And goes on to defeat Colt Cabana in 17 minutes for the Super Indie Title.

This was an interesting one as they kept a pretty deliberate, methodical (ie. slow) pace for the majority of it, but never lost the plot, got stupid, or turned it into a spotfest. It was TOO slow to really be an excellent match, and didn’t get out of that slow gear at all, but was fine. I mean if you’re working twice on an indie you probably don’t wanna be swinging for the fences, you know? And with these two the match is unlikely to be bad- AJ was the god of flippy guys at this point with his intensely-precise flips, while Punk always played the smart tactical guy with precision counters, and both can sell, so it was fine. They defaulted a lot to “Standing and slugging it out while tired” so it was each dude hitting each other in turn (not the “New Japan Manliness Contest” stuff, but still just guys taking a breather by slowly hitting). The ending was good- hitting a finish but being unable to pin, and being too tired to capitalize and trying one last thing that costs you the match. Overall it just had a lack of real desperation or intensity- they weren’t really playing characters or guys who REALLY wanted to win, they were just two dudes hitting each other until a move won.

Rating: **1/2 (just kind of a too-long, too-methodical match without much intensity, but fine and with no real mistakes)

MARK JINDRAK & SEAN O’HAIRE vs. JAMIE KNOBLE & EVAN KARAGIAS:
(WCW Thunder, 06/12/2000)
* It’s more of Sean O’Haire! I’d looked up a bunch of his stuff a couple years back and largely assessed him as a remarkable physical specimen with poor cardio and just a lot of MOVEZ at this point in time, but he’s always interesting to see regardless. Jindrak is much the same, and here they’re facing a random mish-mash team of a Jung Dragon and a Three Count guy. Yes it’s “Knoble” here from the once-Jamie-San in his purple tights. Karagias is in steel-grey baggy boy-band pants. They’re “Tag Team Partners Who Don’t Get Along”, as it’s stated they were at rival high schools in North Carolina, and Evan once dated Jamie’s sister and bragged that he “Freaked her”, much to Jamie’s consternation. He also dislikes Evan’s focus on dancing here.

The big juicers attack the little juicers to start and toss them, but pose like dumbasses to allow them to come back with springboard attacks (well, ONE springboard attack, as Evan slips but improvises a kick to the back. SO close, Evan). Evan hits a neckbreaker on Jindrak and dances, then suplexes an annoyed Jamie onto him for two. Jamie botches a backdrop to the apron, going in sideways, but manages a flying clothesline for two. Karagias tags himself in while Jamie’s up top and hits a springboard. Oh my god Jindrak’s selling is so bad- he’s actually bumping and bouncing out of sync with the attacks of his opponents, haha. He manages a quick shot and a springboard clothesline, then O’Haire comes in for some posing, stomping, and a press slam-to-Michinoku driver. The giants bully little Jamie, and O’Haire hits the Mr. Perfect necksnap off the middle rope and slugs Evan, but after a bit Jamie manages a tilt-a-whirl headscissors, but tries another and gets slammed. Knoble finally gets an enzuigiri and Evan gets an ice-cold tag into some dropkicks, then does a bulldog/face-slam (lol he lost his grip or changed his mind) to Jindrak, and the little guys grab a LADDER from under the ring and just start smashing the big guys with it, which is legal outside the ring cuz wrestling. They dropkick it into Jindrak, but get into a fight and O’Haire steamrolls both of them. Then, in a pretty unique spot, the big ‘uns double-biel Karagias from the floor over the top rope, then do the same to Knoble so he LANDS on Evan, Karagias gets press-slammed to the floor, and the Pop-Up Super Rana to Seanton Bomb finishes Jamie at (6:49).

Kind of a comedy of errors for a while, but Jamie was working hard to keep it together. Evan kept either missing stuff or getting bad positioning, and the big guys were very limited rookies at this point, mostly doing a “smile at the hard cam” after every move. But they’d obviously planned out the last stretch ahead of time, with the Evan/Jamie team squabbling and getting killed for it, then the impressive double-biel series (two giant dudes PLUS a guy jumping makes this possible, but still nice-looking) into the obvious finishing run. You can see how limited the big guys were especially, but good effort.

Rating: *1/2 (kinda saved itself in the end there)

THE ROAD WARRIORS (Hawk & Animal, w/ Tammy Sytch) vs. DA HIT SQUAD (Dan Maff & Monsta Mack):
(USA Pro Wrestling, September 8th 2001)
* Oh man, 2001 Road Warriors? Do I dare? Oh my god and SUNNY is with them, wearing the “LOD 2000” fire-bikini. And Chris Candido is being whupped on by the Roadies, and he’s wearing Terry Funk’s tights for some reason. So this promotion is running a show in what looks like a ballroom (like someone had a wedding reception there the previous day or something) and it’s got Da Hit Squad, who are notable for being in the first-ever Ring of Honor match, defeating the Christopher Street Connection (a gay tag gimmick) to prove that “wrestling beats sports entertainment” (I dunno- they probably wrote their Pro Wrestling Wiki page and it says that!). They’re two short fat guys in fatigues, trying to be more hip-hop Dudley Boyz. Maff is skinnier and Monsta is fatter. Hawk gets into it with a fan who calls him “a fuckin’ LUSH!” and Hawk says “I could take the LINT… I could take the LINT outta your belly button and make me a three-piece suit you fat fuck” and the fan actually claps at being properly told off.

Monsta Mack takes shots at Hawk at the face-to-face while Animal & Maff are just in each other’s faces, but Hawk quickly knocks him to the floor and Animal easily knocks around both guys by himself. Dan says “I don’t respect you! You ain’t SHIT to me!” and gets clotheslined by Hawk for it, but the LOD are clearly in “wrestling in a ballroom” mode, just simply going through brawling spots. Hawk misses a shoulder into the post and quickly starts no-selling Maff, only to take a HILARIOUSLY big spinning sell off an overhand chop and that has got to be a rib, right? Like that was faker than a standing Spanish Fly. But no, Hawk just lies there and eats lazy legholds as both teams wrestle like they’ve never even seen technical wrestling done in their lives. A double-clothesline sets Hawk up for a terrible People’s Elbow knock-off. We get a false-tag spot but Hawk just effortlessly makes his own comeback, only to flat-back off the very next move and is selling again. Hawk finally makes a big show of tagging Animal, then hilariously just does a casual walk to the apron like he healed the second it wasn’t his turn to do anything. Animal throws some punches, Hawk comes in, and oh god we get the MODIFIED Doomsday Device (to be fair, they literally can’t do the real one because the ceiling is too low), with Animal hoisting Maff up for Hawk’s clothesline off the second rope at (8:22).

hahah oh man this took slumming it to another level. I thought “House Show Mode” was weak but “Ballroom Mode” is a whole new level of dogging it. Hawk was just doing NOTHING here, flat-backing off of the simplest stuff and taking no serious effort or bumps, and he & Animal were doing nothing more complicated that punches and clotheslines, which weren’t even done with authority- you can tell when Hawk just does the “hold his arms out and walk forward” clothesline that you’re getting a slack-ass performance. Hawk’s spinning sell of an overhand chop feels like some sort of parody or like he’s trying to expose the business. Da Hit Squad showed nothing, but really weren’t in a position two with two much larger opponents who weren’t in the mood to do anything.

Rating: 1/4* (nothing to it- a horrible performance from pretty much everybody. I might be overrating it)

BANDIDO JR. vs. QUIET STORM:
(Impact Championship Wrestling, September 17th 2010)
* Awesome! It’s Bandido Jr. vs. Quiet Storm! Boy howdy! … okay I have never heard of the first dude and only know the second from recaps of early TNA shows (where I recall Scott Keith noting the commentator’s accurate point of “there’s too many guys named xxxx and Storm in there right now” cuz he was fighting James Storm and two other dudes were sharing names in the same match). I always wondered about that guy and why he disappeared! So hopefully this random indie match from ICW can encapsulate his entire career! Turns out he’s a short dude with love-handles and a comically huge head who is “jacked to the gills” according to commentary (ie. he looks like a WWF jobber from 1987). He “spent the last six or seven years with Taka Michinoku’s Kaientai Dojo”, apparently (as “Busu Boy Left” wrestling in front of 113 people). He’s in black tights with purple designs, and Bandido’s in blue & gold tights, and is a much skinnier, athletic-looking dude. Bandido’s the heel (and actually Eddie Orengo, current WWE ref, in his first year in the business!) and Storm is new to ICW. One of the commentators has a pretty prominent lisp- I mean he probably can’t help that but this is like the ONE JOB where that’s a notable hindrance. This is in a VFW hall or something, with an elk head mounted on a rear wall.

Bandido takes a snapmare and immediately does the Indie Stall, but they do a rapid-fire sequence that puts Storm on the floor for a dive. Bandido overdoes asking him if he’s okay then hits some standard stuff to wear him down as they talk about Storm in Japan (mispronouncing “ray-men noodles”), at which point the color guy starts openly half-exposing the business with “lol I’m being CHEEKY” shit by openly calling Bandido’s move “what we call in the business a resthold”, only to emphasize it’s to wear Storm down, then pointing out the arms are held “blocking his… so nobody can see his mouth- SO THE AIR, so he can’t get air in”. Then they start arguing about DBZ lore (“He’s moving like a Dragon Ball Z character” “He’s not a furry animal!” “Well Goku’s not furry! He’s got a lot of hair…” as the other dork is doing DEEP CUT shit about how early Dragon Ball backgrounders are often animal-people, like anyone watching cares) as Storm comes back with overhand chops and a good overhead suplex. This somehow causes a double-down, but Storm comes back with some quick charging attacks and a Northern Lights suplex as Bandido comes off the ropes.

Bandido gets a Spinny Indie Move to come back, then a Pele kick and slingshot DDT as I think he’s just lifting AJ Styles shit, then they do a god-awful indie counter sequence as Storm releases his sunset flip before they’re even down so they can spin around and do a slow “tuck-in cradle” pin and then Bandido throws the worst, highest, slowest clothesline I’ve ever seen- getting trapped in a flatliner. haha oh my god this is so bad. Storm hits a clothesline & brainbuster for two, but accidentally nails the ref (oh cuz that’s what this match needs) and Bandido hits a strike, then OH MY GOD ducks his head to do the Deadeye, but changes his mind and does a superkick THEN does the Deadeye, but there’s no ref. Like he went “oh wait I was gonna do a superkick first” and stopped mid-stream. But Devon Moore (?) comes in and superkicks Bandido, leaving him vulnerable to the Storm Driver (Swerve Strickland’s JML Driver- a half-nelson into a sit-out cradle bodyslam) and that gets the pin at (8:53). haha they didn’t even hit THAT right- Bandido slipped out at landed basically sideways.

Just DREADFUL. I mean, parts of it are “Standard Indie Wrestling” with dudes talking shit, stalling, doing sunset flips and running stuff or whatever, but eventually it breaks down here as they go through their pre-planned sequence and Bandido is moving like he’s remembering his steps and they’re both openly helping each other do stuff. Storm doing M-Pro reversals and flash-pins while being as agile as Scott Norton is not helping. Bandido then starts exposing the business as he seems to get in over his head and either forgets stuff (“wait, I was gonna do a Superkick first…”) or goes in so lazily and inaccurately that it could only be so Storm could reverse on him. The match ends up kind of being a showcase for Quiet Storm’s offense, as he’s new to the company and probably wanted to do all his cool shit. So Bandido was his tackling dummy, and a pretty shitty one (he’s supposed to be a high flier, but didn’t do any of that here), but they let him (the HEEL, mind you) get a “visual pinfall” on Storm to keep his heat or whatever. Though if he’s only a year into the business, then it’s not THAT bad- he’s just in a position that’s way too much for a rookie. Commentary doesn’t hurt the rating, but hurts the watch, as the color guy was VERY obviously going for a cheeky “lololololol I’m doing insider jokes and almost EXPOSING THE BUSINESS” but scaling it back thing where he nearly exposes the tricks then goes “oh it’s to make it harder to breathe”. Then they argue about DBZ lore during a reversal sequence. These guys are either the owners or the owner’s friends.

Rating: DUD (is it unfair and “punching down” to rip on shitty indie matches in front of 120 fans in a VFW Hall with an elk’s head mounted on the wall? If it is then fair play is for losers)