Nick Bockwinkel vs. Macho Man Randy Savage (and other Dream Matches!)

Welcome back to more Dream Matches! This time I found a very rare one from Memphis, as former AWA Champion Nick Bockwinkel comes to town, this time as a BABYFACE, up against the territory’s top heel “Macho Man” Randy Savage! In a pretty long TV match, too! Then it’s over to the WWF as the Undertaker faces his first major singles challenge in big Tugboat in the prelude to WrestleMania VII! Then it’s WCW time as the Faces of Fear take on jobber Michael Nova and GANGREL- it’s Dave Heath in a black singlet as a jobber shortly before his WWF debut! Check out how much he gets to do in this WCW Worldwide squash! Then it’s more WCW action as Juventud Guerrera takes on Villano IV… but under his real name as the maskless Ray Mendoza, Jr., because he worked twice on this taping! And finally, AT LAST I brave Pancrase! I mostly avoided the “Worked Shoot/Shoot Sometimes” feds because I have no idea what is real and what isn’t with them, but uhhhhh this one is pretty clear- it’s one of the biggest Pancrase matches ever as Bas Rutten defends the King of Pancrase Title against Masakatsu Funaki!

NICK BOCKWINKEL vs. “MACHO MAN” RANDY SAVAGE (w/ Dutch Newman?):
(Memphis/CWA, 15.04.1985)
* Oh sweet Jesus! The Ace of the AWA wrestled SAVAGE? Epic. Nick is making a rare visit to Memphis- usually a heel, he’s now cheered against the far more evil Savage, then the territory’s top heel just before he heads to the WWF to make history. Man, promoters had to be salivating at the prospect of landing Savage. Nick’s in red trunks & Savage purple, already with the stars on them.

Nick goes for the manager on the apron and we’re already off, Savage nailing him with both his “headlock punch” and his “overhand elbow” as he’s already got his basic lifelong moveset down, but he flies out with the axehandle and Nick catches him in the gut and smashes him into the post repeatedly. Wow, how unscientific! This isn’t the peon-lecturing elitist I know! Savage goes into the table and is tossed into the ring and of course now begs off and Nick has to chase him down and bounce him around a lot- man, every motion Savage does is PERFECT in execution, even lurching ass-first off the mat to still boots and going into the turnbuckle. After three solid minuts of ass-kicking, he finally comes back Memphis-style with a “hidden object” in the tights to gouge Bockwinkel’s face and goes to work with jabs, and a flying axehandle to the floor hits this time, sending Nick sliding down the ring apron. Savage now doles out much of what was done to him, going as far as to stand on the table to give the fans a view as he rains down boots to Bockwinkel, who does full-body shudders on impact and eats an overhand elbow off the table.

A further ass-whopping nets Savage two, but Nick counters a second headlock-punch to a backdrop suplex, mounting a comeback slowly as he recovers from the beating. Savage goes as far as to do the “punch-drunk blind swings”. Savage goes to the eyes with his “object” again and hits a 2nd-rope axehandle, then ANOTHER flyign one to the floor (Nick appears to almost go back but realizes it’s just a cement floor and collapses to his knees instead, haha) and Savage drops an elbow and tosses him into one of those posts holding up the rope used as a railing. Savage goes for a piledriver on the FLOOR, but Nick backdrops him over to save his life (a floor piledriver in Memphis would probably kill both Nick and all his heirs). A slam over the ropes gets two- Savage makes the ropes. Nick starts whipping him off the ropes for a back body drop & knee smash, getting two both times, but after a drop neck-first across the ropes, Newman puts Savage’s foot on the bottom rope like a good heel, and when Nick goes after him and the ref is all distracted, Savage punches Bockwinkel in the balls and hits an illegal piledriver! The ref of course turns back and counts the pin as Savage rolls backwards across Nick’s body- Savage wins at (10:48) via CHICANERY!

Great example of a good TV (apparently a televised arena show) match from two pros- both were selling big-time and wrestling a very brawl-heavy match and putting over every move. I liked the difference in selling- Savage’s isn’t very realistic but is full-body acrobatics when he’s hit, often leaping off the mat from his ass to sell a boot or swinging his arms against an opponent he can’t see. Nick just does these “shudders” and snaps his head around on impact. Since all they were doing was fisticuffs for the most part (probably because Nick’s AWA chain-wrestling style wasn’t exactly to Memphis tastes, I would imagine), it was important to do stuff like that to ensure they weren’t just Moxley-ing their way around ignoring the punches. And it’s funny seeing what are today’s basic early-match moves treated as potential match-enders, as regular slams and kneelifts require Savage making the ropes to avoid failure. I was surprised by a pinfall finish, even via cheating (a piledriver was treated as so devastating in Memphis that it was a great way for heels to get heat)- I was expecting a time limit or count-out win. I wasn’t expecting them to go swinging for the fences but they were putting a lot of effort into even the small stuff, so even with this it was quite good.

Rating: *** (fun, basic TV match with tons of great selling, even if they weren’t swinging for the fences)

THE UNDERTAKER (w/ Paul Bearer) vs. TUGBOAT:
(WWF Super Stars & Stripes Forever, March 17th 1991)
* It’s the Undertaker’s first real challenge in singles matches! He’s been going five months since Survivor Series largely just squashing guys, as is tradition for a big guy, and is ready to face Jimmy Snuka at WrestleMania VII. By this point they’ve learned to do close-ups of nervous-looking children in the stands during the Undertaker’s entrance, going a long way towards putting him over as someone to be feared. Tugboat was kind of circling the drain as a gimmick by this point after having more matches than anyone in 1990 (thanks to Logan Sisco’s recaps I recall this fact, lol), but still had very few losses.

Undertaker actually divebombs Tugboat as soon as he hits the ring and we’re off! He throws a bunch of strikes and then hits a Stinger Splash on the other side, nearly dumping himself out of the ring (which is probably why he dropped that, lol- he’s a big ‘un!). Another try sees him eat the corner and Tugboat goes for a slam but falls back- a weak kickout (Taker clearly has to leave on his own), but Taker misses an elbow, only to duck under a clothesline and hits his flying one. Heenan marks out for not only how you can’t hurt this guy, but “he got as high as Snuka gets!”. Taker goes for some blatant choking while we get close-ups of Bearer mugging. Taker goes for a back body drop (lol wut) but Tugboat kicks him and they do the same spot as before with Taker falling on him from a slam, but this time the elbow hits and Tugboat is fading fast, leaning on the ropes so Taker does his running attack against them. Tugboat flings back on the rope slingshot (crazy to see a guy THAT big do a spot like that, haha) and takes a snug kneedrop, but dodges another elbow and makes the comeback (man the crowd heat goes from “BOOOOOOOOOOOOO” to “YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY” suspiciously fast and always at the same volume, lol), whipping Undertaker off for a powerslam! But Taker is practically up at the same time with an unchanging expression- Tugboat hits the avalanche and goes “TOOOOOT!” to signal the finish, but Taker n ot only dodges the next one but he leaps straight over the top rope in one motion (crazy agility) and climbs, stepping off on the adjacent rope to drop an elbow for the three at (3:28), dusting off Tugboat with incredible ease.

A pretty surprising match for the time, definitely explaining how Undertaker will do going forward as he wipes out a 400-lb. opponent in less than four minutes after controlling most of the match and barely selling any offense. Shrugging off an avalanche from a guy this size and then skipping over the top rope when he’s like 6’8″ legit is nuts, and it also deftly shows how he’ll deal with an opponent too fat to Tombstone (same as Dusty Rhodes; he eats a shot off the top). This and the easy win over Snuka at WM7 set the character’s new era up quite nicely.

Rating: ** (very effective for what it was, and fairly succinct- good offense and a good tempo)

THE FACES OF FEAR (Meng & The Barbarian, w/ Jimmy Hart) vs. DAVID HEATH & MICHAEL NOVA:
(WCW Worldwide, Jan. 31st 1998)
* haha, oh man, GANGREL as a jobber! He spent some time in WWF as the ultra-roided Black Phantom for a time, but this is as late as I’ve seen him on job duty. Looks weird seeing him in a black Jobber Singlet. Michael Nova (no relation to ECW’s Nova) is a tall guy with a ludicrously young-looking face, and he’s in red tights.

Poor Nova starts with Barbarian, who just chops away despite a wristlock, and he no-sells a shoulderblock and some martial arts-style kicks, leaving the kid to tag out to Heath, who actually takes a pot-shot at MENG before running into a spinebuster. Heath flings himself around off of some basics, clearly looking to impress. He flips over off Barbarian’s backdrop suplex, and gets hoisted for a side slam but is let up at “1” so Barbarian can do more punishment (did Heath hopping up to help the lift, but Barbarian holding him there and lifting him from mid-air as a show of strength). Meng hits a shoulderbreaker for two and a nervehold, Heath fighting up and dodging a charge (a FIGHT-UP SPOT and hot tag in a squash!?)- Nova comes in! But he rushes in with a jobber cross-body and Meng just ignores him and hits the Tongan Death Grip, pinning him at (3:33) while Barbarian hits the Kick of Fear on Heath.

Interesting little squash, as they obviously had some time, so allowed Heath some time to showcase selling. Which he actually did pretty well- he looked nothing likek Gangrel offense-wise, just being a generic goon like a jobber typically should, and he bounced around and sold well, never trying to get his shit in. Impressively, the FoF allowed him a babyface comeback spot before dusting off young Nova, who wasn’t allowed to have a single thing sold all match, lol. Jobber tiers!

Rating: * (serviceable squash that was effectively a one-sided mini-match. 3/5 on the Squash Scale!)

JUVENTUD GUERRERA vs. RAY MENDOZA, JR.:
(WCW Saturday Night, 03/01/1997)
* Here’s a strange one- Villano IV working without a mask under his real name in early 1997. The Villanos WERE in WCW by this point, so it’s a bit odd unless he was working twice. AHA! Looks like he did: https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=12492. Cagematch lists him as Villano IV fighting Rey Misterio Jr. on a taping on the same day. So they reverse Mister X’d him! Juvi’s in blue & black and still under the mask. Mendoza’s in a black singlet with… is that a bikini cut? Did he just leave off the trunks with the “IV” on the ass? No wait, there’s the “IV” right there on the front.

Juvi starts quickly by spinkicking out of an armbar, then dropkicking Mendoza to the floor and hitting a slingshot legdrop like ten feet down! Jesus dude it’s Saturday Night, calm down. Springboard wheel kick gets two, but Mendoza gets an ugly rana-from-fameasser position variant but flips Juventud around. Juvi then DIVES into the post at great speed and Mendoza hits a tope suicida. Back in, Juvi lands on his feet from a German and a rana lands but they’re in the ropes- Guerrera puts him up top and they have a chat before Juventud hits a Super Hurricanrana for the pin at (2:53). A weirdly acrobatic match, featuring tons of insane Juventud spots considering they’re on a C-show at best by this point (a guillotine legdrop to the FLOOR?), a couple okay moves by Mendoza, and then a pretty regular finish. Not much selling to be had, but it was okay for a squash, if a bit sloppy (which might be why they went home immediately when they went to the rana and were accidentally in the ropes).

Rating: *3/4 (a borderline squash/showcase for Juvi’s BIG MOVEZ)

KING OF PANCRASE TITLE:
BAS RUTTEN vs. MASAKATSU FUNAKI:
(Pancrase, 09/07/1996)
* Yeah, it’s Pancrase! Which… maybe has some real stuff? It’s always fun Googling that because you find 900 “experts” chiming in at what the SURE answer is, and it’s always gotta be contradictory to something. One thing I’ve heard is that “some were real; some were not” and it’s less worked variant, “it was real, but they were told to go easy for a few rounds to give fans their money’s worth”. This permeates nearly every Japanese “MMA” fed, from the worked ones (like UWF-I, which was 100% works with a double-cross or two thrown in) to the real ones (many of which started as worked ones). I’m not enough of an MMA afficionado to tell you one way or the other so I look forward to what is sure to be a spirited comments section about the subject, lol. At least one MMA guy (Jason DeLucia) has admitted Funaki was supposed to carry him but miscalculated a rope-break and had to tap out. At this point, Pancrase had rules that you couldn’t closed-fist punch someone in the head; only open hand slaps were allowed. You could punch the body and kicks were allowed (since they’re harder to hit and look super cool). These rules seem designed to ensure longer fights, as the “quick chin punch” knockout is eliminated and guys won’t eat as many shots to the face and so won’t bleed out. Funaki was the co-founder of Pancrase with Minoru Suzuki and Rutten was a huge foreign star who got super-popular in Japan. Funaki’s in green and Bas is in black.

They start on their feet with some head-slaps and wild kicks (Rutten misses and SPINS AROUND and Funaki won’t go for him) and immediately to got the ground, and it’s readily apparent they’re wrestling REALLY loosely, here, as both hit front-facelocks that the opponent immediately pops out from, and their bodies have a ton of space between them, then they roll around on the mat in heel hooks that don’t go anywhere. Yeah, they’re working. They’re doing the “human game of chess” counter-wrestling thing but in slow motion so the fans can see it and react to it- in real life this would be so fast it’d look like uncoordinated scrambling to the untrained. The ref eventually breaks them up and Rutten makes like E.Honda with the slaps but they’re down again. Funaki works perpendicular to Rutten, who is open-mouth breathing and clearly conserving cardio- they do a “tumble to the ground and shove-off” bit and Bas lets him get up, drawing applause- a good slap & kick exchange (working SNUG so it looks good and might draw real blood) leads to another tumble but Rutten gets a Rope Escape (limited in Pancrase). Rutten again totally windmills missing a kick and Funaki just stands there until he does the spinning upside-down heel hook, but Bas uses leverage to hold him down. Funaki eventually does a shoot-takedown and circles around a downed Rutten to look for an opening. Rutten ties up Funaki’s legs, but Funaki splays out on him again and hits a mount, then randomly gets up for a heel hook so Bas can stand up and leverage him before just standing up again. Again you can see the work cuz nobody’s striking AT ALL from the ground (though this was apparently “discouraged” by the fans).

Standing up, Bas scores a couple slaps and Funaki pokes at him with a kick, but Funaki shoots in and gets caught in a loose front-facelock as again Bas is conserving cardio HARD. And then suddenly he boots Funaki back and backwards rolls to his feet and IT’S ON- a big slapfight with some kicks (thrown almost fencing style- not arcing like normal kicks but poking forward at range to prevent counterattacks… and to be less stiff). Finally a BIG slap right to the side of the face knocks down Funaki, who crumbles perfectly holding his face and gets a “9” count. Funaki goes for a shoot on a SUPER sweaty Rutten, who spreads out perfectly to avoid it and then slaps him on the ground (proving you CAN do that if you want), earning another count, though Funaki is mostly fine. He’s bleeding from the face for sure, though. Bas stands back while Funaki’s worked on and they shake hands before squaring off again- Rutten E.Hondas him again but Funaki grabs him and pushes him to the ropes- that counts as an Escape! The crowd cheers (if this goes to Time Over, Funaki would win on points cuz he didn’t do any) and Bas is annoyed. Funaki throws a high kick that Rutten just shrugs off and is magically now manifesting a proper MMA guard, so Rutten rabbit-slaps him down for a “5” count. A BIG “FUNAKI!” chant starts up as they get into a slapfight, Rutten knees him in the face (SNUG), then they grapple and Bas calls a spot, hitting two slow slaps to an Excape. One final square-off has Funaki try another high-kick, but Rutten hammers him with slaps interspersed with knees, and then finally WRECKS him with a huge one that has a bloody Funaki hit the ground with the ref cradling him (18:13). The fans go BANANA as Rutten retains his gold and is awarded blown-up photos of a VCR and an energy drink (which he pretends to guzzle). Both fighters respectfully hug like true warriors and Funaki looks heroic in defeat.

An interesting work! This was clearly designed to “go long” as there are a lot of the equivalent of restholds, except it’s a guy looking as if he’s working for an opening even if he’s not, so it’s probably completely exhausting compared to normal pro wrestling. At points Bas is straight-up holding his hands behind his head and JUST breathing heavily, and neither guy goes for strikes or real submissions on the mat. And the difference between the “Extending the match” portions and “okay now we’re ACTUALLY going” portions are huge and super-noticeable- like the push-off by Bas was the cue to immediately go into a stiff strikefest that looks great and justifies some big reactions. It draws color, too- making it look more “real” (though when Funaki gets hit he crumbles almost perfectly onto his own legs to take as soft a fall as possible). And this leads to a ton of snug, brutal slaps and knees that cause bleeding (not hard to bust someone’s nose up with slaps but relatively hard to KO them- much the “worked shoot” stuff I see has slaps used in this manner to give the fans a good show). It’s fun seeing what is essentially slow sparring (the mat stuff) done in this environment but with no serious submission attempts applied, then suddenly it’s STRIKE TIME as the real match begins- about 3-4 minutes of the real stand-up. A credit to the cardio of both, too. It was mostly 50/50 (with Funaki leading the mat stuff but getting few strikes) until they stood up, and then it was Funaki getting a lot of babyface stuff, looking strong as he’s bludgeoned to death. Like Rutten was beating the SHIT out of him and the kid showed great heart weathering it all until the ref basically saves his life by cradling his dying body.

Rating: ***3/4 (this might be sacrilege lol, but the style is such an odd fit for me and imagine if pro wrestlers did a “only try for 4 of the 18 minutes” match!)