Bret & Owen Hart vs. The Steiner Brothers (and other Dream Matches!)

Welcome back to more Dream Matches! Our matches today include a legendary dream match between the Hart Brothers and the Steiner Brothers! This was a classic Tape Trader dream back in the day, as it made a New Generation-era tape during a down period as the two teams had very little crossover. But it’s a doozy- 25 minutes of tons of chain-wrestling and effort. Following that, it’s a terrifically weird WCW dark match, as 1998 sees Revolution Pro’s barely-trained marks out there on Thunder, with Blitzkrieg & Super Dragon taking on American Wild Child & Dragon Yakuza! Come see why one of them immediately got a job and the other three stayed in Indie Hell as part of the “lost generation” of Cruiserweights. lol they are simply AWFUL!

Then I decided to go out and find Outback Jack’s debut, as the clumsy Australian comes in to face a maximum-effort Steve Lombardi, who desperately tries to save the match with tons of bumping and selling! After that, it’s another Dark Match, as 2000 WWF sees Scott “Sick Boy” Vick vs. Bo Dupp in the most “first match in wrestling class” bout possible!

THE STEINER BROTHERS (Rick & Scott Steiner) vs. THE HART BROTHERS (Bret & Owen Hart):
(WWF Wrestling Challenge Taping, Jan. 11th 1994)
* One of the legendary Dream Matches, this ended up on a New Generation-era Coliseum Video tape and was mostly forgotten save for internet fans, who went nuts over this bout. This was when Bret was trying to make a team with Owen work, just before Owen kicked his leg out from his leg at the Royal Rumble because he was TOO DAMN SELFISH. Babyface vs. Babyface contests were extremely rare save for when Bret was involved, as he usually got the best matches out of everybody, and knew how to toe the line (aka be a total asshole) to still get fan reactions. With four respected workers in there, and a LONG match-time, this was probably expected to be the “workers paradise” draw. Given how neither team was a thing in the WWF immediately following it, one wonders about the backstage mechanics. Bret was a former World Champion but Owen was an undercard guy still. Bret’s in pink & black, Owen’s in black, Rick’s got a yellow & blue singlet with early ’90s-style print, and Scott’s in black & checkerboard tights. Gorilla Monsoon & Stan Lane are our commentators.

Bret starts off with Scott, which probably has Bret with stars in his eyes thinking about how now he can impress everyone with his amazing amateur skills, lol. Scott snags a double-leg immediately, Bret grabbing the ropes as they milk every little bit of time. Bret scores a fireman’s takedown, now Scott going to the ropes as commentary talks about how there’ll be no cheap shots, apparently never having watched Bret in a face/face match before. Scott’s ankle-pick has Monsoon marking out like crazy over how deep he went in on it (SEE?!? Monsoon was EFFUSIVE with praise if you used good technique! None of that “he didn’t quite get all of it” with THESE guys!), then remarks about how this move is illegal in amateur ranks- Bret is masterful as he scoots his hand in and out of Scott’s reach to finally haul him down and soon they’re back up. It’s funny because while Bret was a successful amateur wrestler, winning city & provincial championships, Scottie’s on a completely different level and would have absolutely housed him, lol. Scott works a headlock and they even compliment Scott’s stance on that- Monsoon DOES admit he’s never seen a match end with one, but they put over cauliflower ears and how deep Scott has it on. Bret hits the floor on a shoulder-check, checking his tooth and milking time. Bret tries an O’Connor roll out of a powerslam but didn’t get the leverage. Owen looks on with a smirk while Bret controls the arm, but comes in and gets slammed- enter Rick.

Lovely exchange as Rick double-legs Owen but can’t get a hold of the slippery eel due to his speed, but Rick powerslams him out of the leapfrog, haha. Owen dodges an elbow but tries a headlock and eats a backdrop suplex (Suplex #1). But he does his kip-up out of an armbar spot and when Rick tries another, German suplexes him for two! Scott comes in and they move LIGHTNING fast in an International, Owen absolutely smoking him with the wheel kick for two. Northern Lights Suplex (w/ grapevining the leg) gets two. But Owen does a rolling clutch and Scott impresses with a bridge and spins him right into the Butterfly Bomb and Bret has to save. Rick works Bret’s arm as everyone’s getting a bit ornery, selling the aggravation of a good fight. Rick rolls through Bret’s attempt to slam out and grinds away on him to shoot the half- this is very NWA-style but the WWF fans barely seem to know what to do with it- Owen gets a light “Go Bret Go!” chant going, and Bret hits a knee to the bread-basket off a cross- having failed amateur wrestling, he moves to strikes, via a headbutt but an elbowdrop misses. They repeat the half-nelson spot but this time Bret pulls off a dropkick, then a DDT & legdrop, but he’s TOO DAMN SELFISH to tag out and instead slugs it out with Rick and ducks him to latch a sleeperhold. Rick backs him into the corner at last but Bret’s right back on it- Monsoon calls out that it’s a choke now and Rick’s lights look to be going out, and Rick collapses on a third check into the ropes. Bret the sportsman also forces the ref to demand a break, getting eight extra seconds in on that, haha.

Bret, moments after suplexing Scott to the floor, desperately holds onto the top rope, looking completely exhausted. Only time I’ve ever seen this. Dude is an AMAZING seller.

Bret suplexes Rick but tries his second-rope elbow and lands on a boot- serves ‘im right for gobbling up all the offense, as Rick hits the FLYING BULLDOG for two, Monsoon all over that weak cover. Bret Bump in the corner! Two! Eight minutes of Bret/Rick ends with Scottie coming in for a windmill suplex to finally ramp up the speed again. The fans come awake a bit and Scottie naturally goes like “YEAH! YEAH I GOT HIM!” and that lets Bret kick out. Bret tries a counter-whip but OH! Shoulder-first into the ringpost! Man, NOBODY ate that bump like Bret- just so violent and painful as he limply slides through the ropes. Scott senses blood, fire in his eyes, and tries to bring him in the hard way, but Bret blocks! And COUNTERS! Scott gets suplexed all the way to the floor in the kind of bump you do NOT see very often in the WWF, Bret hanging on desperately. He looks exhausted, but slides down and smashes Scott’s injured back into the ring apron. Owen FINALLY gets tagged in after ten minutes and works the back, hitting a flying headbutt of all things to the spine. Scott was selling his leg on the landing but they’ve ignored it completely, which of course annoys Monsoon (I wonder if it was legit hurt?), and Owen hits a great gutwrench suplex. Uh-oh- here’s the abdominal stretch. They had to be trolling Gorilla with that shit, haha. Monsoon is aghast given how powerful Scott clearly is. Scott gets out but Owen SPLATS him with his belly-to-belly suplex for two. Bret gets tagged in already, hitting only his Russian legsweep before hitting the apron and hahahahahah fucking SMOKES Scottie with his knee from there! I LOVE that spot! Always in baby/baby matches lol. Gorilla AND Stan think it’s an accident (tbf he’s mostly out of shot) and wonder what happened.

Owen gets two off that, but misses a dropkick and it’s Rick-time! Tilt-a-whirl backbreaker for Owen! Rick menacingly shakes his head at Bret and pancakes Owen from tombstone position, then Scott snaps on a vicious release Dragon Suplex for two! Steinerline! Owen barely kicks out, and in comes Scottie for the STEINER SCREWDRIVER! The one and only time you ever saw a non-jobber in the WWF take that ultra-dangerous move (a vertical suplex into a sit-out tombstone!). Owen is totally done and Bret has to make the save. Scott dumps Owen (Monsoon: “Scottie missed the boat!”), killing more time, but his slingshot is countered and Owen flips him out to the floor. Bret’s in with the inverted atomic drop & falling clothesline for two, then it’s a backbreaker into the Bret Elbow! Scott kicks out, but Bret goes for the Sharpshooter… and Rick cleans his clock. But Owen sneaks in and tries his OWN, also getting nailed, and they try the Steiner Bulldog on him! But Bret ties up Rick and Owen rolls Scott forward with a victory roll for two. It’s a Pier Six Brawl and the ref has lost control completely- Scott ignores Owen in the ring to fly out with an axehandle to Bret, and Owen lands a pescado on Rick as it’s a Double Count-Out at (24:57). Obvious finish is obvious. But this one ends up in a massive, multi-minute pullapart, as the Steiners scream at the Harts on the mic and demand to kick their butts, and the Harts acquiesce, then everyone brawls repeatedly (Monsoon: “Is that Pat Patterson?! Holy mackerel did he ever get fat!!”). Tony Garea & Rene Goulet can’t separate everyone and Patterson just sorta gives up (“Look at Patterson! He’s outta gas!”). The fans are WAY more into this than they were for the match itself, haha. Everyone ultimately shakes hands, having sufficiently kicked each other’s asses enough to warrant respect.

Very, very interesting match, with a unique layout. They hit 3-4 big suplexes in the early going to emphasize everyone’s capabilities and get the good shit in while they were all full of cardio, then slowed it down. Oddly it was ALL Bret in the weardown portion, both getting his arm worked over then putting Rick in a sleeper. Like, usually you tag in the other guy for that, unless they just didn’t trust Owen to run it as well… or more likely, were trying to conserve his cardio since the endgame was almost all with him (taking the Screwdriver, suplexes and countering the finisher). It’s a masterwork of Bret Stuff, though, taking amazing bumps, flinging himself around, doing super-tight amateur-style work (pretending he can even up with Scottie on that front, lol), getting blasted into the post, then doing great little things like fishing for positions on counters and hanging desperately onto the ropes. That 8-10 minute stretch was SLOW, to be fair, and the WWF crowd just sat on their hands for it. Babyface/babyface matches are often bad for that anyhow, but they wanted their “mat classic” and pretty much got it, as the pendulum kept swinging and various guys took turns getting their asses kicked. Lots of great limbwork (though nobody kept it up for long), great use of getting everyone super-agitated during the match to justify the pullapart ending (Bret’s assholery on the ring apron is PERFECT for that), and great use of counters to keep everyone on their toes. Great technique and wrestling all throughout, guys working with some SPEED on all their exchanges too, going for a Hot Five, Quiet Ten, Escalating Five, Top Effort Five structure and looking great doing it.

One of the best matches you’ll see in front of such an… inattentive crowd. They were noticeably bored at points and I think the random bursts of speed weren’t enough to hold them- to be fair it’s like 25 minutes of babyface/babyface stuff, which is always a hard sell, and more of an “NWA Title Match” cadence than what a WWF crowd would be used to. They were into it by the end, and never looked TOTALLY gone, at least!

Rating: ****1/4 (easy to overrate because it had tons of MOVEZ and only hit that peak gear a few times, but excellently-wrestled)

A tall, gangly dweeb dressed as a ninja, an acrobatic midget, and two flabby white guys in the ECW T-Shirt of Shame. This is Dream Matches heaven!

BLITZKRIEG & SUPER DRAGON vs. AMERICAN WILD CHILD & DRAGON YAKUZA:
(WCW Thunder Dark Match, July 17th 1998)
* hahaha who in the hell are THESE guys? Like Super Dragon is the Dragon Kid from Dragon Gate (… wait, no, that was LITTLE Dragon- this is some bigger dude who was an indie lifer in Pro Wrestling Guerilla and stuff), and y’all know Blitzkrieg, but who are these OTHER dweebs? My first guess is they’re Cheetah Master/Ace Darling-style undersized indie dweebs who never made it. Cagematching them… okay Wild Child worked with Blitzkrieg in 1997 so that’s probably why he’s here (his only WCW dark match)- he was in Revolution Pro for like five years, but I guess was the mark owner/wrestler. He’s a chubby-looking short white guy with blond hair, purple shorts and the ECW T-Shirt of Shame. Dragon Yakuza was also in APW but has the dreaded “black text on Cagematch” name so he’s a nobody. Wait, a friend found “Yakuza” from Rev Pro so that’s probably him. He’s in all black, with a mask, and also wearing the T-Shirt of Shame. Oof two dudes with that in the same match is always a bad sign. Comment on YouTube says “This is the (excellent) match that got Blitzkrieg a contract with WCW. Greatest short match ever in my opinion. Bell-to-bell time was a mere 2-minutes 35-seconds.” I will now assume that the comment about Blitzkrieg is true.

Immediately the heels jump the babyfaces before the bell, but Blitzkrieg & Dragon duck under clotheslines, put them on the floor, and follow with dives to impress the fans. Blitz was a full tope con hilo, too. Super Dragon uses the slingshot senton into a standing moonsault on Wild Child for two, but Wild Child counters a whip for the dreaded Clumsy Indie Dweeb version of the Muta handspring elbow, doing a cartwheel about as gracefully as I would before backing into Super Dragon. Fans boo the shit out of that, but he runs into a headscissors in the corner. Terrible footwork. They do the same thing but this time he catches Dragon with an inverted ligerbomb to impress the fans a bit. I’m just disgusted at his short jog into the corner to “chase” him, haha- fuckin’ happy feet. Yakuza hits a flying headbutt for two, then he & Dragon do a hideous “strike exchange” in slow motion, leading to Dragon hitting a “head kick” and a falling clothesline. In comes Blitzkrieg, and it’s immediately obvious he’s a million times better than everyone else because he runs up the much larger Yakuza’s chest in the corner, backflips off to land on his feet, then does a flipover bump when Wild Child runs in and clotheslines him. Blitz lands on his feet from a backdrop and puts both guys on the floor, Super Dragon following with an Orihara Moonsault and Blitzkrieg blowing minds with a Springboard Corkscrew Moonsault that almost totally misses but got the reaction they wanted. Wild Child is rolled into the ring (super-fakely TWICE putting his arms right into his sides to take moves, exposing the business) and Blitzkrieg finishes him with the Phoenix Splash (corkscrew 450) at (2:35).

SO! This was that weird “Lost Generation” of indie flippy guys. Probably all inspired by WCW’s Cruiserweight Style and getting the two Super J-Cup VHS tapes from Golden Boy Tapes, they all wanted to be THAT GUY and everyone was in masks and doing flips cuz they were undersized and not otherwise gonna get a shot… but most of them sucked and had a short shelf-life, not lasting long in the business. The match was simply awful- basically three total marks who trained themselves to “wrestle” and can’t work for shit, doing terrible runs into the corner, full of “happy feet” and short skips to get into position, mimicking Japan stuff with none of the speed or agility… and their talented, acrobatic friend. You can immediately see why WCW went “okay HIRE THAT GUY”, at least for a midcard JTTS role, and never let the others grace their doors again. Like, look at American Wild Child doing such a clumsy cartwheel into a move (getting booed for it), doing these awful little skips into the corner (“happy feet” is a DREADFUL affliction in wrestling), then every time he gets taken to the mat, he immediately stiffens up his body and sinks his arms into his sides, obviously to take the upcoming move. At least TRY to be subtle about that shit! Super Dragon was awful, being too tall and skinny to be agile and trying the movez anyways. Dragon Yakuza just came off as an inoffensive jobber, since he noticeably didn’t try to do anything big. Blitzkrieg was THE SHIT, though- super-agile flipz and even if he didn’t know how to do anything else, he could bump and flip which made him great fodder you could build around.

Rating: 1/2* (business-exposing clumsy garbage save for Blitzkrieg’s stuff- it had the cadence of a good match but not the execution)

OUTBACK JACK vs. STEVE LOMBARDI:
(WWF SuperStars, 2/7/1987)
* It’s the debut of Outback Jack! The legendary “And Then The Bell Rang” guy who apparently shit the bed so badly in his first couple matches he was immediately depushed after months of vignettes taking advantage of the Aussie craze started by “Crocodile Dundee”. Coming out to the 1960s novelty song “Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport” by noted singer/kiddie-diddler Rolf Harris, he’s a big, burly dude with a missing tooth and a HUGE beer gut. Lombardi is at this point a shirtless stocky guy. Jesse Ventura is immediately all over Outback on commentary, moaning about having to listen to him talk for months in the vignettes, so “I’m really looking forward to this one, McMahon!”. He’s in a very “Paul Hogan” outfit with brown khakis and an Aussie slouch hat. Outback gets the Hillbilly Jim seal of approval before the match via a handshake- they were really going all-out here. Too bad they’d just trained him like a month prior (Les Thornton in Calgary had him & Arcidi, apparently).

Ventura marvels at how ugly Jack is as he pushes an energetic Lombardi into the ropes. He gets a clumsy hiptoss and slam as Lombardi is the one working hard, arching his back in agony and doing “happy-feet” before charging in for a beating. He starts fighting dirty, biting and raking Jack across the top rope, then hits a back elbow. Jack takes a weak bump off that, but soon stops a turnbuckle shot and gives Lombardi what-for. He catches a boot and atomic drops him so bad he hits the ringpost- two lefts and a right set up a feather-light clothesline, and he hops away to set up a running clothesline to the back of the neck- the Boomerang finishes at (2:51). Ventura confesses he’s never seen that before, and Outback Jack wins.

Not the WORST squash ever, but pretty weak, as Jack is one of those guys who is so unathletic he just stands there stock-still for everything, doesn’t put his feet into his moves, and never shifts his weight. The only qualities of the match come from Lombardi, who was bouncing around off of everything and selling his back like crazy. Everything Jack hit was way too light and soft. Looking at Jack’s WWF career, it’s clear they see issues right away as he barely ever wrestles, and when he does it’s only against Lombardi, Barry O, Frenchy Martin and guys like that on TV. His only “big win” is an early house show match against the Iron Sheik, and eventually he jobs to Killer Khan in only 2 minutes in the summer and is turned into a jobber. Ron Bass & Sika are beating him at house shows and he’s in tag matches doing jobs as well. He ends his career jobbing to the Honky Tonk Man and in a six-man teaming with Brady Boone & Steve Blackman to the three Islanders (and yes I already reviewed that one, lol).

Rating: 1/2* (only because Lombardi was doing tremendous work- 2/5 on the squash scale just for him)

lol these facial expressions. A beardless Vick looks like a teenage boy who’s confused as to where he is, and Bo is trying to make like Mad Dog Buzz Sawyer but like… more cartoony.

SCOTT VICK vs. BO DUPP:
(WWF Dark Match, March 19th 2001)
* It’s more SCOTT VICK! The former Sick Boy indeed had a contract for a short while (it’s rumored he was the reason Kane’s dead girlfriend was named “Katie Vick”), but never made WWF TV. This is a pre-RAW Dark Match. Vick looks totally generic with his Attitude Era Black Shorts and he has a big floofy ponytail. Bo Dupp is roided to SHIT and wearing a black singlet, making goofy “insane hillbilly” faces despite looking mostly well-groomed. I’ve still never heard someone say “Bowed Up” so the pun was entirely lost on me. Is that common where y’all live? I wanna say that was part of why the Dupps were never gonna work. That and all of them sucking.

Oddly, the bell rings without the ref saying so, and the two proceed to have the most “Generic Class-Trained Wrestling Match” possible, with a schoolboy into a drop-toehold, countered into a hammerlock, countered to hiptosses that have Dupp complaining of hairpulls. Bo pulls the hair himself and leads Scott on a chase, booting him down in the ring. But Vick reverses a whip and scores a hiptoss & dropkick for two. Yeah when dropkicks are getting two you know they’re doing trainee stuff. Bo does a shoulder-check and some dropping headbutts for two, kind of smirking at the crowd but not really interacting with them. A slugfest (the lack of crowd noise really emphasizes how fake punches are, lol) leads to Dupp bowling Vick over with a boot, but Vick catches him with a suplex (zero elevation on that). A double-down off that leads to another slugfest (good foot positioning by Vick, at least), and Vick hits one of his trademark slingshot moves with a back elbow. But Vick sails into a missed Stinger Splash and Dupp finishes him with a running headbutt thing into a leaping splash at (4:23). lol a SPLASH? Dude is like a normal-sized wrestler.

This was kind of fascinating in how perfectly acceptably-wrestled it was yet utterly bland and boring- almost certainly the “trainee wrestling match” but extended to over 4 minutes. Like they were told “Do it like you do in class” and they kept to the script. Scott had zero interaction with the crowd whatsoever, and Bo’s wasn’t much better, but given how neither was known to the fans that’s kinda understandable.

Rating: 1/2* (not an active atrocity and little botching but it’s completely bland, uninteresting nothingburger wrestling. Basically like two guys in their first match except more confident and less shitty- like it’s better technically than the Blitzkrieg match earlier but this one noticeably annoyed the crowd and got zero reaction while that got SOME)