Ric Flair vs. Nick Bockwinkel (and other Dream Matches!)

Welcome back to more Dream Matches! This time I have an AUTHENTIC Dream Match for you, as NWA Champion Ric Flair travels to the AWA in 1986 to take on legend Nick Bockwinkel in an NWA-style match for the belt! A fifteen-year age difference between the two champions! After that, I check out a bizarre 2001 WWF house show, where Dennis Knight attempts to repackage himself as a Dusty Rhodes rip-off “The American Dream” Tex Slazenger (his WCW name) against The Big Boss Man!

Next up, it’s a request, as I do the first two of a three-part series of 2001 matches between Low-Ki and “The American Dragon”, Bryan Danielson! Then I randomly found something from “Lucha Libre USA” as Lizmark Jr., the heel champion, takes on Shane Helms of all people! Come see Serious Indie Wrestler Helms go up against the former WCW jobber and now top bad guy!

NWA WORLD TITLE:
RIC FLAIR vs. NICK BOCKWINKEL:
(AWA, Jan. 16th 1986)
* Wait… an UNIRONIC Dream Match in this column as a headliner? Do I dare? Well howdy! This is an AWA match from Winnipeg, Manitoba, featuring Ric Flair vs. NICK BOCKWINKEL, the “Ric Flair” of the AWA for years. Tragically, this is Nick as a babyface, so we don’t get to hear his elitist piffle about how Flair doesn’t carry himself like a champion in his opinion or whatever, all drinking and carousing instead of reading like Nick would probably say he does- because he instead COMPLIMENTS Ric Flair, calling him “one of the most ARTICULATE wrestling machines the world has ever seen”. Okay even as a babyface he somehow comes of snobby, haha. Nick says he won’t give 110%, but 200%, but an educated man such as himself should be aware this is mathematically impossible. Ric Flair puts over the promoter Wally Karbo (GUESS HE KNOWS WHO’S SIGNING HIS CHECK TONIGHT), and even he talks about how great Bockwinkel is. It’s almost a shame- imagine these two raging dickheads unleashing their elitist heel personas against each other instead of this respectful garbage? Flair adds “We are not 300 lb. wrestlers. We are not 6’5″. We are professional wrestling at it’s BEST. We are wrestling technicians” SHOTS FIRED, VINCE.

As Winnipeg is an AWA territory, believe it or not, Nick is the hometown hero going against the NWA Champion. NWA Champs appear to have made occasional appearances into the AWA territory at points, even if the promotion began due to Verne Gagne wanting to be NWA Champ and essentially declaring himself as such after a match dispute. Ric’s in purple trunks and Nick’s in white. Lunkeaded Scott Hall of all people is on commentary.

hahahahaa and after all that shit about how much they respect each other, we’re joined in progress with Flair begging off in the corner while Nick uses COMMON FISTICUFFS, then Flair knees him through the uprights. ATTABOY. Flair tries a snapmare but gets backslid for two. He feeds Nick his head (that’s unusually obvious for Flair) and gets shoulderblocked down and drop-toeholded, howling in pain. Nick’s dissheveled hair is perfect to show the toll of the match, and he’s equal parts “stomping around with exhaustion” and “using perfect positioning” here. Scott seems to add a lot of words with absolutely zero insight at all, going “there’s SO MANY holds and maneuvers” that it’s hard to call, even though they’re clearly using just one. Ref Buddy Lane is JACKED- this dude is clearly also a wrestler (jobber, it looks like). Flair howls again as he’s twisted over in the move, but shoves Nick off when he goes for Flair’s own Figure-Four, only to feed both his legs to obviously set up a Boston Crab. Flair’s obviously still calling this. Flair: “AHHHHH! Get ‘im off me, dammit!” as he finally makes the ropes. Nick hauls him out of the corner on his ass while Flair begs off again, but he hammers away to avoid another crab, so Bockwinkel hammers away on his chest for two. Both are down from a shoulderblock. “Nick Bockwinkel has told me that he could be laying in a sound sleep and if someone came up and slapped the mattress twice, he’d lift his shoudler at the count of three, and I think Ric Flair is in exactly the same boat”- FUCK that is good insight from the commentator.

So Nick works pins while Hall keeps interrupting the good commentator, but Flair gets the knees up, then makes like Kaoru Ito and hits a double-foot stomp and a little “Woo!” is all it takes to piss off the Winnipeggers, then he makes an obscene gesture with his hips (“this is a family show, I think we better let that one go by…”). Flair with a high vertical suplex and “NOW! We go to school!” as the Figure-Four Leglock is applied (lol either Nick wanted to reverse the spot or he just is really good at making it look like he wanted to counter the hold)- Bockwinkel’s sell is interesting, as he keeps alternating pumping his fists to sell, but sure enough, the fans start going “Nick! Nick! Nick!” and he starts leaning over. Oh my god he’s LITERALLY clawing at the mat to reverse the hold- grabbing a bit of a fold to help him turn Flair over- tremendous. Flair pops out and tries again, but gets small packaged for a close two, and Nick counters his grapple with more COMMON FISTICUFFS (hey Nick! The name on the marquee is WRESTLING!), and a back body drop gets a few two-counts, Nick milking everything. But Flair comes back by dumping him (wtf? No ring apron!), and commentary talks about how the ring is 1-2 feet higher than a normal ring so that hurts extra bad. Flair lays the boots to him, but after a sleeper, gets shoved mouth-first into the turnbuckle and then Flair Tossed off the top!

Bockwinkel has his fists balled up in rage, but Flair interrupts him with a knee and they collide into Nick’s sleeper (I’m detecting some lack of chemistry here- little interrupting bits and bumping like that). Ric struggles hard in the sleeper, his fingernails scratching the ropes, and he goes down… and slides his foot on ’em at the last second so the fans bite on it hahahaha that son of a gun. Bockwinkel is WIPED so he just pulls the leg off to try again, but Flair just keeps doing it so Nick finally has to give up- he just tries the sleeper again but this costs him as Flair hits the backdrop suplex counter for two. Flair tries a kick- caught- Figure-Four Leglock for Bockwinkel! Flair howls and writhes, doing that “big head-shake” thing that looks so good because of his giant bleached haircut- he begs the ref for help again and gets slapped around as he finally escapes. Bockwinkel with the vertical suplex this time, barely rolling over for two, Flair tries a foot-on-the-ropes pin, then they criss-cross (poor Nick is WAY slower than Flair now), Nick goes down but hits an O’Connor Roll for two, then Flips Flair and punches him over the top. Nick is struggling so hard Flair basically mat-wrestles himself on the mat and they do “opening 5 minutes” stuff for near-falls now, and then they tangle up in the ropes and go over for the inevitable Double Count-Out at (16:16 of 25:14 shown). Well ya know that was coming.

These guys were SO good and did so many “little things” that even a match like this, which was obviously gonna be a double-finish and had some guys who didn’t work together much and so had some tricky bits, was still high quality. You’d see little things like Flair openly calling bits like Nick’s some rookie, with Flair pulling his head in for a headlock or lifting his legs obviously for a crab, like… wouldn’t Nick be good enough not to require the kid gloves? But hen you see Ric interrupting him with a knee or bumping into him and you think “MAYBE?”. Maybe Nick’s just so used to calling everything that he’s not used to having another guy do it (the champ’s prerogative, really). But then I checked the match date against Nick’s birthdate and a friend pointed out Nick is 52 damn years old at this point and so he’s probably dying on his feet against Prime Flair, haha. Like at this stage in Jericho’s career he was a porcine shell and Edge is a saggy-eyed relic. So it’s a marvel he’s doing as well as he is (thank god the match requires “exhaustion spots” as selling, lol). I mean, I’m eight years younger than Nick is here and I’d have croaked at 12:00, much less 25:00. But yeah, the match sorta peaks before the final stretch, Nick’s cardio means his selling starts to falter unless he’s doing “exhaustion” selling, and it goes home quick as I’d imagine Nick was telling Flair “okay we’re done- just end it plz”.

Rating: ***1/2 (an excellent display of this style of match- even at 52 years old, Bockwinkel held his own, though there were some awkward bits and Flair obviously leading)

THE BIG BOSS MAN vs. TEX SLAZENGER:
(WWF Dark Match, 1/9/2001)
* A truly strange one sees MIDEON show up in 2001 as “Tex Slazenger”, his WCW identity, and he comes down to Dusty Rhodes’s “American Dream” theme song. With bleach-blond hair and the ECW T-Shirt of Shame, and black & red tights (very much like his WCW ones). He even gets on the mic to suck up to the fans (proclaiming that the Raiders are gonna defeat the Ravens) and proclaim he’s now going to be his real self instead of trying to be somebody he’s not, while the Boss Man grabs it after the bell to proclaim the fans are cross-eyed inbreeds, resulting in Tex attacking him from behind.

Tex immediately COMPLETELY rips off Dusty Rhodes, doing the Flip Flop & Fly to send Boss Man careening into the ropes and bouncing back to get slugged down again- he bails to the floor to whine while Tex tries to ape more Dusty mannerisms (a “kiss my ass” gesture). Boss Man stalls to avoid a test of strength and loses a slugfest, then Tex rubs his ass-crack and crotch (over the tights) and puts his hand over Boss Man’s mouth and slugs him down. He then kisses the referee for some reason, and Boss Man takes out his knee, throws punches & slams him. He throws on a chinlock for our heat spot, Tex utterly failing to get the fans into it- he finally fights up, gets his foot up, and hits a DDT (Boss Man almost rolling over onto him). Tex is like “Now I’m gonna kick his ass!”, throwing a back elbow & elbowdrop for two, but he just gestures to the fans, leans against the ropes, and charges right into the Boss Man Slam, getting pinned at (5:24). Post-match, Boss man attempts to attack him with the nightstick, but Slazenger blocks it and beats him up, then lures him into the ring to whack him in the balls with the ring ropes a couple times and clothesline him down, leaving in “triumph” after just walking into his finisher a minute before.

Bizarre, bizarre match- Dennis Knight being rebranded as Tex Slazenger again, but it’s him under his “real persona”, and he works a basic slugfest against the Boss Man before just walking into his finisher and losing, but still gets a heroic send-off. Like they were thinking of repackaging Mideon of all people (one of their lowest-end jobbers) but didn’t want to have Boss Man LOSE or anything, so they were seeing how it went. As Tex had some of Dusty’s mannerisms but none of his promo skills or charisma, it wasn’t really gonna work (Dusty was like a 10/10 at connecting with the fans in terms of “relatability”, while Dennis is just some dweeb- one recognized for years as a jobber), but the match wasn’t really as bad as you’d expect a 5-minute Mideon/Boss Man match to be, as wasting a minute between flurries of offense with character stuff is probably the best use of both guys at this point.

Rating: * (basic filler before a show- low-effort but for a good flurry of selling by Boss Man early on, then chinlock/comeback/finish)

ECWA SUPER 8 TOURNAMENT:
FINAL MATCH:
THE AMERICAN DRAGON vs. LOW-KI:
(2/24/2001)
* Oh man, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen these guys wrestle this early in their careers. This is a request from Manji, who said “This is a series happening across 8 months in 2001 in 2 different indie promotions, where you can see one guy improving and starting to find himself a bit, and the final match would be part of the catalysis for ROH’s creation.” The ECWA Super 8 was a way for various skinny indie dweebs to show off in a time before Ring of Honor- Dragon got here by beating Spanky and Reckless Youth (oh man we’re still in the RECKLESS YOUTH period), while Ki beat Billy Fives and Trent Rain (… who the fuck are they?). Both are about the same size- short and thin, but obviously in shape with some muscle. Dragon’s theme music is The Offspring’s “Self Esteem” at this point. Oh my goodness gracious, Danielson is so poor at this point that his ring gear is SWEATPANTS. The kind someone with no self-esteem wears to the grocery store to buy TP! His theme song is now deeply ironic! And you know he’s poor if he’s an indie wrestler in the early 2000s with no kickpads.

They both go UFC to start with thigh kicks and no guard, then Dragon tackles him and a knucklelock sees Ki fight out and hit his rolling kick. Ki throws chops but gets kicked to the floor and tope’d (weakly), but comes back with chops and a big cartwheel handspring neck-kick, as is tradition. Dragon eventually grabs a kick and spins him out, then hangs him in the ropes and works the knee a while, moving from strikes to submissions. Low-Ki gets tangled up like a pretzel at one point, but he finally kicks free of a heel hook and enzuigiris Dragon to the floor to give himself a respite. Still selling the knee, he takes forever to climb the ropes (poor Dragon is left just standing there as it takes so long) and gets a big corkscrew dive to impress the fans. After a bit of selling, he gets two, but can’t get the Ki Krusher (fisherman’s suplex to falcon arrow), and has to kick free of a dragon sleeper and a Dragon Suplex attempt. He remembers to sell the leg and gets a Ki Krusher, but can’t capitalize. Another cartwheel move has Dragon catch him mid-leap for a Dragon Suplex right into Cattle Mutilation, his big finish at the time, but he can’t get a submission and eventually collapses. They finally fight up and trade big strikes until a rolling elbow gets 2 for Dragon. Bryan wisely takes the elbowpad off to be like “THIS TIME FOR SURE!”, all confident, and of coruse swings into a reversal- Ki lands the Ki Krusher and turns it right into his deadly Dragon Sleeper variant (sorta mounted on the back), getting the submission win at (11:13). Everyone hugs afterwards because in 2001, indie dweebs were all BROTHERS and JUST HAPPY TO BE THERE and FOR THE LOVE OF WRESTLING.

Nifty little indie match- both guys were clearly a bit bagged from their prior matches, hence turning this into more of a “weardown fest”, with the big moves at least interspersed with the slow stuff. At this point, from what I’ve seen, Indie Style tended to be very mat-focused before everyone became a Flippy Guy or Movez Guy. This makes things a bit slower and more predictable at times, but at least gives matches some focus and don’t kill off all their finishers.

Rating: **1/4 (a bit slow and with tired dudes doing a few flurries before slowing it down again, but fine- you could see the potential in both)

SPECIAL GUEST REFEREE: RICKY “THE DRAGON” STEAMBOAT:
THE AMERICAN DRAGON vs. LOW-KI:
(ECWA, 7/21/2001)
* A sequel! Five months later, they have another match, with Steamboat refereering. THe size difference is fascinating here, as Ricky, a smaller guy in ’80s WWF, is only a couple inches taller than either guy here, but WAY more bulky and massive overall, making them look like skinny kids compared to him, even with his grey hair. Bryan is now holding a belt, and THANK CHRIST can finally afford real tights. Blue ones, in this case. He’s billed at what is probably his shoot weight- 168 lbs. Ki’s 170 lbs., and has baggy navy blue & white baggy pants on.

See, Steamboat is only a little taller than the other two, but he’s WAY beefier- like a full athlete-type physique next to these two lightweights. And he was fairly small by WWF standards.

Once again it’s time for THIGH KICKS, plus a theatrically-long lockup, then Dragon takes a head-kick and powders to sell it. A long knucklelock spot (that’s very “early 2000s indie” to me, actually- when did guys stop doing those?) sees Ki throw some kicks to the inside of the thigh while on Dragon’s arched body, which is unique. Ki misses his rolling kick and Dragon misses his rolling elbow, causing them to tangle into the ropes again. Ki wins a war of strikes with a kick trio- Bryan’s already good at doing the “stunned” sell. But he slide-kicks Low-Ki’s wrist when he’s trying his cartwheel kick and goes to work on that with expert precision, even crossing his legs over the wrist while holding a headlock. Ki periodically kicks free, but Dragon stays on him the whole time, working the wrist every chance he gets. Finally, Low-Ki uses the wristlock to do a JB Angels run up the ropes into a schoolboy for two, but Dragon hits the Kick of Fear into a backdrop suplex, and soon keeps on the wrist, doing a wicked takedown holding it, then a jujigatame. Dragon cranks on a Million Dollar Dream twice in a row (ALSO uses the wrist! Psychology~~!), but can’t get any big moves and Low-Ki ducks him a bunch and hits a big slingshot enzuigiri (lol Steamboat doing a spinning sell of the move’s incredibility).

Ki hits a big running lariat, a thrust kick, and a big Rolling Kick in the corner (dig Bryan doing the “hanging off the ropes” sell). Dragon tries the Dream on the apron but gets snapmared to the floor. They fight up to the top rope (haha Bryan’s eye-rolling selling) and Ki pulls him into an upside-down Dragon Sleeper from there, Dragon selling 5 seconds of that like death for two. They get into a strikefest, won by Dragon’s elbows, but both are down, and Ki gets the next move with a Ki Krusher- two. Ki attempts another, misses an enzuigiri, and has to avoid the Dragon Suplex, but AD gets a German and rolls through into the Dragon for two. He tries a Dragon SUPERPLEX (!) and Ki knocks him off and hits a Phoenix Splash (corkscrew 450)- two! Ki, seemingly outta ideas, pulls up his shinguard and throws kicks and repeatedly tries pins, but overrelies on charging until Bryan’s able to spin him around into Cattle Mutilation, and that finally puts the fight out of him- Low-Ki can’t defend against it and finally fades out- Steamboat checks him and calls for the bell at (20:04).

Another good indie match- guys must have loved Bryan, who could control 75% of a match and always shake it up to avoid samey offense, would sell all their shit, then let them win (not HERE but much of the time). Even in 2001 he had a lot of stuff figured out- little ways to sell uniquely (like eating the rolling kick in the corner and using his bent arm to “hang” off the top rope while his head rested on the middle, like he was knocked out cold and just slumped into that spot). The match itself was “typical long indie match” but better- guys working a limb for most of it like we were all taught All Japan & New Japan did, making that limb the “story” of the match to work holds and fill up most of the offense, then slowly build to their bigger moves once the wrist magically heals (did he find a medikit or something?). A lot of the fancy-ass “Indie Wrestling” moves you don’t see as much in the styles that emulate it (AEW especially) like the “long lockup” and “complex knucklelock counters” spots, too. The main issue with this is Low-Ki’s selling- he has great, flowing offense, quick snap to his kicks, etc. (NOBODY in the business seemed to be on Low-Ki’s level with that kinda stuff), but didn’t really know how to sell compellingly, as all he does is hold his limb and then keep fighting. No sympathy-gathering, no near-taps, no nothing. He sold PHYSICALLY well, like flailing his body around or looking dizzied, but wouldn’t change expressions. As the FINISH is also a submission, this is a problem. But you can see the formations of what the US Indie Style became with stuff like this- things I see from before this are Reckless Youth/Ace Darling/Cheetah Master “like WWF but with small guys” type of stuff, or “Wannabe Rockers” at best- this was a Karate Flippy Guy and a New Japan Strong Style Kicky Guy doing a lot of precision offense and big moves, with the mandatory dramatic kickouts, without quiiiiiiiiiiiiite going into Finisher Spam mode.

Rating: ***1/4 (a very strong Indie Style match with some good offense- Low-Ki has great moves but poor selling, which held it back so Bryan had to basically do the match structure AND the selling)

LIZMARK JR. vs. SHANE HELMS:
(Lucha Libre USA, Jan. 22nd 2011)
* WHAT TH–?! Okay I was not paying attention to the business at all at this point, so I have only the vaguest memories of this being a thought. The promotion aired on MTV2 and only lasted a year or so before disappearing. And it used LIZMARK JR. as it’s Champion! One of the only roided luchadores in WCW! Yeah, I was looking up Lizmark Jr. matches to fill out the column and found this instead, haha. Helms is at this point out of WWE and probably in his “doing Hurricane spots for cash” phase, but here is making the “attempt at being a SERIOUS HEEL in a SHITTY PROMOTION!” thing (like Brian Lawler in early NWA-TNA). Oh god he’s got a DURAG on! And he’s doing the “Angry Yell!” thing on the top rope. Are those… dreadlocks? oh heavens. His gear is just a black & red version of his Hurricane gear, but no mask. Oh but he’s a babyface/technico, I guess. Lizmark, unlike Helms, is very stout/roided and covered in tattoos now. His mask also shows his hair, like a Jim Lee character. And his lower mouth!

They start really simple, doing almost nothing, and Helms does the “Hurricane pose” and works the arm a tad. Lizmark catches him trying a headscissors and boots him in the gut. lol the ref just lost a shoe. Lizmark works the leg a bit, then ripcord clotheslines him and poses. Snake-eyes knocks him loopy as commentary talks about the fans “going silent”, while they put over Helms as one of the biggest stars in wrestling history (CITATION NEEDED). Lizmark does the “walk and taunt” a lot and hits something like Emerald Flowsion for two. They chop each other on the floor and Helms does a superhero dive off the tall barricade. Back in, he gets punched trying a flying axehandle, but makes a comeback with clotheslines. Lizmark does the “slow walk into a move” in the corner and gets elbowed, setting up Shane’s Eye of the Storm (a hug twisted into an inverted DDT, sorta). Superhero Dive gets two, drawing out Sadistico to aide Lizmark, but he’s beaten up by Marco Corleone (some skinny white dude- all four dudes involved are in red & black, which is weird). Lizmark hits a spinebuster for two and Helms now looks dead, and Lizmark hits a Boss Man Slam and climbs to the 2nd rope, missing a somersault senton. Helms actually gets the fans into it for a last flurry, but misses the Shining Wizard (knee to a kneeling opponent) and Lizmark nails him in the balls for the DQ at (9:31). Oh man all that for a screwjob finish!

Oof, this was SLOWWWWWWWWWWWWW. Both guys were taking it easy and doing only very simple spots (probably unfamiliar with one another)- also it’s MTV2. Credit to Helms for getting an audience that’s probably not even wrestling fans (looks like bored families) into his comeback by the end, simple as all the offense was. I dunno who was supposed to be watching this promotion but if this was the top guys I’d hate to see the scrubs.

Rating: *1/2 (not like, the WORST thing I’ve ever seen, but very slow, simple and lazy)