Hulk Hogan & Ric Flair vs. Lex Luger & Sting (and other Dream Matches!)

Welcome back to more Dream Matches! This week, I have a REAL dream match for you… it’s the WCW Special- an “on paper” dream match that totally sucks and disappoints! It’s Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair, who of the all-time legends, versus “would-be” legends Lex Luger and Sting! Except it’s WCW Nitro in late 1999, which means everyone involved has long since stopped giving a shit! And Sting is in his addict phase! Holllllllllllly shit you should see his work here!

Then it’s a look at the “Asiatic” wildman Teijo Khan the Great, aka a very Caucasian man swinging his arms around and growling a lot, as he enters Memphis territory in 1987 and messes with Bill Dundee! Plus I found a short squash against future Blake Beverly, Mike Enos! Also I found a match where he takes his “White guy pretending to be Asian” gimmick TO JAPAN, as he faces Yoshiaki Yatsu & Shunichi Nakano while teaming up with Invader #1 as commentary openly makes fun of how short they are! Then it’s a classic WCW Saturday Night type of contest, as I finally get MORE JIM POWERS CONTENT in here as he takes on Fit Finlay in 1998! Then Barry Windham takes on giant jobber Emory Hale in a 1998 Nitro! And then I take a look at Hale’s go-nowhere Saturday Night push as the monster “Hail”, as he demolishes one jobber a week in early 2000- Chuck Coates, Mike Jones (Virgil!), Chad Hart (doing a Bret Hart riff) and Cassidy Riley! And then it’s the PWI #500 guy for 1998 (sorta), PUF, a 400+ lb. American who mostly wrestles in Canada, as he takes on AEW wrestler John Silver in an indie in 2020!

It is 1999. The WWF is as hot as it has ever been. And WCW brings out former top heel Hulk Hogan in the 1980s red & yellow to renew his babyface persona.

HULK HOGAN & RIC FLAIR vs. STING & THE TOTAL PACKAGE (w/ Miss Elizabeth):
(WCW Nitro, Oct. 4th 1999)
* OMG holy buckets! It’s an all-time Dream Match with four of the biggest stars of all time! Except Sting & Luger were never on the level of the other two (no matter how much some fans like to pretend, especially re: Sting, who was never a big draw until Crow Sting, and that lasted mere months) and it’s late 1999 WCW so nobody gives the slightest fuck anymore, and all four are washed up! But Hogan/Flair vs. Sting/Luger! Luger is now “The Total Package”, insisting upon only that title (“Don’t say Luger or he’ll send Elizabeth down here to get us! … might not be a bad idea!” “LUGERLUGERLUGERLUGER!” “hahahah”). Sting is sorta running a “tweener” thing… which Tony uses as an excuse why he’s not at all over here. Still there’s a sea of Sting signs and facemasks so it just looks like fans don’t care to make noise. And it’s late 1999 Hogan in YELLOW TRUNKS as he’s a babyface again. Nobody gets a pop and it’s just “the fans are standing up and staring” reactions throughout. This era of WCW was just nuclear bombing the entire fanbase.

The heels pounce to start (that’s Sting/Luger btw) but the babyfaces come back with punches. Both pairings do “smash them into a thing but they halt it to smash the other guy” spots, then Flair comes back in the ring with chops to the Stinger. Hogan comes in with punches and man Sting is fuuuuuuuuuuucked uuuuuuuuuuuup here- repeatedly forgetting to swing his head down to get smashed into stuff so Hogan has to re-do the spot with him. Thankfully Sting can do Flair segments even on S-tier quaaludes so they go again, Flair openly calling spots like a hiptoss. Flair goes down from a dropkick but grabs the ropes so Sting splats on a second one, but his best idea is to go up and get Flair Tossed off (a heel spot, even though he’s a babyface here). Package comes in with a shitty powerslam and drops some elbows on Flair while Heenan disses anyone who dismisses Luger as “not so tough”, elaborating that he’s 5’8″ 400 lbs. and has a brown sock and a white sock on- lol was this a big internet refrain at this time? Flair tries to inverted atomic drop Sting out of the corner punches but Sting lands straight-legged and lariats him in a babyface spot. Sting then wins a slugfest and hits the laziest chinlock ever (not even leaning into Ric at all) so Hogan can get a small chant going. Package comes in and goes to the eyes to stop Flair’s chops, then holds his leg, the only guy in the match to remember he’s supposed to be a heel, then Sting does the press slam and splashes onto Flair’s knees. This finally leads to the warm-ish tag to Hogan (five fans are seen jumping up on the hard cam! I swear!) and they bump & feed for him, LEX LUGER being more energetic and bouncy than Sting is being. Hogan knocks noggins and counters a double-whip by clotheslining them both down and flexing his leathery pecs at them. This sends in HEEL DDP (oh jesus christ), but Flair counters the Diamond Cutter and Luger throws a blind kick to the nuts and Torture Racks him by accident, while Hogan eats a Stinger Splash and just arbitrarily decides to stop selling it (not a proper Hulk-Up spot but waiting a sec to do it) and just does a Big Boot into the Legdrop and pins Sting at (7:14). lmao they ran a clean finish to it. I was not expecting that.

hahah what a messsssssssssss. Sting was turbo fucked up the whole time, just stumbling around at 1/4 speed and having to be led through the “Same old same old” by Ric Flair, which meant they were doing standard Flair/Sting routine stuff… which doesn’t work because Flair was supposed to be the BABYFACE but he’s being flung off the top and getting countered out of his moves, while Sting is supposed to be a heelish sort now but is just blank-faced going through his regular offense. This leaves the Total Package of all people having to remind everyone what kind of match it is, and Hogan’s barely in it… but makes sure to just casually no-sell a Stinger Splash and immediately pin Sting with the usual garbage.

Rating: *1/2 (about as bad a match as these four can wrestle together- it was Flair broomsticking Addict Sting while Hogan goes through clumsy stuff and Luger does his usual boring-looking soft offense)

So when I made a comment about “total devastation” last week, the poster DamonD informed me of this notable promo by heel manager Mark Gullen (“Goo-leen” of the House Gullen) who went to the furthest reaches of the world, into the mountains of Northern China to find “Teijo Khan the Great”, a master martial artist who could do more damage with his fingers than other wrestlers could do with a fist, an elbow, or a knee. He was chosen from childhood to train in the deadliest of all martial arts- MOR-TOO-KAI-CHI. “Pack your bags, BILL DUN-DEE! Get out of town while you still can, Jerry Lawler! Protect that PRETTY FACE, Jeff Jarrett! And Billy Travis, WE WILL BREAK YOU!”. This promo is HILARIOUS, being both extremely overwrought and over-enunciated (he says “knee” like “KNEEEEEEE”), and that’s before he brings forth his terrifying Asian menace, who is of course the single most Caucasian-y person ever (but with the Evil Asian handlebar mustache and queue haircut), springing out of the water like a spasmatic bug and flailing around with his arms at his side, clumsily hotstepping around as Gullen boasts of how fast he can run the 40-yard dash (3.5 seconds). And wow, I never realized how much the remote mountains of East Asia look like the woods of rural Tenneessee.

TEIJO KHAN THE GREAT (w/ Mark Gullen) FIGHTING BILL DUNDEE:
(CWA, Dec. 19th 1987)
* I found a thing with Dundee! Dundee was one of the top names in Memphis, and is shown here advertising a wrestling school. Someone tell me if he made any stars! Dundee is so short he’s even look small in today’s stuff, much less 1980s wrestling. He talks about how his school won’t turn out “street brawlers” like Memphis has now, and “they got me working with an idiot now in Teijo Khan” sending out the Asiatic wildman full of grunts and growls. Dundee then EXPOSES THE BUSINESS by claiming that Gullen invented his hilarious phony accent “and all the money that you have”, while Gullen claims Dundee is “Perpetrating a FRAUD on the American people” by pretending to be an expert on wrestling.

Gullen shoves Dundee from behind, distracting him so Khan can haul him into the ring by h is hair and beat the shit out of him. A perfectly-acceptable shit-kicking ensues, full of flailing arms (you know it’s Asiatic martial arts when a fella swings his arms around a lot before doing a move- I watch UFC a lot, so I know what I’m talking about) and then a thumb-thrust to the throat and some choking with an odd grip. “This is not wrestling!” cries Lance Russell about all the chokeholds as Gullen uses like 7 different accents during his rant. Russell pleads for decorum like he does, but only Hector Guerrero comes out. He proceeds to take off all his pre-match shit for a while while Lance decries “Oh yeah you’re a BIG help”, finally getting in to pull Teijo off of Dundee… and then helps him up and immediately clotheslines him. Hah! They continue the beatdown until the Memphis Jobber Brigade comes down to chase them off. Hector comes back to rant about rednecks to Lance, suggesting the condition is caused from too much ignorance swelling the brain, so the blood pools up, causing the neck to become red. The Mexican Connection is apparently where it is AT.

Hector then comes out for his match with Ken Rape– … Ken RAPER?! WHAT?! Was Ken Child Molester busy?! Hector finishes him quickly with a few moves, a suplex, a snapmare, and the world’s worst German suplex (Raper goes sideways and Hector has to pull him over for a bridge) for the pin.

TEIJO KHAN THE GREAT (w/ Soldat Ustinov) vs. MIKE ENOS:
(CWA/AWA, Sept. 17th 1988)
* We’re JIP with the Great taking on the future Blake Beverly as a rookie in Nashville! Jerry Lawler is on commentary for this one.

They roll around the ropes grappling until Khan hits a reverse knife-edge chop but gets cross-bodied for two, and Enos hiptosses him down. Khan comes back with a shot to the throat and a backbreaker. Khan throws some punches and a bodyslam, then a chinlock to kill a minute. Then he demonstrates his mastery over the martial arts with a powerslam. He misses an elbow and Enos slugs him, but Khan gets a surprise lariat out of the corner and wins with a lethal Regular-Ass Kneeling Punch at (3:35). If that was the whole match it was a pretty 50/50 squash, Khan not really looking impressive but also not looking totally incompetent, which is something.

Rating: * (pretty basic short match, with Enos in particular looking competent)

TEIJO KHAN & INVADER #1 vs. YOSHIAKI YATSU & SHINICHI NAKANO:
(All Japan Pro Wrestling, July 3rd 1987)
* Yes, it’s Teijo Khan, a white guy pretending to be an Asian wildman, IN JAPAN, where they are probably gonna notice that “angry eyebrows” drawn onto his head do not make this very pale man look Asian, haha. I know Yatsu as “Ring Filler” and “A Jumbo Tsuruta Delivery System” in many All Japan matches I’ve seen. I’ve never heard the other guy. Looks like… he was in New Japan from 1980-84, jumped to All Japan, then left with Tenryu to form SWS, then WAR. He retired in 2001. He looks like one of those Generic Black Trunks Guys, fresh-faced, big-haired and nothing to write home about. Yatsu’s heavier-looking and in black tights. Invader #1 is a shorty with a white mask and blue tights. This is, in fact, the Invader who killed Bruiser Brody. Not sure if I’ve ever seen him wrestle before. He kills Brody a year after this. lol his Cagematch rating is only 0.53- the lowest I’ve ever seen. KENNY KAOS beats him. I mean I get that he’s a murderer, but… the sanctity of Cagematch ratings! Those are supposed to be for TALENT-related reasons! How dare those fans betray that responsibility!

We’re clipped to Khan holding Nakano in a chinlock, but Nakano suplexes out. Yatsu comes in and grabs a wrist while tripping Khan, using a half-nelson and rolling around on the mat. lmao this is actually Japan’s version of the “commentary talks about the events of the day and doesn’t give a fuck what’s going on in the ring” match. I actually unironically love that Japan has those, too. Apparently they’re recruiting various wrestlers to All Japan, theorizing on the way they’ll train Rajah Lion as Khan hits a back elbow and keeps waving his arms around. Invader’s midget ass comes in and hits a kneelift, slam & kneedrop. Chop & small package gets two. Khan throat-thrusts Yatsu & dumps him for an Invader beating, then throws punches & overhand chops in-ring while Baba is more interested in how John Tenta’s “Grizzly Power” might translate in All Japan, where you have to put in a lot of hard work and go around with wrestlers who speak English (“You have to go through the hardships”). Invader gets suplexed, but doesn’t feel like giving up offense yet so he trips Yatsu & Khan’s back in. Invader uses a chair on the floor as commentary disses how short the foreigner team is, then Yatsu makes his own comeback with an enzuigiri. Nakano quickly gets a dropkick & backdrop suplex for only one, hits an enzuigiri too, and they fuck up a backdrop spot, Invader just running into him and improvising a knee. A running kneedrop gets two as commentary openly says that Invader’s billed height of 180cm is bullshit (“He’s not really that tall”), but he gets Flair Tossed off the top and Yatsu comes in for a double-chop, Nakano dropkicks Khan to the floor, and Yatsu figure-fours Invader’s legs and kneels on them like that, making him submit at (6:11 of 10:31 shown). haha Khan & Nakano are brawling on the floor, so Yatsu just calmly gets a chair and whacks him with it, chasing him into the ring so they can leave in peace. Attaboy!

My favorite part about this is learning that JAPAN has the “guys fuck around slowly in the ring so commentary can discuss what’s going on in the company this week” matches, too. And hoo boy was this slow, with guys just sorta hitting a move or two then tagging out, taking it easy and boring the fans with random midcard stuff. I loved them putting Invader #1 on blast for being so short and lying about his height, haha. Otherwise the match was DULL. Everyone was either lazy or just kinda bad and loose.

Rating: * (nothing TV match, but it was one of those “deliberately low-effort” ones- can’t distract commentary from talking about John Tenta’s “Grizzly Power”)

“Early WCW Run” Mad Max Finlay is his weirdest incarnation.

FIT FINLEY vs. JIM POWERS:
(WCW Saturday Night, 03/07/1998)
* WOOOOOOOOOOO FUCK YEAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! The King of Jobber-Slayers vs. The King of Jobbers! Powers of course comes down the aisle adjusting his wrist tape like he always does. He’s in a blue singlet this time, but has lost his manager Teddy Long! Where’s he gonna go without the Manager of Jobbers’ guidance?! Fit, meanwhile, is called “Finley” and is in his weirdest incarnation, which is to have a leather jacket with one metal shoulder-pad on it, and a dark mullet.

Fit immediately starts working some chain-wrestling, Powers about as competent at that as you’d expect (I love him being a half-second slow on everything, haha). I love Fit’s brutality- Powers bounces off from a shoulderblock so he just lariats him and then stomps on his hand. Elbows, European uppercuts & more hand-stomps are in Jim’s future, then an eyepoke to stop some chops. Jim comes back with EIGHTIES-FU, firing off forearms, gut-kicks and a hiptoss (actually falling on Fit after it). Finley bails after a clothesline, but back in manages to grab the traps & nose again, duplicating his offense from earlier in the match. He drops Powers throat-first across the top rope, then gets into it with the ref over shoving the ring steps around- haha he must have been told to extend this by any means necessary. Fit with a short-arm clothesline & sleeper, but Jim fights out, then gets his knees up on a Vader Bomb attempt, slams him into the turnbuckle ten times… and it’s his FINISHING SEQUENCE, the dreaded punch to the gut followed by a kneelift! But Finley is somehow able to get his foot on the ropes following a dropkick. And tragically Jimmy Ken Pateras into the corner and gets clotheslined again, and Fit pins him with the Tombstone at (6:29).

oh man, they had to kill SO much time in this one, lol. Obviously it was a “talk about random stuff” match because Saturday Night didn’t often have 7-minute matches on it. And here you can see why- Fit throwing endless clotheslines, repeating the early-match offense 5 minutes later, jawing with the ref outside the ring once, doing a sleeper spot, etc. There’s only so much you can do working a long match with Jim Powers. Finley’s stuff was precise and tight as ever, while Jim managed not to mess anything up in any significant way. It’s just a funny contrast seeing the ’80s “turnbuckle shots and kneelifts” style mixed with Fit grinding him out and hitting stiff clotheslines.

Rating: *3/4 (well, it’s tolerable despite the length, not not really interesting or good)

BARRY WINDHAM vs. EMORY HALE:
(WCW Monday Nitro, Dec. 14th 1998)
* Oh man, Emory Hale made NITRO? Amazing. So this giant jobber was trotted out for a handful of shows in 1998 before being repackaged as “Hail” in late 1999, but he never became anything. He’s extremely tall (about an inch taller than Windham), muscular, and has short hair and a goatee here. Here, Barry Windham is just a generic babyface guy with blue jeans. His last fuck was given something like six years prior, too.

Windham charges Hale from behind before the match, but Hale quickly starts no-selling him and beats him up and hits the Nash choke. But he misses the Stinger Splash (his go-to reversal spot) and Barry calls a spot, hitting a backdrop suplex. Windham legdrops and dumps him, slamming him on the floor and back-body dropping him in the ring. Hale counters a whip but runs into a boot, and the running bulldog and Superplex finish him at (2:31). Some solid bumping from the enormous Hale, who went out there and was treated as a jobber nobody.

Rating: 1/2* (not bad by squash standards- Barry goes through the usual but Hale was mostly good to follow his lead. Not quite as dominant as a one-sided match like this usually is, though- Barry just didn’t have the killer instinct)

Okay, WHAT?

HAIL (w/ Jimmy Hart) vs. CHAD HART:
(WCW Saturday Night, March 4th 2000)
* Okay Bret Hart had been retired all of a couple months and now there’s a goofy jobber in a pink & black singlet named “Hart” doing his taunt. There’s gotta be some story here. This is apparently Hail’s debut (Emory Hale had been around a year+ beforehand but had been off TV a while).

Hail immediately press-slams the dweeb, throws him into the corner and beats on him, and the Piledriver finishes at (0:44). The EMTs come out as Larry Z quips “Is this kid still ALIVE?” as that was a NASTY bump (eating the piledriver and dropping his lower body forwards).

HAIL (w/ Jimmy Hart) vs. MIKE JONES:
(WCW Saturday Night, March 18th 2000)
* Surprisingly, Vincent was A) still around B) goes under his REAL NAME at this point. I do not remember this at all. He’s in jean shorts and shades, but looks scared when he sees the giant monster coming his way.

Mike whips Hail with his weight belt before the bell, resulting in a big clothesline. Hail immediately hits the Piledriver, Jones selling it as a FRONT FACE BUMP for some reason at (0:22). Still that requires EMTs. Easy night of work for Mr. Jones.

HAIL (w/ Jimmy Hart) vs. CHUCK COATES:
(WCW Saturday Night, March 25th 2000)
* Scott Hudson quips “Man I could watch Miss Hancock videos all day”, and Larry Z adds “You got a fetish?” “No I had the pasta with maranara sauce, actually”. Chuck is a jobbery jobber in black shorts and the ECW T-Shirt of Shame, but looks like a basic small dude. He goes WAY back- there’s a video of him & Paul Roma jobbing to the Colossal Connection. He died in late 2025 after a series of heart operations (4 in 1 week!).

Hail immediately throws a knee, whips Coates into the post and hits an enzuiclothesline, then lifts him for a vertical suplex but drops him ass-first on the top turnbuckle, leaving him crashing to the mat in a nasty bump! Piledriver finishes at (0:58). Again the EMTs come out.

hahahaha oh, the “Terrified Jobber Face”. Give that kid a RAISE.

HAIL (w/ Jimmy Hart) vs. CASSIDY RILEY:
(WCW Saturday Night, April 1st 2000)
* haha, skinny jobber Riley (in blue tights) has the same theme music as Chuck Coates from the weak before! A “Baby Did a Bad Thing” Jimmy Hart Version! SLOPPY SHOP!

Props to Riley for a top-tier “Scared Baby Jobber” look. Hail holds his arms behind him and dares the kid to take a shot, then shrugs off a chop like it’s nothing- poor Riley flails his hands in terror, gets whipped into the corner, and Hail just ANNIHILATES him with a quick explosive avalanche, then press-slams drops him like a sack of shit as the kid as a PERFECT “jobber stumble”. Piledriver finishes at (1:04). EMT time! Riley is TREMENDOUS here, shaking with fear, bouncing his head around on every shot to make them look impactful, then “jobber stumbles” into a press slam for a monster face bump.

Rating: DUD-1/2* (all are about the same, but the Riley one is easily the best. Goes from 2/5 on the Squash Scale to a full 4/5 for that one)

THIS WEEK’S PWI #500: PUF (aka Police Navidad):
#500 appearance: N/A (#499 in 2018, #485 in 2019)

-Puf is my hero: A truly FAT wrestler existing in modern times! He’s a Buffalo-born wrestler typically appearing in Ontario promotions like Capital City Championship Combat and the somewhat less-creatively named Barrie Wrestling (Ontario is like RIGHT next to Buffalo, NY). And hoo boy is he an obesitron- billed at 5’10” 499 lbs., he looks like he’s made out of Jell-O & diabetes, with a wriggly jiggly bottom-heavy body. Also “Police Navidad”, whenever he used that, is a TREMENDOUS name.

Also I don’t actually see a #500 listed for 2018 so I did Puf instead.

PUF vs. “THE RAW DOG/THE MEAT MAN” JOHN SILVER:
(Limitless Wrestling, New York, Jan. 24th 2020)
* Silver is notably one of the sorta breakout guys in the early years of AEW, before the Dark Order turned into total jobbers and disappeared off of important TV. He’s like 5’2″ and ridiculously juiced, giving him this funny squat appearance in his black trunks. Puf is wearing an Evil Knievel-type black bodysuit covered in stars and is wobbling his lower body around as if to emphasize his prodigious lower body. Like… why is the row of stars starting at his waist but ending up halfway down his ass? Who fitted this? The feud is apparently over both wanting to be “big boys” but Silver not having respect for Puf. oh, a feud over RESPECT- that’s indie wrestling, alright. Next they’ll be fighting over who wasn’t a good enough FRIEND.

They start off immediately with one of AEW’s favorite spots: the NO CONTACT LIGHTLY BRUSHING HOCKEY FIGHT~~. Real Frye/Takayama out here the way they almost each other’s backs with forearms. Puf then tilt-a-whirls Silver and they do some light chops outside the ring, Silver switching to kicks. Why is he doing Shoot Style, lol? Puf comes back and grab a chair (commentary emphasizes this is NOT no-DQ) and it gets set up- Silver dodges so Puf goes flying into it. Silver wins another strike war in the ring and hits a “kick” to a 619-positioned Puf, lightly draping his leg over his back and slapping his thigh to show impact. Another thigh-slap kick hits the back of Puf’s head and Silver acts heelish, raking him on the ropes and taunting in between high kicks. Silver hits an enzuigiri (slicing Puf’s cheek open a bit, which is amusing as Silver STILL slaps the thigh and it was supposed to hit the back of the head) but Puf manages to throw him off and hit an avalanche on the other side.

Puf misses another and another thigh-slap kick stuns him, and an Angle Slam with 1 foot of height brings the big man down. Silver with a flying elbow, frog splash AND flying stomp in succession for only two. Silver is incensed and taunts Puf as the throws kicks, but the big guy PUFS UP and… takes him down for some wimpy overhand clubbing blows. Aw man. But Silver hits a NICE charging superkick, only to get caught and Puf hits the Over-Theatrical Indie-Spinning move, stopping short of an uranage and flatlinering him instead. Too bad the 500-lb. guy should probably be using his WEIGHT against Silver but what do I know? Puf goes up for a superplex but Silver sunset flips over him (okay that’s super close to banzai dropping yourself, haha) and hits a sit-out powerbomb for two. He spazzes out at the ref over the count and fires himself up… and charges into the Rikishi Driver, Puf winning at (9:44). After the match, Puf demands Silver come in and share beer drinking with him because “big boys drink beer”, and they hug it out, Puf having WON SILVER’S RESPECT, which is the most “modern wrestling” kind of feud to have, lol.

Not the WORST thing I’ve ever seen, as Silver works nearly the whole thing and he’s at least decent. The thigh-slapping always makes me wanna die (arguably the thing I like least about modern wrestling) but he at least moves well. This was wrestled entirely with him as dominant and Puf fighting from behind, though Puf doesn’t have any compelling sell-jobs in him and just kinda lies there and looks winded (… he fat). Wayyyyyy too softly wrestled most of the way, though, especially Puf’s offense- the cameras zooming way in makes it look all the worse when indie guys are just lightly sliding their forearms along each other’s bodies.

Rating: *3/4 (pretty standard “okay indie match” with some parts that make me wanna die, but other parts that were fine)