Bret Hart vs. The Patriot (and other Dream Matches!)

Welcome back to more Dream Matches! And this time, I have a match I missed the first go-around, with Bret Hart fighting The Patriot on WWF RAW in 1997! With Shawn Michaels on commentary to set up SummerSlam! Then it’s an interesting one from Owen Hart’s 5-year run in New Japan Pro Wrestling as he faces a fresh-faced young Keiji Mutoh! Then more of John Nord in All Japan, as he faces Stan Hansen himself in 1994!

After that, it’s a look at 1992 WCW, with Mr. Hughes facing the neon Spider-Man ripoff ARACHNAMAN! And that leads directly to a tag match the next week where Mr. Hughes & Cactus Jack face Arachnaman and VAN HAMMER! Truly the full splendor of 1992 WCW Pro on display! And finally, our look at PWI 500 guys leads me to CHIKARA and their “Colony” stable, as I found Worker Ant vs. Soldier Ant in Cardiff, Wales!

BRET “HITMAN” HART vs. THE PATRIOT:
(WWF RAW, July 28th 1997)
* This match stems from Bret’s great heel run in the WWF, where he began to speak Truth To Power, saying entirely correct things about America. And nothing infuriates American fans more than the TRUTH, so this gave Bret incredible heat. This particularly enraged The Patriot, who built his entire persona around the worship of American Lies. And so he briefly entered the WWF as a mini-feud for Bret while the Steve Austin feud temporarily transferred to Owen Hart- a weird outlier to the increasingly “Attitude”-style era where everyone was playing more gritty, down-to-earth characters (hence Patriot always being called by his real name on commentary like he was an otherwise normal guy). Bret is one week away from winning the WWF Title against The Undertaker at SummerSlam, with Shawn Michaels acting as Guest Referee (with a rule enforcing him playing it down the middle and not showing bias). Shawn’s doing commentary here. Also a fun fact: this match is from one of the only two WWF RAWs I missed during a run from about 1995-2005. I had wanted to record them while I did a school trip in Japan that summer, but for whatever reason it didn’t happen. And I remember this because I NEVER missed RAW, lol. We’re in the city where Bret famously said that “If I were to give the United States an enema, I would stick the tube RIGHT HERE in Pittsburgh!”, which might explain the somewhat biased crowd reaction here.

Bret taking time out of choking the Patriot to flip off the unruly, uncultured fans of the United States.

We start the video off with the American National Anthem, but Bret assaults the Patriot from behind! Well really, the Patriot showed incredible disrespect by turning AWAY from Bret and standing against the ropes while looking at the screen, so if you think about it Bret was 100% morally correct to do that. Bret beats him down with punches & turnbuckle shots while the American fans show their true colors by chanting “USA!”, flipping Bret off, and throwing a wadded-up paper at him. haha Bret responds by flipping the guys off, too! WHILE CHOKING THE PATRIOT! True Canadian multitasking. The fans keep throwing paper- this is like those dangerous American streetcorners Bret was talking about. Ref Earl Hebner, a total pro, is good at casually sweeping it aside with his foot while pretending to just be walking around) while Patriot gets a boot up in the corner and immediately pumps his fist with perfect melodrama. There’s so much shit and spilled drinks on the floor that poor Patriot slips trying a punch, but Bret covers for him and gets flung back into the ring for the Patriot Missile (flying shoulderblock)- of COURSE the patriotic wrestler would name his finisher after a murderous WEAPON OF WAR. Bret kicks out of it and we’re back from break with him hitting a backbreaker, having used his ringpost figure-four during commercial. Bret mocks his opponent and legsweeps him for two, then goes to the eyes to stop a comeback (which looks like cheating, but really Patriot was totally about to cheat himself, which makes this a great case of preemptive revenge for the virtuous Hitman).

Fans continue to throw papers and bottles into the ring during the match, clearly having learned nothing from when Bret correctly suggested the country needs an enema, with the tube being placed right here in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Commentary actually buries Patriot a bit, Vince saying he’s “not quite as good as we think he someday will be” and Jim Ross says that he spent the last several years in Japan, and “certainly I don’t think has been in the ring with ANYBODY of the caliber of Bret Hart” at least in the US. Bret adds a great backdrop suplex (Patriot really crunches up on the sell- very nice) then his 2nd-rope elbow, then tries to remove the mask to force the Patriot to stop hiding his face like one of those gun-toting American criminals waiting on a street corner to shoot schoolchildren! Bret overswings on a punch and ends up in the full nelson for the Uncle Slam near the corner, but wisely kicks off the turnbuckles, causing Hebner to crash and burn beneath them. Bret hits his old piledriver finish and gets up to a count of FIVE but is so concerned for poor Hebner’s safety that he selflessly releases the pin and gently consoles Earl, rubbing his head and trying to wake him up. That was a sure pinfall, too! I mean uhhhhh sure he hasn’t scored a win with that since the eighties but… SHUT UP! Bret hits a legdrop & headbutt to the abdomen but then THAT HYENA SHAWN MICHAELS pulls Bret off the pin! Shawn just prances away like an AMERICAN SISSY while Bret correctly goes to the official to demand this injustice be righted- just like the kind the American Supreme Court is infamous for propagating- but is so distracted by bravely demanding Shawn enter the ring and fight him that he gets ROLLED UP, and the dreaded “Distraction Schoolboy”, the MDK of MDK finishers in the WWF, finishes at (6:24), The Patriot getting a tainted victory over Bret Hart! Bret is pelted with garbage as the biased security forces prevent him from beating up the Patriot again, then turns to Shawn Michaels, who shows classic AMERICAN COWARDICE by taking the high ground on the announcer’s table for an unfair advantage and just waves his fists around until the Undertaker’s gong ends the segment and the program. This place really does need an enema!

Not a bad little match- great tempo and brawling as they fought back & forth, Bret usually controlling everything since Wilkes was limited but could do babyface comebacks set up by Bret with a couple big moments. Also interesting is how Bret was humiliated yet protected (as he’s winning the belt in a week… just in time to be totally ignored on WWF programming for a Shawn/Taker feud), as he gets to kick out of one finish and avoid another, then gets the “visual pinfall” while commentary explains that Patriot “has potential” which is always a backhanded compliment for a guy wrestling a main eventer.

Rating: **1/2 (a good, solid TV match)

KEIJI MUTOH vs. OWEN HART:
(New Japan, 07/05/1990)
* It’s Owen Hart in New Japan! He was actually there for a short time. *checks* by which I mean LONG TIME, as he wrestled 20-50 matches for them per year from 1987-1991! This time, between his WWF runs, it’s actually his primary location for the year. Well I’ll be damned. He’s here in his Blue Blazer trunks but no mask. Mutoh, in red trunks, is mobbed by fans on the way to the ring.

Mat wrestling to start, with Mutoh holding a headlock, Owen bridging out before a top-wristlock switch, but Mutoh monkey flips him and hangs on, forcing Owen to do the Tiger Mask flipping counter he always did (in the company where that’s a copycat move, lol), then vaults Mutoh and really impresses the fans with a great headscissors on the way over. Mutoh then dumps him and does a whip to the guardrail, then leaps right up to the top rope for an axehandle in-ring, then dumps him again for another railing spot- Owen fires back with European uppercuts but gets spinkicked in the gut, only to hit a kneedrop, and they chain-wrestle until Owen backflips over a drop-down and hits his enzuigiri to Mutoh. Chinlock & crossface chickenwing set up a “Mutoh!” chant & mule kick in the corner, with his driving elbow getting two. Owen escapes a chinlock, dumps MUTOH for a rail bump and then OH MY GOD I FOUND IT! AT LAST I FOUND IT! AN ABDOMINAL STRETCH MONSOON WOULD APPROVE OF! Owen remembers to hook that ankle around the calf muscle!

MAGNIFICENT. No wonder Gorilla was always going on about this!

Mutoh’s able to escape by using his free hand to muck about with Owen’s leg out from his leg and hiptosses out- Owen slips on a corner crossbody but barely manages it, then starts working two-counts with a gutwrench suplex & legdrop, but Internationals into a dropkick and Mutoh slaps on the scorpion deathlock before the Harts perfected it! When Owen pushes up, Mutoh repositions to the Muta Lock until Owen rakes his face. Mutoh fights blind and Owen catches him with a neckbreaker for two. Big reaction for kicking out of a headbutt off Bret’s rope, then when Owen leapfrogs him and hits a Bridging German. Owen nails him with his belly-to-belly suplex (the footwork on that is MAGNIFICENT as always) for two, then a backbreaker into a Moonsault, which mostly misses but has the crowd way into Mutoh, who floats behind on a suplex and Germans OWEN for two, then backbreakers him into his own Moonsault for three (11:42).

Great technique in this one- slow, steady and with perfect technique, but a bit bland. More or less Owen’s M.O. until his heel turn, really. This was very “Gaikokujin vs. Japanese”, with 2-3 moves and then a chinlock so they could reposition for another thing, repeated floor-dumps to shake up the offense, etc. Eventually it just turns into Owen beating Mutoh’s ass with tons of unanswered offense, probably since Mutoh’s winning he doesn’t need to dominate the lower-ranked wrestler. Despite the fairly slow pace, they did enough running and top-tope moves to keep the fans’ interest, and the non-stop Owen dominance led to a big reaction for Mutoh a couple of times, leading to the finish.

Rating: **3/4 (a very professional wrestling match wrestled professionally- not swinging for the fences but beautiful mechanically save for a couple semi-missed things)

The timing and footwork of Owen’s belly-to-belly suplex is why it’s so good. Pausing, you can see that he “catches” the guy (ie. the guy leaps over top of him while Owen grabs his head and shoulder) and immediately spins perpendicular to the ring, twirling his legs around to put the torque on the move to make it look more devastating and smooth.

1994 CHAMPION CARNIVAL:
STAN HANSEN vs. BIG JOHN NORD:
(All Japan, March 20th 1994)
* I actually recapped this one first and discovered the tag match from last week, which made a better headliner. Nord was a guy doing a Bruiser Brody Tribute Act, but to be fair was often in the same company as Brody so it seemed like it was okay. Brody was legendary in Japan but long-dead, so I dunno how his Temu act would go over in 1994. Both are in black trunks, with Nord keeping the big fuzzy boots.

Hansen goes to the ropes right away, but grabs them when Nord sticks his boot up early. Same result when Nord does a Brody-style rope-run and Stan tries a reverse elbow. They fight for position in grapples, with Nord firing off some chops, but Hansen snapmares him and does his dramatic chinlock. Nord powers out and puts the boots to him, and chooses to work the arm, even dragging Stan out and using the guardrail and a chair to work his armbar. But Hansen immediately fires back in the ring with a chop & elbow from the other arm, but collapses from the accumulated damage and Nord just gets up and starts stomping him again. He shoves Stan’s arm under his armpit, but Stan headbutts out- Nord comes back on the apron by snapping the arm, headbutts it a bunch, then in the corner Hansen comes back with brawling, but charges that arm into the corner and Nord hits the big boot for two. Slam/legdrop gets two. Piledriver, too- called out as not getting much elevation by commentary, lol. Stan gets his foot on the ropes, and Nord misses the Flying Nothing off the second rope, clutching his knee in pain. He shoves Stan off of an ankle-pick but gets backdropped out of another piledriver, then whiffs a dropkick- Stan is ready and shoulderblocks him down, shifts the elbowpad to excite the fans, then… Nord throws up a big boot and Stan rushes past him, coming off the other side with the Western Lariat and pins him at (9:04).

A match interesting in its mediocrity- obviously Stan’s a bit too old to have one of those “wild ’80s All Japan brawls” so instead gives Nord a bit of selling with all that arm work being done. Nord kinda sucks though so it’s very perfunctory and doesn’t look all that devastating, decent as Stan’s selling is. All the momentum-shifting is good, though- keeps the match a bit unpredictable when Stan takes all that offense on the floor but suddenly comes back, only to have Nord get up and beat on him once Stan’s tired out. Little things like that make it more interesting than “Nord dominates for 8 minutes with shitty offense” which is how it often is in the West. The ending was a foregone conclusion, but good on them for shaking even that up a bit so Stan didn’t just hit it immediately. Nord’s Champion Carnival run was poor, as he ended up ahead of only Jackie Fulton, Doug Furnas, Johnny Smith, and an injured Mitsuharu Misawa.

Rating: **1/4 (about as good as Nord was gonna get with most guys, to be honest)

MR. HUGHES vs. ARACHNAMAN:
(WCW Pro, Jan. 4th 1992)
* Oh man I love this shit, haha. Early 1990s WCW is one of my big grey areas in fandom and this goofy nonsense is right up my alley. “The Bodyguard” Mr. Hughes is a massive 300+ lb. dude who never really made it in wrestling, and Arachnaman is Brad Armstrong is one of his many gimmicks meant to hide his lack of charisma. A neon yellow Spider-Man uniform is decidedly NOT it, never mind that they don’t do enough of the goofy shit that MIGHT appeal to kids about this gimmick. Like “silly string” webbing or tons of high-flying. I mean the webbing would be DUMB but it’s the dumb I think kids would like, especially when used to embarrass heels.

Jim Ross gives backhanded compliments about Hughes like “I can tell you what that tempo is- it’s METHODICAL. Almost PLODDING” well that’s actually a backhand. But he admits Hughes can ramp it up when need be. Arachnaman keeps doing Spider-Man-ish poses (mostly a short crouch with his arms out) but even a bargain-basement theme park performer could probably do it better. They play some “Arachnaman is too fast” stuff with him ducking under Hughes, who offers no respond and just looks annoyed, sometimes even fully turning his back to the masked man. He finally clobbers Arachnaman out of a lockup, but A-man ducks under two clotheslines and gets caught in a crossbody, only to re-roll Hughes over him (did Hughes just spike himself on the top of the head?). Hughes kicks out at one and headbutts out of a wristlock, then more methodical blows set up no-selling some shoulderblocks, but he gets armdragged and bails. He punches Arachnaman in the nuts after doing a “hey, what’s that?” to the ref, then hits a running elbowsdrop. Arachnaman kicks out and ducks so Hughes crotches himself in the corner, but when he climbs the ropes, Cactus Jack shows up and shoves him off! Arachnaman tries to fight back, but gets mugged by both guys outside the ring at (6:00). of course Hughes vs. ARACHNAMAN wouldn’t have a good finish, lol. But as I say that, HEAVY METAL VAN HAMMER comes out for the save, and he has a dramatic brawl with everyone! And that sets up the tag match next week! And of course Cactus takes a gigantic rolling bump series down 30 fucking feet of stairs. Because of course the best bit of Arachnaman vs. Hughes would be Cactus Jack killing himself for our amusement.

Rating: * (match was boring- some might say methodical and almost plodding)

CACTUS JACK & MR. HUGHES vs. “HEAVY METAL” VAN HAMMER & ARACHNAMAN:
(WCW Pro, Jan. 11th 1992)
* Beautiful! Booking 101! A giant brawl with Hammer saving Arachnaman from Cactus leads to a tag match the next week! Perfect booking… except most of these guys suck.

The heels attack before the bell, but we’re back from break when a Hammer lariat & Arcachnaman dropkick sending them packing! Hughes actually loses his sunglasses! Arachnaman beats on Cactus for a bit but soon gets his face gouged while Jack squeals like a maniac (I didn’t know he did that back in WCW- I thought that was a Mankind thing). Hammer makes the save and comes in with a corner clothesline, big one from the 2nd rope, and a giant legdrop- Hughes has to save. Hughes throws right hands and a clothesline, then a neckvice but Cactus charges into the post. Arachnaman just gets his ass kicked off the tag, however, and Hughes his a release gutwrench suplex & kneedrop. They do the same “duck clotheslines & crossbody catch” as before, but Hughes his two backbreakers and tosses him down, then wastes time- Cactus hits a running facebuster off the ropes and chinlocks him. Arachnaman’s comeback is so weak he still ends up bumped to the floor, where Cactus nails him off the apron. The ref misses a tag as Cactus distracts him, so Hammer just ignores the protests and fights him on the floor. Then all of a sudden a cameraman is super visible on the hard cam (he’d been there a minute but I had to check), completely telegraphing that the finish is coming, and Cactus manages to trip up Arachnaman, who takes Hughes’s big elbowdrop for a hiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh stack pin at (10:03).

A quick, peppy tag match until the restholds took over- as a “Hot Tag” guy, Van Hammer is surprisingly decent and you could be fooled into thinking he was good as he would sell big and put his all physically into his moves. Of course he only had a 15-second segment of the entire damn match, so even the dumb fans would probably figure out that they’re saving him so he doesn’t look dumb. The back half was all plodding, as Armstrong is not a compelling seller at all (much less with a mask on).

Rating: *1/2 (mediocre TV tag match)

THIS WEEK’S PWI 500 GUY: WORKER ANT & SOLDIER ANT:
* I never watched any CHIKARA (which was a comedy indie promotion that occasionally delved into “for serious” wrestling), but I liked the idea of The Colony- a themed stable of masked guys under a common identity. In this case, they’re ants. Except none of them really LOOK like ants- they’re just masked luchadore-lookin’ guys with devil-like horns. But it’s a good way to give a stable an identity while avoiding them becoming too Generic McWrestler in an era where indie guys often went by their real names and wore similar gear. This allows them to branch off later if any get any good. Fire Ant notably became AEW wrestler Orange Cassidy, while Soldier Ant became longtime WWE midcarder Drew Gulak. As I didn’t watch WWE for years, he’s one of many guys I recognize by name but have never seen. A seven-year WWE run puts him probably the highest of any guy on my “PWI Project”, mostly by accident because I was looking for Worker Ant, haha. Looks like Slacker Martin only wrestled from 2003-2009, getting injured and retiring. And then I discover the one I’m about to watch is the SECOND Worker Ant, who started out as assailANT in the same stable. He got as high as #90 in the PWI 500, which seems insane- did he really do more than the combined 200 people between WWE & AEW in 2021? I guess that was in Ring of Honor as Tracy Williams. He’s also been Green Ant & Silver Ant, which shows a lack of commitment I find DISGUSTING. Stick to one name, darn it!

Worker Ant I PWI 500 appearances: #497 in 2008
Worker Ant II PWI 500 appearances: #398 in 2016, #462 in 2017, #431 in 2018, #154 in 2019, #307 in 2020, #90 in 2021, #393 in 2022, #255 in 2023
Drew Gulak (Soldier Ant) PWI 500 appearances: #442 in 2007, #431 in 2008, #345 in 2012, #342 in 2013, #89 in 2014, #132 in 2015, #118 in 2016, #207 in 2017, #95 in 2019, #87 in 2019, #60 in 2020, #363 in 2021

CHALLENGE OF THE IMMORTALS:
WORKER ANT II vs. SOLDIER ANT:
(CHIKARA, Cardiff, Wales, 05.04.2015)
* The announcer does that trademark “SUPER dorky overwrought announcing” thing that’s common at comic cons and other dork stuff, going so over the top for this ridiculously tiny match. This match is from a SUPER tiny hall somewhere- with only two rows of fans on each side of the ring! Soldier Ant (Gulak) has a half-decent physique and an army camo costume with only one “antenna”. Worker Ant looks like a doughy jobber bursting out of his black & gold gear. Thankfully commentary indicates there are TWO Worker Ants, which I missed on my initial search- boy would there have been egg on MY face! Time to edit that in! The story here is that Soldier Ant has turned his back on the Colony, and the others have been hesitant in matches against him.

They do the traditional “long lockup to show INTENSITY”, then Worker Ant shouts “WHY?” at Soldier Ant and gets the fans clapping, then they trade dramatic headlocks and GROWLING. Soldier Ant’s strikes look pretty solid, and he hits a rolling “koppou” kick into a GRINDING chinlock. And GROWLING. Sadly Worker Ant sells an uppercut too late and exposes the business, and they fight on the floor while commentary makes fun of how Wales doesn’t have any vowels and the word for “ring” probably looks like a typo. Hey careful! They get touchy when you make fun of that! Soldier Ant counters a suplex on the floor, which has no mats per Welsh regulations. The camera catches Worker Ant missing the post by a foot but selling it anyways, as either commentary is a few seconds late or they’re legitimately trying to finish speaking before acknowledging what happened. Soldier Ant works a “methodical” pace per commentary (ie. slow house show style), and uses the wussy version of the Northern Lights Bomb (more Al Snow than Akira Hokuto, who throws a lethal version). Worker Ant blocks a rolling elbow and fires off some slow strikes of his own, then an FU. A long fight in Soldier Ant’s ankle-scissors move nearly has Worker Ant tapping out, but he gets the ropes. Worker Ant hauls him up for some kinda thing, but Soldier Ant spins out and throws a low-angle Chokeslam and pins him at (12:51), which looked totally outta nowhere and with little work done.

Very slow, simply-worked indie match, keeping mostly to slow striking (lots of elbows & European uppercuts) and chinlocks than MOVEZ. Which is both bad and good- there’s not really much TO it and it’s got a lot of cartoonish growling and the camera is so close you can see the strikes not being that good. Soldier Ant definitely seems way better than the slower, fatter Worker Ant here. Because of the match length, the fans are into it at first and die off in the middle as it becomes “slowly walk around and hit each other” and selling the occasional bigger move as death. Like they’re clearly trying to work “New Japan Slow Strikes” style but it’s not quite the same, especially with the camera up their asses catching the occasional soft work. Worker Ant comes off like a jobber with weak shit, but Soldier Ant seems to have potential.

Rating: *1/2 (about as good as two dudes working a soft version of New Japan Manly Striking was gonna look- fit for a house show, but pretty soft and with weak offense and a bit too much cooperation)