Possibly the greatest variance in quality between a wrestler’s visual appearance/gimmick and their in-ring ability.

Welcome back to more Dream Matches! I have some extremely rare stuff for you tonight, as the dreaded “1993 WWF” rears its ugly head once more, giving us a pair of beauties- Mr. Perfect vs. Papa Shango and The 1-2-3 Kid vs. Bastian Booger! Talk about main events in any arena in the country!

Then it’s a look at a crazy WCW rookie team I’d somehow managed to miss entirely- our own Oprah Noodlemantra turned me on to The Pit Crew- Dale “Demon” Torborg & Chad Fortune as guys decked out as WCW racing team pit crew guys. Naturally, their opposition is the Dream Matches favorite squad of Mean Mike & Tough Tom- Disorderly Conduct!

Then it’s the most “1996 WWF” match I could find, as it’s Jim Cornette dream match Barry Windham vs. Tony Anthony… except it’s the worst incarnations of both men- The Stalker vs. T.L. Hopper, in The Stalker’s debut! Then it’s more WCW jobberhood, as Al Green gets set up against Lash LeRoux! And finally, one of those great WCW weirdo mismatch bouts that inspired this column in the first place, as High Voltage face WCW’s lowest-tier luchadores- Ciclope & Galaxy!

MR. PERFECT vs. PAPA SHANGO:
(WWF Mania, March 5th, 1993)
* One more from the semi-short run of Papa Shango, where he faces a rising Mr. Perfect. Shango had by this point been jobbing all over the house show scene to guys like Undertaker & Bob Backlund, but was beating El Matador & Typhoon around the horn as well.

Welcome to another Dream Matches column! Kind of! I mean, didn’t you ever want to know how Zangief would do in a REAL pro wrestling ring?

Okay, so let’s get this out of the way- YES, probably, Victor here is the basis for Zangief from Street Fighter II. He is a hairy-chested, mustached Russian named “Zangiev”, often wearing red, with legitimate wrestling skill, and he trained and wrestled with New Japan in 1989 for a tour or so- this makes the timing match up pretty well for SFII, which came out a short time later in Japan. He even wrestled for WCW in their weird “Pat O’Connor International Tag Team Tournament” in 1990. That was it for four years, until he randomly did a tour for UWF-I. The short version of that promotion is that they were the biggest deal in the world for a hot minute- being a Fake Shootfighting promotion that pretended to be real, making grandstand challenges at all the “fake” wrestlers… at least until a combination of killing all their Ace’s challengers and the revelation that they were fake as hell (hard to pretend your stuff is real when UFC becomes a thing and people realize you can’t just “make the ropes” out of a fully-applied cross-armbreaker) completely destroyed them and the promotion folded right after they were huge.

Found this on Pinterest. It’s glorious.

Time for more Dream Matches- this time centered by an SNME match between Demolition & The Rockers! Also, a REMATCH to the classic Jim Powers/Bobby Walker vs. Renegade/Joe Gomez match I showed you last week… PLUS the legendary explosion of that very same Renegade/Gomez team! And then not one, but TWO High Voltage solo matches, as Rage & Kaos face Fit Finlay & Perry Saturn, respectively! And then we cap things off with a Papa Shango vs. Typhoon match, long after either man was relevant! I couldn’t have booked a better match myself!

DEMOLITION (Smash & Crush, w/ Ax) vs. THE ROCKERS (Shawn Michaels & Marty Jannetty):
(Saturday Night’s Main Event, July 27 1990)
* This is the prelude to SummerSlam, with the Demos now as heels. The Rockers are in bright yellow, and gaining credibility at this point.

Note: Not from the below match. Yes they ran this more than once.

It’s time for more Dream Matches- starting with the ultimate in obesity, as 1,000+ lbs. of humanity collide in a singles match! Also some major “Wait, that really happened?” stuff, with Balls Mahoney as an EVIL SANTA, Diesel fighting goddamn TYPHOON, and Jim Powers WINNING A MATCH. And an all-time tag team dream bout, as High Voltage take on the Beverly Brothers! As WCW jobbers! oh, plus more Joe Gomez goodness, and “HARD WORK” Bobby Walker makes his “Dream Matches” debut!

As always, everything here can be found via YouTube, but can’t be posted here.

YOKOZUNA (w/ Jim Cornette & Mr. Fuji) vs. MABEL (w/ Oscar):
(WWF Action Zone, 1994)
* HELL YES, an even BIGGER Fat Man Stand-Off! Absolutely glorious! Mabel’s in mostly purple with some gold writing.

Gomezamania runs wild!

And we’re back with more of the best Dream Matches imaginable- headlined by the legendary Desperado himself, Joe Gomez, teaming with “Plain Old Rick” against WCW’s roidiest, midcardiest Power Plant graduates. Also, we’ll get the British Bulldogs in a standard tag match against the Fantastics from All Japan, plus a FAT MAN STAND-OFF between Mabel & Bam Bam Bigelow! Oh yeah, and one of those bizarre jobber matches where CHONO & MUTA take on goobers like El Dandy and Damian. Can the luchadores win? I doubt it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwGrDn1iDG0&ab_channel=ScroogeMcSuck

It’s time for more Dream Matches! Some of which are unironically good! We start off with one of the most infamous combinations of poor workers in history, and go from there.

Note: I skip YouTube links for the WWF-owned stuff, since I believe it demonetizes the blog.

EL GIGANTE vs. NAILZ:
(New Japan Pro Wrestling, 1994 G-1 Climax)
* Wearing black shorts and with a curly mullet, the 7’7″ Jorge Gonzalez was given a “Freak Show” match or two in New Japan, and here his opponent is a real shocker- NAILZ, fresh from being fired by the WWF for attacking Vince McMahon in a dispute over money (told hilariously here by Bret Hart). This is, quite literally, the worst match I can imagine putting together- Nailz was an absolutely horrendous worker whose offense consisted of choking with one hand and choking with two, and he’s up against probably the worst professionally-trained wrestler in the world. A guy as big as Nailz not even coming up to a guy’s collarbone is a pretty astounding sight, I will admit.

http://wrestlechat.net/exclusive-smashing-pumpkins-frontman-billy-corgan-confirmed-to-be-the-leading-candidate-to-purchase-tna-wrestling/

Well….this is interesting.