Your dream card

[NintendoLogic]

I've decided that it'd be fun to revisit an idea I originally had about five years ago. If you could put any group of matches in history on a single card, what would it look like? It's basically a best matches/desert island list, but with a twist: you have to put it together like an actual card. That means a couple of things. One, each wrestler can only be in one match. So you can't just list eight Misawa matches. Well, I guess you could, but it'd be kind of cold to bring him back to life for your show only to have him die on you again. Two, each title can only be in one match. So if you include Hogan/Andre from WM3, you can't also have Rock/Austin from WMX-7. The length of the show is up to you, but something like twenty Iron Man matches would probably try the patience of most viewers.

 

When I first had this idea, I had virtually no exposure to anything outside of big-time American wrestling. And my tastes were still fairly heavily influenced by the likes of Meltzer and SKeith. With that said, here's the card I came up with.

 

Hart/Austin submission match, Wrestlemania 13

Angle/Benoit, Royal Rumble 2003

HBK/Taker Hell in a Cell, In Your House: Badd Blood

Rock/Jericho, No Mercy 2001

Savage/Steamboat, Wrestlemania III

TLC II, Wrestlemania X-7

Rey/Eddy, Halloween Havoc 1997

Sting/Vader, Starrcade 1992

 

That isn't a terrible list for the most part, but it isn't really reflective of my current tastes. So I need to do some thinking and revise my list. In the meantime, feel free to come up with your own. If you could include a sentence or two about why you included each match, that'd be great too.

[jdw]

I had some fun farting around with the concept when Loss rolled it out in this thread:

 

Build a show

 

Looks like I ended up with Loss' #1, #12, #13, #18, #35, #61, #71 and #88 of 1996.

 

John

[Cross Face Chicken Wing]

For one reason or another, these are the matches that have stuck in my head ever since I started watching wrestling. I don't know if I'd say they're my favorite matches, or the best matches, but for whatever reason, they have meaning for me.

 

Kamala vs. (Insert name of jobber). I can never get enough Kamala. I'd start the show with Kamala and Kim Chee doing their schtick and squashing a jobber.

 

1st Wargames (Bash 87). I would import the incredibly hot crowd from this match into my dream card as well.

 

Bret vs. Owen (Summer Slam 94). I’d replace the Wargames chain-link cell with big blue for this masterpiece.

 

Jumbo Tsuruta & Yoshiaki Yatsu vs. Genichiro Tenryu & Toshiaki Kawada (2/26/89) My No. 1 match from the All Japan set, the best 15 discs of wrestling ever compiled.

 

Nasty Boys vs. Cactus Jack and Maxx Payne (Spring Stampede '94). Growing up, a friend of my dad's always sent over copies of the newest WWF PPVs. One day he sent over Spring Stampede instead, which introduced me to Mick Foley and a different sort of wrestling than I was used to.

 

Wahoo McDaniels vs. Manny Fernandez (the AWA match that headlined the high school gym in my small town in the late 80s). Ahhh, the nostalgia.

 

Steve Regal vs. Brian Pillman (Spring Stampede). Regal's chicken-shit antics always cracked me up and left a lasting impression.

 

Terry Gordy vs. Killer Khan (Texas Death Match). 11-22-84 from the Texas set. The entire Texas set made me a huge fan of Gordy and this was my favorite match.

 

Savage vs. Steamboat (WM3). Obvious reasons for this one.

 

Undertaker vs. Shawn Michaels (Hell in a cell). Good God Michaels is broken in half!!

 

Terry Funk vs. Sabu (Born to be Wired). My high school buddies and me watched this one after we scored a case of beer from one of our dad's fridges. First time I saw a no rope, barbed wire match.

 

Great Sauske vs. Chris Benoit (Super J Cut '94). This is the card that introduced me to Japanese wrestling. I must have watched a bootleg copy of this show 50 times in high school.

 

Royal Rumble 92. This is probably breaking the rules, but I can't leave this one off.

 

So....not sure if this card makes any sense whatsoever, but I could die happy after watching it.

 

Edit: Actually, I know this card makes no sense whatsoever, but it was fun to come up with

[Death From Above]

I haven't really watched wrestling much in years. Hell last time I did regularly was the DVDVR Mid South project (good a way as any to go out, I suppose). Also: I like Japan. A list like this doesn't really reflect how much I enjoy a lot of the gimmickry around American wrestling, because I tend to like big Japanese matches better than big American ones out of context. But let's see what my failing wrestling memory comes up with. From main event on down:

 

The 1996 Takada vs. Hashimoto IWGP TItle match. Not a long match, but super intense, and my favourite IWGP title match of them all. Had an amazing aura of being a title fight that most wrestling doesn't get to, and was one hell of a match to boot. Takada is a super-hit and miss worker for me, but this ruled. And it seems like a singles belt should be in the main event.

 

6/9/95 Kawada/Taue vs. Misawa/Kobashi. Probably the best match I've ever seen. Uncreative answer but you can't really go wrong with this.

 

Abdullah the Butcher/The Sheik vs. Terry Funk/Dory Funk Jr. I guess I can't really nominate both the 1977 and 1979 Real World Tag League Finals, which is too bad because I *always* watch them together, and I still think they are probably my two favourite crazy brawls ever. I guess I'll take 1979 if I get one or the other since it's the finale. Also: crazy, crazy, crazy crowds. It's just the greatest atmosphere.

 

Ricky Steamboat vs. Ric Flair - The 1984 Meadowlands match. It was shorter than some of the follow ups in 1989 but it might be my favourite of them all. The only other one that is close for me is the 2 out of 3 falls match, and this is a show that would already push the limits for a lot of people for attention span.

 

Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Genichiro Tenryu 6/5/89. Jumbo is my favourite wrestler ever, and this was probably right at the top of the list of his best matches. Tenryu is a guy that's always been super fun too. This was amazing, I'd probably rather rewatch it than a lot of the Four Corners matches from the 1990's at this point because this would still be somewhat fresher for me anyway. Plus it was better than all of that save for *maybe* the absolute top drawer stuff.

 

Stan Hansen vs. Andre the Giant, New Japan. Hoenstly I like a few Stan matches better, mainly the Kobashi classic, but since I can't use workers twice... why not? This was a great "immovable object vs. Irresitable force" match, and Hansen is one of my 3 favorites ever, he has to be on the show. Good spectacle match to have on a dream show. I like it better than say any of the Hansen vs. Americans stuff in All Japan that I've seen, so this works.

 

The 2/3 falls Toyota/Yamada vs. Kansai/Ozaki match from Dream Rush was pretty mindblowing and I have a hard time leaving it off. Toyota is a worker you can criticize the hell out of, be right, but she still has an amazing match list.

 

El Samurai vs. Jushin Liger, BOSJ 1992 final. A really fun battle that might be my favourite for either guy. Lots of action and a surprising amount of hate when there needed to be. This had just about everything. I've read the criticisms of it not aging well, and maybe I'd think that if I watched it again, but whatever. It filled a hole at the time. Would be a fun way to open a dream card.

 

I was really tempted to throw in Baba vs. The Destroyer, but then you're starting to risk getting into running a Big Egg Universe show that goes on for 15 years. I don't know if I could even do a PPV length show using a dream match formula, I am too into the long epics. I realize this list above is very long, in terms of being a show. Does feel weird with no Vader match too because I mark out for Vader. And I really don't hate American wrestling. Honest. I miss WCW, and I like plenty of WWF/E but I don't know how much of it fits my individually favourite matches. This was kind of haphazard but that's what I've got off the top of my head. I should do a separate one just for WWF and WCW or something. If I do I will try and limit it to 500 words.

 

(Edited to fix apostrophes changing to weird symbols when you copy/paste them to the forum from MS Word. And then edited again because I changed my mind on my joshi match.)

[NintendoLogic]

So far, this is harder than I thought. Like DFA, my favorite matches tend to be of the epic variety, and those are usually the main events on the cards they originated from. So just putting a bunch of those together doesn't really work as a cohesive whole. Like, HBK/Mankind from Mind Games is a great match, but it wouldn't work as a show opener. I will say that my top two are pretty much set. #2 is Hokuto/Kandori from Dreamslam (best semi-main of all time), and #1 is 6/9/95 (best main event of all time, not to mention the best match of all time period). With that one-two punch on top of the card, I could run the undercard from December to Dismember and still send the fans home happy.

[Al]

Definitely an interesting idea. I'll come up with my list a little later. To me, no matter how good the matches are it would be hard to maintain fans' interest with a series of 25-30 minute mini-epics. At some point I would need to list some 5-10 minute matches.

[JerryvonKramer]

I'm definitely going to have a bash at this but I'm also going to very slightly alter the rules:

 

Rather than have it multi-fed and multi-titles, I'm going to strip it down so that there is only 1 world title, 1 tag title and 1 IC / US title and 1 TV title. That should make things even more interesting as it cuts things down even more.

[KB8]

I'll take a crack at this as well. If I had to come up with a top 10 favourite matches list, at least half of mine would

[Matt D]

I'm not sure I'm up to the idea of taking this out of context.

 

Instead, I think I'm just going to put together, let's say the best possible card from early 1991 WCW. All guys on the January, 1991 WCW cards, are possible. I THINK Eaton was still a heel here and Taylor was still a face but I'm going to deal with that the best way possible.

 

Tim Horner, Ricky Morton, and Tommy Rich vs Michael Wallstreet, Moondog Rex, and Bill Irwin

Brad Armstrong vs Dutch Mantell

Pillman/Zenk vs Buddy Landell/Rip Rogers

Norman vs Owen Hart

Southern Boys vs Doom

Bobby Eaton vs Terry Taylor

Luger vs Barry Windham

Steiners vs Sid/Arn

Sting vs Flair

 

I think that's the best I can do for January 1991. The six man is probably optional, or if this was a PPV, a dark match. I just like Moondog Rex and Bill Irwin a lot.

[JerryvonKramer]

You'd use Morton in a 6 man rather than with Gibson? vs., say, Garvin and Hayes?

 

No place for Vader?

[Matt D]

You'd use Morton in a 6 man rather than with Gibson? vs., say, Garvin and Hayes?

 

No place for Vader?

According to Graham's site, Vader doesn't show up til Feb, so he didn't count.

 

Gibson is injured at this point. And I felt like I had too many conventional tags in there and to be perfectly honest, I'd rather see Moondog Rex than Garvin/Hayes. I SUPPOSE I could be convinced to sub Garvin/Hayes in for Wallstreet/Irwin (I like 1981 Irwin way more than 1991 Irwin, after all) in the six man. I'd consider using Jack Victory/Rip Morgan or the State Patrol over the Freebirds I think (though probably not Pat Rose and Reno Riggins).

[Tim Cooke]

Trying this out for Japanese MMA 2002:

 

 

Carlos Newton vs. Pele (PRIDE)

Rumina Sato vs. Takumi Nakayama (Shooto)

Antonio Rogerio Noguiera vs. Tsuyoshi Kohsaka (DEEP)

Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Ikuhisa Minowa (DEEP)

Royce Gracie vs. Hidehiko Yoshida (PRIDE)

Antonio Rodrigo Noguiera vs. Bob Sapp (PRIDE)

Yoshihiro Takayama vs. Don Frye (PRIDE)

Kazushi Sakuraba vs. Mirko CroCop (PRIDE)

[Gregor]

I wouldn't say that these are my favorite matches, but I was just looking for matches that I liked that I could fit into certain spots on a card.

 

Shawn Michaels vs. Jeff Jarrett (IYH 2, WWF IC Title)

A lot about this match works as an opener – it’s fun, it gets the crowd involved, and it’s not super-serious. There’s no need for a video package because there wasn’t really a feud here. It might be the only great Shawn Michaels singles match that isn’t a show-stealer. Michaels would probably have balked at opening a PPV in 1995, but whatever.

(Call it 25 mins. with entrances)

 

Owen Hart vs. 1-2-3 Kid (KOTR 1994)

This wouldn’t really work as a PPV match unless it were unannounced or part of a tournament, so I’ll have it as an unannounced, fun little match that gets the crowd going but isn’t too emotionally investing. It’s a good match but kind of a cool-down and a shift in tone from the first match.

(About 7 mins.)

 

Midnight Express vs. Southern Boys (Great American Bash 1990, U.S. Tag Team Titles)

It has pretty much everything that you could want in a tag match. I’m trying to place less intense matches lower on the card.

(20 mins.)

 

Bret Hart vs. Mr. Perfect (KOTR 1993)

Ugh, another tournament match. I don’t know how why these guys would be fighting, but I wanted to include Bret on the card. Since I’d already chosen the main event matches, it was tough to find something that worked for him because Hart’s matches were generally main events.

(25 mins.)

 

Los Brazos vs. Los Infernales (This one – I can’t tell you much about it)

Not these guys’ best match together or anything, but that’s actually a good thing here because I need it to be a fun midcard match. Super Porky is one of my favorite characters ever.

(15 minutes?)

 

Rey Mysterio vs. Eddie Guerrero (SmackDown! 6/23/05)

I didn’t have a grudge match on the card, and this was one of the best ones. I don’t have a great recollection of the PPV match in which Guerrero got DQ’d for using a chair; I might have gone with that one if I could remember it.

(27 mins.)

 

Ric Flair vs. Ricky Morton (Great American Bash 1986, NWA World Heavyweight Championship)

Not really a grudge match because a title’s on the line. I usually don’t like when the title match isn’t last, but I feel like it works here with Morton as the challenger, and my main event wouldn’t work in any other slot. This would probably be held indoors, so Flair couldn’t enter via helicopter.

(30 mins.)

 

Arn Anderson/Tully Blanchard vs. Lex Luger/Barry Windham (Clash I, NWA World Tag Team Titles)

I don’t like the idea of having piss break matches high on the card. This match is only ten minutes or so, so it’s a way to give the fans a break from half-hour matches.

(13 mins.)

 

El Dandy vs. Negro Casas (7/3/92, CMLL World Middleweight Championship)

I have no idea if it makes sense to have a non-heavyweight championship match on last. This just strikes me as a great main event, though – 30+ minutes of maybe the two best wrestlers around at that point with the face getting a convincing win with his finishing move.

(37 mins.)

 

It adds up to 199 minutes, so this would have to be a 3.5-hour show. Do they do those? If I had to cut out one match, it would be the Midnight Express match, and then I’d be at just under three hours, which might not leave me enough time for random bullshit.

 

I didn’t think enough about who was going over when choosing these, and the end result is that more faces go over than I’d like.

 

Vince McMahon and Jim Ross is my favorite commentary team, so I'd use them to call this thing. No idea what I'd do for the lucha matches.

[Matt D]

January, 1993 WCW

 

Tougher than 91, definitely.

 

I feel sort of obliged to use Benoit but i refuse to use Robbie V (though I was tempted to throw him or Erik Watts against Vader). I don't feel right using Prichard/Lane/Eaton or the RnRs but we'll see how desperate I get. Rude is out with an injury. I wanted to use face Jack/Barbarian but I really needed them as heels and for the interesting pairing below.

 

Brad Armstrong vs Rip Rogers

Tom Zenk/Johnny Gunn vs Scotty Flamingo/Vinnie Vegas (I like Tex/Shanghai more but I think Scotty/Vinnie would be a more interesting match)

Steve Regal vs Chris Benoit

Marcus Bagwell/Scorpio vs Pillman/Austin

Dustin vs Orndorff

Ricky Steamboat/Shane Douglas vs Cactus Jack/Barbarian

Ron Simmons vs Barry Windham

Sting vs Vader

 

And what the hell. August 1995 WCW. SUPER HARD, but I know it fairly well. I ran out of faces for all the heels I wanted to use. Thus, Hogan & Hawk, which is just a fun Road Warriors combo. What I would give for Rip Rogers here. Also, a month or two earlier and I would have had the Lightning Express and Bagwell/Patriot for face teams.

 

Marcus Bagwell vs Chris Kanyon (optional)

Johnny B. Badd vs Craig Pittman

Scott and Steve Armstrong vs Regal/Eaton

Pillman vs Shark

Meng and Bubba vs Bunk/Slater

Randy Savage vs Arn Anderson

Hogan & Hawk vs Kamala & Orndorff

Sting vs Sabu

Vader vs Flair

[Loss]

I want a ticket to Gregor's show!

[JerryvonKramer]

Announce team: Vince McMahon and Jesse Ventura

 

An underrated part of any card. I was obviously going to pick Jesse, and Vince I think is the partner he worked best with. Plus Vince made any event seem like a big deal with his insane intros at the top.

 

 

1. Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart, WWF Wrestlemania X (03/20/94)

 

Perfect opener. And a nice way to get Bret and Owen on the card without wasting title matches on them.

 

2. Terry Funk vs. Stan Hansen (4/14/83)

 

You don't want two long matches in a row and don't want two technical matches in a row and this, in my view, is the perfect sprint brawl match. Maximum intensity and carnage, with Hansen at his most brutal and Funk at his bloody best selling.

 

3. US Title: Rick Rude vs Ricky Steamboat, Iron-man match, WCW Beach Blast (6/20/92)

 

A match that doesn't get pimped enough. Perfectly structured, perfectly worked, one of my all-time favourite babyface performances from Steamboat and Rude at his absolute peak as a despised heel here in 92.

 

4. Ted DiBiase v. Jim Duggan (Loser Leaves Town, Tuxedo, No DQ, Coal Miner's Glove on a Pole, Cage Match) (3/30/85)

 

DiBiase is my favourite wrestler, so had to get him on the card somehow and this is arguably his career-best match. Also, you need to have a gimmick match on the card somewhere and what better one that the ultimate gimmick match?

 

Also, in terms of flow, this is another short-ish match after a long match, and a brawl after a technical match. So keeping with that structure here.

 

5. The Rockers vs. The Orient Express, WWF Royal Rumble (1/19/91)

 

You need some "filler" matches somewhere and filler doesn't come any finer than this. One of the all-time great tag matches in the WWF. I toyed with this for the opener but I think Bret vs. Owen starts things off with more of a "bang".

 

6. White Castle of Fear Strap match: Big Van Vader vs Sting, WCW Superbrawl III (2/21/93)

 

Terrific brutal match in the career feuds of both participants. Nothing else needs saying, best strap match ever probably.

 

7. Tag titles: Jumbo Tsuruta & Genichiro Tenryu vs. Riki Choshu Yoshiaki Yatsu (1/28/86)

 

One of the best matches I've ever seen period and a legit contender for match of the 1980s in my book. Amazing and want to bring the crowd to a frenzy at this point.

 

8. Mr. Olympia vs. Chavo Guerrero (6/24/83)

 

Now conventionally, just before the main event, you'd look for a "sleeper" match to bring the crowd down after the last "peak" and leave them go and get a coke or hit the restrooms or whatever. However, I want to keep them STOKED here. Bang. Bang. Bang. However, after the excitement, I need to pull them down a BIT, so I've gone for this very solid MidSouth match which had an electric crowd for it. In this sort of company it might be more of a "come down" type match, but it's not TOO far down.

 

9. World title: Ric Flair vs. Randy Savage, WWF Wrestlemania 8 (4/5/92)

 

Well I'd used up Vader and Steamer and Sting and Jumbo already and the Hogan matches suck in my book, so it was between this or one of the Kerry Von Erich matches or Dusty. I've gone for this NOT ONLY for the match but for the pre-match build and angle, and Flair's GODLY post-match promo. "1-time means NOTHING to my career". Card ends with the babyface going over, big title change, Miss Elizabeth exonerated, Flair, Heenan and Perfect absolutely pissed off.

 

-----------------------

 

 

I guess that means no Hogan, and no Dusty. I contemplated putting the Tully match in, or Tully / Magnum, but I think this card is already stacked enough with both brutal gimmick matches and excitement. You have to balance it. All-in-all, I'm pretty happy with this. There were about 15 other matches I could have picked for match 8 there, but they all seemed too high-end. You need peaks and troughs. If Olympia vs. Chavo and Rockers vs. Orients are your "troughs" then obviously, that's a loaded evening of pro wrestling.

 

Really wanted to get Arn in there somewhere, but couldn't find a place for him. Thought about one of the Wargames matches, but it used up too many guys.

[khawk20]

AWA Wrestling. All Matches from the Twin Cities, 1982. Matches listed from opener to "Main Event":

 

Adrian Adonis vs. Larry Hennig (9/19/82, St. Paul): Adonis stopped back in the AWA briefly before disappearing again. he was a little bigger, but nothing like he would eventually become. Hennig is obviously older and slower but he's still an effective powerhouse. It's nice to see the signature Adonis bumps in an AWA ring again.

 

Mad Dog Vachon & Steve O vs. Sheiks Blackwell & Kaissie (11/7/82, St. Paul). Vachon is back in the AWA after beign injured "for two years" due to Blackwell. Steve O is wrestling with a wrapped, surgically repaired wrist, which the heels do their best to exploit. Vachon eventually snaps and destroys both the Sheiks. Did I mention Vachon is awesome when he snaps?

 

Hulk Hogan/Baron Von Raschke/Buck Zumhofe vs. Ken Patera/Bobby Duncum/Bobby Heenan (2/28/82, Minneapolis). This one was born out of Patera and Duncum attacking Zumhofe and Tito Santana on TV a few weeks earlier, where hOgan made the save and Buck had his boom-box smashed up by Heenan. The match is predictably violent and wild with good action throughout, and is perhaps most notable by Hogan snapping at the end and laying an all-star beating on Heenan.

 

Greg Gagne & Jim Brunzell (AWA Tag Champs) vs. Tito Santana & Rick Martel (8/29/82, St. Paul). I'm listing their rematch as the one I want to see on this card, although the 8-minute end clip of their 30-minute battle a month earlier is arguable more compelling given the frantic pace that the end of that bout took on.

 

Nick Bockwinkel (AWA Champion) vs. Otto Wanz (8/29/82, St. Paul). I'd love to have been at this one live. Possibly the most surprising World Title change of the 1980's.

 

20-Man, $50,000 Battleroyal (10/17/82, St. Paul). This one has all the main players including Andre the Giant, who came in regularly for the fall battleroyal series. This match set up the uniqure 4-on-2 match on the Thanksgiving St. Paul card featuring Hogan and Andre vs. Bockwinkel/Patera/Duncum/Heenan. Funny as it sounds, a 4-on-2 match was pretty big news back in 1982, and certainly something different in the AWA.

 

I suspect my whole card runs 2.5 - 3 hours, with a short intermission built in.

 

 

I may do some more AWA cards for other years.

[NintendoLogic]

After putting in more thought and research than I did for most of my college term papers, I've finally come up with a card. There were quite a few difficulties along the way. Not only did I drop 6/9/95, I actually questioned whether to have any All Japan matches at all at the top of the card. Most of the more notable matches came from an era when the undercard was an afterthought, so I questioned whether they would fit on a supercard. Also, Hokuto/Kandori pretty much meant that any other match with blood was out. In addition, I operated under a few self-imposed constraints. On the title front, I limited myself to the old WWF Triple Crown: world title, tag titles, secondary singles title. I also limited myself to matches of which complete and unedited footage exists. Which is a shame, since I'm a huge fan of the Kliq tag match from Action Zone. Without further ado, here's what I've got. Naturally, the card is subject to change.

 

Jushin Liger vs. El Samurai

NJPW-4/30/92

 

Ideally, you want your opener to be something that'll pop the crowd while still leaving them wanting more. I don't know if any match fills the bill better than this. It's fast-paced with plenty of high-flying action and plenty of hate. It has everything you could conceivably want in an opening match. (21:15)

 

Jim Cornette vs. Paul E. Dangerously

WCW Great American Bash-7/23/89

 

This was the hardest spot on the card for me to fill. You want to start out with something exciting, but you don't want to put too much at the bottom of the card. I didn't want to have any outright clunkers, but I didn't know what could follow Liger/Samurai. Eventually, I threw up my hands and said "fuck it, I'm just going to put a comedy match here." And as far as those go, this is about as good as it gets. (6:22)

 

Tag Titles

Hart Foundation vs. Nasty Boys

WWF Wrestlemania VII-3/24/91

 

I decided to fill out the middle of the card with high-end Sports Entertainment that would entertain the crowd without burning them out. First on that front is this very solid tag match. Plus, it puts the heels on the board for those who may be worried about too many babyfaces going over. (12:10)

 

Secondary Singles Title

Ultimate Warrior vs. Rick Rude

WWF Summerslam 1989-8/28/89

 

Again, this isn't a show-stealing masterpiece, but it is a testament to how easy it is to have a good match if you put in a little thought and stick to the basics. (16:02)

 

Akira Hokuto vs. Shinobu Kandori

AJW Dreamslam-4/2/93

 

Now it's time to bring out the big guns. Some might question this match's position on the card, but the Hart/Austin submission match (which this is basically a superior version of) was at roughly this spot on the WM13 card. (30:27)

 

Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley vs. Trish Stratus

WWF No Way Out-2/25/01

 

After that, it's time to bring the crowd back down, but only a little. For that purpose, I stuck in this fun little match that was worlds better than it had any right to be. (8:30)

 

Stan Hansen vs. Kenta Kobashi

AJPW-7/29/93

 

The main reason I dropped 6/9/95 is because I wanted to squeeze as many matches as I could out of Misawa/Kawada/Kobashi (sorry, Taue). I entertained the idea of having this in the second spot, but putting this anywhere but near the top of the card would be an injustice. (22:35)

 

World Title

Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada

AJPW-6/3/94

 

This actually wasn't a lock for the top spot. I thought about putting 7/24/95 here instead since it's shorter and would probably fit better on a supercard. But this is a dream card, so you might as well swing for the fences. I also slightly prefer 1/20/97 to this match. But Misawa/Kawada+Hansen/Kobashi > Misawa/Kobashi+Hansen/Kawada. (35:50)

 

The total time from bell to bell is 153:11. With entrances and everything, it should be right around the 3-hour mark. I suppose I could add a few skits to bring it up to Wrestlemania length, but I think the in-ring action should be sufficient to give everybody their money's worth.

[Al]

2 1/2 hours of wrestling seems improbable to fit within three hours. Wrestlemania III as a point of comparison had 87 minutes of in-ring action. Wrestlemania X had 91.

[El-P]

It has happened already. In 1993. It's called Dreamslam.

[Death From Above]

Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley vs. Trish Stratus

WWF No Way Out-2/25/01

 

After that, it's time to bring the crowd back down, but only a little. For that purpose, I stuck in this fun little match that was worlds better than it had any right to be. (8:30)

Is this the one with Regal's antics where he's not sure who to interfere on behalf of, Vince's daughter or his girlfriend? Because that match was indeed so much more awesome than it had any right to be. The ladies brought so much hate (for a WWE women's match). And the post match promo where Vince is losing it and Regal makes Regal faces was gold too. Really solid sort of "filler" between bigger matches.

[NintendoLogic]

2 1/2 hours of wrestling seems improbable to fit within three hours. Wrestlemania III as a point of comparison had 87 minutes of in-ring action. Wrestlemania X had 91.

I started looking up the total in-ring times of various PPVs to contest this. But then I realized that arguing over the logistics of a fantasy event that's never actually going to happen is about the most pointless endeavor imaginable, so I'm going to concede the point. 3 hours is probably pushing it, but 4 hours is doable.

 

It has happened already. In 1993. It's called Dreamslam.

I figured you'd say Wrestlemania XXVII.

 

Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley vs. Trish Stratus

WWF No Way Out-2/25/01

 

After that, it's time to bring the crowd back down, but only a little. For that purpose, I stuck in this fun little match that was worlds better than it had any right to be. (8:30)

Is this the one with Regal's antics where he's not sure who to interfere on behalf of, Vince's daughter or his girlfriend? Because that match was indeed so much more awesome than it had any right to be. The ladies brought so much hate (for a WWE women's match). And the post match promo where Vince is losing it and Regal makes Regal faces was gold too. Really solid sort of "filler" between bigger matches.

 

Yeah, that's the one.

[El-P]

It has happened already. In 1993. It's called Dreamslam.

I figured you'd say Wrestlemania XXVII.

 

[jdw]

It has happened already. In 1993. It's called Dreamslam.

Not fair. I could easily have said the 04/02/95 Weekly Pro Wrestling card since it was one of those once in a lifetime (frankly all of pro wrestling's history of lifetimes) card. Maybe not the best ever, but a pretty mind numbing collection of talent when you think of it... and the ability to see it all one one card, with a number of the matches damn entertaining. That AJPW match isn't close to the best those guys put on, but if I asked every AJPW fan on the board that they if it's the only match between all of the Four Corners that they'd ever have a chance to see... they'd be perfectly happy to see it rather than never seeing them together.

 

John

[El-P]

It has happened already. In 1993. It's called Dreamslam.

Not fair. I could easily have said the 04/02/95 Weekly Pro Wrestling card since it was one of those once in a lifetime (frankly all of pro wrestling's history of lifetimes) card. Maybe not the best ever, but a pretty mind numbing collection of talent when you think of it... and the ability to see it all one one card, with a number of the matches damn entertaining. That AJPW match isn't close to the best those guys put on, but if I asked every AJPW fan on the board that they if it's the only match between all of the Four Corners that they'd ever have a chance to see... they'd be perfectly happy to see it rather than never seeing them together.

 

John

 

Actually I have it on my hard drive somewhere, but never got to watch it. Gotta find a slot sometime. Yeah, pretty amazing collection of talent here. This won't be duplicated, ever.