Growing up as a pro wrestling fan, my friends and I always talked about the ultimate dream matches. Unfortunately in today’s climate of WWE dominance, the era of the wrestling dream match is over. Today I look back at five of the ten greatest wrestling matches that never happened.

Keep in mind that these matches would have taken place in the prime of each wrestler’s career. For example, think Ric Flair 1983-1989 when he is mentioned in a dream match. For Shawn Michaels, think 1995-1997, Kurt Angle 2001-2004, etc.

None of these matches ever happened at the right time. Politics, territories, and time deprived wrestling fans of some guaranteed great ones. Unfortunately the closest you will get to seeing any of these matches is recreating them in a WWE wrestling video game.

6 – Hulk Hogan vs. Superstar Billy Graham. For the Superstar, I need to be specific on which Superstar we are talking about. I am talking about the great Superstar Graham era 1977-1978. For Hogan, I am thinking about the prime of Hogan’s career from 1984-1990.

While the match could have happened, it would have never lived up to expectations. Graham did return to the WWE in 1987. However, time was not too kind to the Superstar. Graham was a shell of what he used to be and was no where near the level he was in the 1970s. If Graham could have kept it together, this could have been the biggest program in Hogan history for the Hulkster.

7 – Bruiser Brody vs. Mick Foley. This is one for the hardcore fan in all of us. I am thinking Mick Foley during his crazy Cactus Jack WCW/ECW days. For Brody, you could take any time of his career to make this one a memorable classic. Fans missed out on a lot of blood, a lot of brawling, and possibly the greatest series of hardcore matches in pro wrestling history.

8 – Bret Hart vs. Vince McMahon. Can you name another match that would have drawn more money in the last decade? Talk about a match that would have shattered records and brought back some disillusioned wrestling fans? It wouldn’t have been pretty, but man would this one have been one of the most intense matches you would ever see.

I tend to think if not for Bret’s stroke, that this would have happened. I know what Bret says, but he has already went back and done business with the WWE. I don’t have a doubt in my mind that Bret Hart would have returned to WWE action if not for his health issues. Fans missed out on what could have been the ultimate wrestling grudge match.

9 – Ric Flair vs. Chris Benoit. Now this match has happened, but it never happened at the right time. Flair wrestled Benoit when Benoit was an undercard guy in WCW. While Flair was in his prime, Benoit was about a decade away from hitting his stride. These guys would have had the potential to blow away the Flair-Steamboat series if done at the right time.

10 – Barry Windham vs. Shawn Michaels. The greatness of Barry Windham has been overlooked the last several years. At one time, Windham was arguably the best worker in the business. From 1986-1989 I can’t think of many guys who could have touched Barry Windham in the ring.

Windham and Michaels could have produced an all-time classic rivalry. Both of there phenomenal selling and athleticism made this one a perfect match. Windham did wrestle in the WWE during Michaels’ prime in 1996. Unfortunately Barry’s prime had long past and the two never got to tangle and create wrestling magic together.

Honorable Mentions:
Andre the Giant vs. Vader
The Rock vs. Randy Savage
Dynamite Kid vs. Rey Mysterio
The original Tiger Mask vs. Shawn Michaels
Ken Shamrock vs. Kurt Angle

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 ”The Nature Boy” Ric Flair, John Bradshaw Layfield, “Superstar” Billy Graham, “Macho Man” Randy Savage, Yokozuna, Triple H, Vader, “Hollywood” Hulk Hogan, and Chris Jericho.  What do all these former World Champions have in common?  As heels, they had longer title reigns than they had a faces, and longer than the faces around the time they were World Champions.

Why would the wrestling companies have longer reigns with their World title with a heel than a face?  In my opinion, to bring in fans to buy tickets, to watch the program on television, and order the pay-per-views.  I say that because when we have the face defeat the heel for the World title, the fans would be happy, and we can throw more heels at him to build another big heel to challenge him and win the title.

“If you like it, or you don’t like it, learn to love it, ‘cause it’s the best thing going today!  Wooooooo!”

Look at Ric Flair when he was the NWA/WCW World Heavyweight Champion in his prime.  Flair had the title most the most part during his reigns as champ.  He was able to go from territory to territory and face the top babyface and make them look even better than they normally look for the World Heavyweight Championship, win by skinning the cat, and go to the next territory and defend the championship another night.  I’ve heard interviews done about heel champions don’t work, but Ric Flair worked as World Heavyweight Champion Heel, he is considered to be the greatest World Heavyweight Champion in pro wrestling history.

“I am who I say I am, and I am a wrestling…GOD!”

Let’s look more modern World Champs, let’s look to after the draft in the WWE, and let’s look at John “Bradshaw” Layfield.  I’ll put it out there; he isn’t as good in the ring as Ric Flair.  Heck, at JBL’s prime, wrestling ability, he’s nowhere close to Flair on Flair’s bad day.  But JBL is what the WWE needed in 2004.  JBL won the WWE Championship at the Great American Bash in 2004 after defeating Eddie Guerrero in a Texas Bullrope Match, where we seen JBL sweet gallons and bleed buckets.  JBL can talk people to the arena and talk them to put their butts in seats. 

JBL didn’t have to wrestle great like Ric Flair, JBL had to brawl, had to use his power moves, his “Last Call” fall-away slam, and his Clothesline From Hell to take his opponents.  JBL was the longest reigning World Champion in Smackdown history, since the show’s been around in the past ten years.  To me, that’s a great World Champion.

“What ‘cha gonna do, when Hulk Hogan and the New World Order of Wrestling, brother, runss wild on you!”

“Hollywood” Hulk Hogan, one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time, and a twelve-time World Heavyweight Champion, six of them in the World Wrestling Entertainment and six of them in World Championship Wrestling.  The Hulkster’s longest title reign was his first World title reign with then World Wrestling Federation World Heavyweight Championship from 1984 (defeating the Iron Sheik) to 1988 (when he lost to Andre the Giant in controversial fashion). 

But the ‘80’s were a time period of ending where title changes were a rare form.  Enter the 1990’s and Ted Turner’s WCW, with President Eric Bischoff, signed a lot of big names from Vince McMahon, and Hogan was the biggest draw.  In latter ‘90’s, in his heel run as the leader of the n.W.o., from 1997 to 1998, Hogan held the title for 495 out of 500 days, where Lex Luger held it for five.

I know there’s other great heel World Champs, like Graham, Savage, to name a few, that I didn’t mention, but if you look at then they were faces and World Champs, their title runs were a lot shorter than their heel runs.  And when you look at their heel runs, their title runs were longer than the face title runs around theirs. 

As a conclusion, Heel World Heavyweight Champions are smart for the business, for the title history, for the fans, and for the babyfaces.  To quote the greatest World Heavyweight Champion in pro wrestling history…  “To be the man, you have to beat the man!”

 Check out more of Eric’s blogs at http://jericholic2009.blogspot.com.

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Headlocks and Eye Gouges – Camelclutchblog.com’s Eric Gargiulo will be back on Pro Wrestling Radio tonight, Wednesday July 1 at 7 PM/EST. Former World Class Championsip Wrestling producer Mickey Grant joins the show this week. Listen live and ask your questions from the chat room by clicking here. Listen to last week’s 45-minute uncensored interview with Rob Van Dam on Pro Wrestling Radio by clicking here.