The concept of a ‘dream match’ is hardly a new one in sports; over the years, one-off marquee bouts have drawn significant money for promoters of boxing, MMA, professional wrestling, and even basketball. Whether it was Ali vs. Inoki, Mayweather vs. McGregor, Backlund vs. Flair, or the Harlem Globetrotters vs. the Washington Generals, the recurring truism about all of these contests is that they existed to reap the benefits of short- term gains rather than to ensure long-term prosperity. Though undoubtedly increasing the profile of the victor, and sometimes the loser, these fantasy matches occurred in the moment, not noticeably affecting the future business prospects of the respective sports. UFC’s numbers did not show a significant shift upwards after Conor McGregor’s record-breaking clash with Floyd Mayweather, nor did Antonio Inoki become a bigger draw overseas after his farcical fight with Muhammed Ali.
The Inoki vs. Ali match itself very much followed the adage that anticipation often trumps the climax, with the hype surrounding the bout far more exciting than the tedious showdown itself, in which Inoki spent the
majority squatted in a crab position kicking at Ali’s legs. It is often the case, whether it be in intra-sport clashes or intra-promotional wrestling matches, that egos and politics come into play and nobody wants to be the one at a disadvantage.
Intra-promotional matches were a huge draw in the territory days, back when there was more than one player in town. Before the WWF took over the world, wrestling promotions were contained mostly within city or state boundaries, be it World Class in Dallas, the CWA in Memphis, the AWA in Minnesota, or the WWWF in New York. The only way fans from one city could learn about what was going on in another was via the multitude of wrestling magazines that flooded the newsstands. There was no nationally broadcasting cable television to air programs outside of those local markets prior to Vince McMahon changing the game in the mid-80s. Everything was self-contained and each World Champion was considered the only true World Champion to fans of those promotions.
Yet, now and again, those champions would travel around the circuit, giving promoters the opportunity to bill ‘dream matches’ between their top star and a touring champion from elsewhere. Inevitably, the end result would be a cheap, underwhelming payoff, usually an unsatisfying double count out or double disqualification finish. The former was the outcome when WWWF Champion Bob Backlund met NWA Champion Ric Flair in 1982. It was designed to protect both men and both promotions so there were no losers. Ultimately, it was the fans who lost out.
Another tactic was the phantom title switch. The idea behind this was that the local wrestler would defeat the outsider champion in front of his home crowd, and because fans from the outsider’s home promotion would never see it—this was before the internet existed, remember—the title switch would be ignored. This happened on several occasions, which is why to this day long-time fans in the San Francisco area are able to delineate about the night Ray Stevens beat Bruno Sammartino to become WWWF Champion. As title history aficionados know, that reign has never been acknowledged or even alluded to by WWE. If it were, Bruno’s mythical seven-year title run would be truncated somewhat. This phantom tactic is one of the reasons Ric Flair has such a disputed number of World Title reigns. WWE has settled on a manageable low-ball 16 (so they can beat it with a current star), but historians will vehemently argue otherwise, citing numbers in the 20s as the true figure.
As the territories dwindled into obscurity, wrestling dream matches became increasingly contained to within a single promotion, with varying degrees of success. When the WWF finally signed NWA/WCW lynchpin Ric Flair in 1991 and matched him with long-time company alpha Hulk Hogan, the box office results were nowhere near as impressive as they likely would have been three years earlier. Vince McMahon instead settled on creating his own stars and pitting them against each other, drawing huge money in the Attitude Era with self-made creations ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin, The Rock, The Undertaker, and Triple H. The future generations of talent that followed all came through WWE’s developmental system, with notables such as John Cena, Batista, Brock Lesnar, and Randy Orton graduating from OVW then becoming stars on the main roster. WWE had no choice—they had systematically killed off the territories and their competition; there was nowhere left to poach stars from.
For a time, it seemed like the dream match concept was dead. A relic of the past with no chance of returning due to WWE’s status as the only game in town. As WWE was now the only promotion anyone was watching and it was creating its own talent in Ohio, there was nobody left to bring in to work with their stars. Unfortunately, that self-sustaining approach came with problems. Grooming newcomers to be money-drawing acts is not an exact science, and there were as many misses as there were hits. Without a competitor to raid for ready-made names, WWE instead turned to its past, bringing back former stars for one last run in order to program them with a top draw from the modern era. When they did it at WrestleMania X8 in 2002, with The Rock and Hulk Hogan, it was captivating. Inevitably, when they did the same match again one year later at No Way Out 2003, the magic was gone. As with all dream clashes, it was one and done.
WWE persisted, dusting off Hogan and others on a regular basis over the next decade. At SummerSlam 2005, ‘The Hulkster’ was the focal point again, this time against Shawn Michaels, a man who made his name in the WWF only after Hogan and his fellow dinosaurs left for WCW. This allowed the likes of Michaels and Bret Hart to pick up the pieces and help bring the company forward into a new, work rate centric era. Both Hogan and Michaels were infamous for their political machinations behind the scenes over the years, with Hogan holding an ungodly amount of influence in WCW (it was even written into his contract that he had final say over any storyline in the company) and Michaels having more sway with Vince McMahon in the mid-90s than was healthy for locker room morale. So, inevitably, when it came to agreeing a finish, there were problems. Similar to the dream intra-promotional clashes of old, egos came into play and neither man wanted to be on the losing side. When Michaels eventually agreed to put Hogan over, he did so with a secret plan in mind: he was going to show-up Hulk in the match. Showing his colours of old, Michaels entered the sort of brash, unprofessional performance that had marred his run on top in 1996. Purposely comically overselling everything that Hogan did, ‘HBK’ made ‘The Hulkster’ look like a chump.
Feeling this was an isolated incident, WWE persisted with the formula. For three consecutive WrestleMania’s between 2008 and 2010, Shawn Michaels became the central figure in one-off supershow dream bouts, facing off with veterans Ric Flair (2008) and The Undertaker (2009 and 2010) in a trio of emotional, high- drama clashes. Michaels had worked with both several times before, albeit not in several years, and never on the grandest stage. The results were spectacular both creatively and commercially, though as per the norm, they did not help the company going forward. Nobody new was elevated in those matches; Flair retired after his clash with Michaels, Undertaker wound down his schedule to one match per year, and Michaels called it quits immediately following the 2010 event.
Without anyone new to push as the central selling point of the annual extravaganza, WWE in 2011 were once again forced to pick up the phone to a star of old. The man they turned to was Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, the Attitude Era number-mover who had not appeared inside of a WWE ring since WrestleMania XX in 2004. Since then, Rock had become the biggest name in Hollywood, successfully making the rare transition from pro wrestling superstar to global mainstream megastar. Desperately needing a boost for WrestleMania XXVII, WWE convinced Rock to make a non-wrestling return to serve as the guest host for the supershow. If the main event between The Miz and John Cena was uninspiring before, it was not helped any by Rock’s presence. Such was the magnitude of his charisma and star power that he dwarfed Miz, leaving fans desiring a match between Rock and Cena rather than the advertised bout between the two WWE regulars.
The night after WrestleMania, having agreed terms with Rock to step back inside the squared circle, WWE pulled the trigger on the dream Rock vs. Cena clash, promising it to fans… one year later! Yes, WWE opted to build a Rock-Cena match that was not going to happen for 12 months. Still, the tactic worked. WrestleMania XXVIII did record numbers, pulling 1,217,000 pay-per-view buys—a company record. Feeling they were onto something, WWE ignored their own year-long ‘Once In A Lifetime’ marketing campaign and returned to the well at 2013’s WrestleMania XXIX, pulling over a million buys again as Cena got his win back. Despite the commercial success of Rock’s return, his presence caused some friction in the locker room. Many—most notably C.M. Punk—were very vocally opposed to WWE’s use of Rock and other part-timers in key ‘Mania spots, arguing that they deserved to be given the opportunities to carry the ball and take home the monster paydays, not someone who was rarely there.
WWE did not pay attention to the self-serving grumblings from within its ranks. Feeling they had struck a winning formula, another part-time player was added to the roster: Brock Lesnar. When Lesnar returned to WWE in 2012 he was a completely different, pardon the pun, beast, to when he left in 2004. Back then he was a powerhouse who combined brute strength with technical wrestling acumen, competing with the likes of Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit in classic mat-based wrestling matches. By 2012, Lesnar was a former UFC Heavyweight Champion who had carved a remarkable legacy in MMA. He had achieved more in his relatively short UFC career than anyone thought possible from a ‘phony’ ex-pro wrestler, setting buy rate records along the way. He was a genuine superstar, far beyond the level he had achieved in WWE the first time around. His return was a huge coup for the company. With the roster almost completely different from 2004 there was a whole host of new potential match-ups waiting for Brock. Dream matches, if you will.
WWE paired Lesnar with John Cena right out of the gate. Although they had squared off before—at Backlash in 2003—both men had come such a long way since that they were almost unrecognisable. In those days Lesnar was the aforementioned wrestling machine, whereas Cena was a rapping rookie who was barely able to put together a basic match. Now, he was a superstar, the face of WWE for almost a decade, and the man everybody wanted to see Brock tear apart. Their match at Extreme Rules 2012 was a triumph, pulling 263,000 buys. It was an impressive number on a B-show that typically struggled because of its proximity to WrestleMania.
Lesnar’s part-time schedule meant WWE had to use him wisely, restricting his wrestling appearances to pay-per-views and the occasional untelevised house show in major markets, allowing him to retain his aura and mystique. Brock’s Streak-ending victory over The Undertaker at WrestleMania XXX was perhaps the most sensational result in WWE history, serving to make him an even bigger deal. When Lesnar wrestled, fans were willing to pay cold hard cash to see him in action. Brock became the go-to dream match performer, the person who would be brought in and placed into a program with little-to-no build. At SummerSlam 2016, Brock was matched up against Randy Orton, with WWE forgoing all formalities by abandoning a pre-show build and instead casually announcing on TV that the match would be happening. For a company whose lifeblood is month-to-month storylines and angles, this was a departure from the norm. At least in 2017, when WWE decided to run with a fantasy contest between Lesnar and Samoa Joe, there was a degree of build first.
Bringing in stars and giving them short bursts of creative to get them to a match was something WWE had been doing for several years by that point. Their relationship with video game developer 2K Sports was a prominent factor. The group helped WWE build bridges with alienated stars of the past by opening up an initial dialogue with them, such as The Ultimate Warrior and Sting. Warrior sadly passed away before WWE could coerce him into donning the tights one last time (you just know Triple H wanted to avenge that embarrassing WrestleMania XII defeat), but Sting, at 56, was given a final moment in the sun. Or, more cynically, he was bled dry one last time to boost the company’s coffers.
For several years, decades, even, one fantasy warfare collision had been at the top of all WWE fans’ wish list: Sting vs. The Undertaker. When WWE finally signed Sting in 2014, the fan base was abuzz at the prospect of WCW’s franchise player—who had never before set foot inside of a WWE ring—finally meeting WWE’s ‘Phenom’. However, Vince McMahon—who historically has demonstrated an ageist mentality—decided that Sting and Undertaker were too old to wrestle each other on the grandest stage, worried that the match quality would not be what it needed to be. Triple H—Vince’s son-in-law—was given the match instead. Vince’s supposed misgivings about a Sting Undertaker match were clearly an excuse; Triple H was only four years The Undertaker’s junior, and, like the ‘Dead Man’, he was also a once-a-year part-timer who was far beyond his prime.
The real reason for McMahon’s decision harked back to the mentality behind the archaic intra-promotional dream matches of old. To Vince, this was WCW vs. WWE once more, pitting the one man who never left Turner’s organisation against the man he was relying on to secure WWE’s long-term future. Even though the prospect was a mild disappointment for fans, who in general do not consider Triple H to be the legendary bastion of the Attitude Era that WWE bill him as, there was still a definite buzz in the air prior to their showdown at WrestleMania 31. Realising the match was not going to rival the skillset of the modern-day super-workers, WWE pulled out all the stops to ensure Sting vs. Hunter delivered as a big-time spectacle. Wheeling out D Generation X and the New World Order as surprise run-in participants further reinforced that this was ‘Monday Night Wars: The Final Chapter’. There was no mistaking it.
WWE made every effort to trust in what they had and present the following year’s WrestleMania without a first-time-ever grandstand bout, only for fate to intervene during the run-in and put several of the top stars on the shelf. Without company icon John Cena or WWE Champion Seth Rollins available to them due to injury, WWE were forced to turn to the past again. It couldn’t just be anyone, this was WrestleMania after all, but the well was starting to run dry. Hulk Hogan was on the blacklist, Steve Austin (who at one point was rumoured to be returning to face Brock Lesnar at ‘Mania) was not an option because of his longstanding neck injury and McMahon’s reluctance to risk using him, Daniel Bryan had been forced to retire due to concussion-related injuries. Sting had also hung up his boots after suffering an injury at the careless hands of Rollins at Night Of Champions 2015, The Rock was too busy with Hollywood, and so was Batista.
Needing to think outside of the box, Vince somehow reached the conclusion that his own son, Shane McMahon, last seen in 2009, was the right man for the job. To the shock of the wrestling world, not only would Shane be competing at WrestleMania, he would be doing so against The Undertaker inside Hell in a Cell. Even if some fans were baffled at the decision to ‘waste’ an Undertaker WrestleMania match on non-wrestler Shane, the box office told a different story. WrestleMania 32 shattered WWE’s previous all-time attendance record (79,127 for SummerSlam 1992 at Wembley), drawing a legitimate 97,769 (93,730 paid). While not the headline attraction—that honour went to Roman Reigns and the heir to the company kingdom, Triple H, obviously it was undoubtedly the match that people came to see. The message was clear: presenting one-off super-bouts was the model for drawing record numbers.
Looking to replicate that success at other events, not just WrestleMania, WWE used their 2K Sports link-up to make peace with Goldberg, someone who had long been on the company’s no-go list. Once fences were mended, Goldberg expressed his desire to wrestle again so that his son could see him in action. Needing a boost for November’s Survivor Series, WWE complied. Squaring off against Brock Lesnar (who had ironically been Goldberg’s final WWE opponent some 12 years earlier in a mess of a match at WrestleMania XX, where fans turned on both men and booed them out of the building because they were leaving the company), the contest was one of the most hyped matches in years. WWE even billed it as ‘fantasy warfare just got real’. As per the trend, the endgame hardly matched the hype; Goldberg smashed through Lesnar in under 90-seconds, stunning an audience which had been conditioned to expect 20-minutes plus from a WWE main event match.
Lesnar-Goldberg may have had the curiosity factor for fans of seeing Goldberg in action for the first time in a decade, but WWE’s drive to present fantasy warfare had been ongoing throughout the year. As well as the aforementioned Lesnar-Orton match at SummerSlam, WWE also heavily hyped first-time-ever clashes between AJ Styles and WWE staples Roman Reigns and John Cena. In 2017, the promotion of one of New Japan Pro Wrestling’s shining lights, Shinsuke Nakamura, to the main roster led to the charismatic Japanese battling John Cena in a one-off match with only a week’s build, on SmackDown of all things.
The signings of Styles and Nakamura and their subsequent pushes based on their past successes elsewhere was something unthinkable only a few years earlier. Somewhere down the line there had been a shift in the mindset of wrestling fans. As the industry began to evolve with the rise of social media, what would once have been small-time independent cards were increasingly becoming must-see events that were talked about worldwide on Facebook and Twitter. This visibility of independent wrestling and its status as an underground alternative to WWE increased the name value of those competing one-hundred- fold. Similarly, the increased presence of NJPW in the west thanks to the stunning performances of Kazuchika Okada, Kenny Omega, Hiroshi Tanahashi, and Nakamura, to name but a few, opened fans’ eyes to a whole new world of wrestling that existed beyond the confinements of WWE. Suddenly, fans were fantasising again, contemplating what would happen if stars of the independent scene clashed with WWE’s band of superstars.
At first, WWE had little interest in the likes of AJ Styles (too small), Samoa Joe and Kevin Steen (wrong body type), El Generico (too ‘indy’) or any of several other internet darlings. That changed with the rise of Paul ‘Triple H’ Leveque’s pet project, developmental brand NXT. Harbouring a desire to control all wrestling content that fans consumed, Leveque’s methodology was to turn indy fans into NXT fans. He soon found that the way to do that was by bringing in star names from the independent circuit and handing them NXT developmental contracts, keeping them contained within the WWE system. The theory was that if these wrestlers were going to make waves and be talked about, they were better off doing that in WWE than on the outside. All of a sudden, a whole slew of new potential match-ups existed. With talent arriving from across the globe after getting over in the biggest non-WWE companies (ROH, NJPW, TNA), suddenly matches that fans never thought possible were becoming reality.
But where does it all end? As with in the territory days, smaller promotions can only take so many direct hits of their talent departing before they see their fan base eroded. If WWE kills the independent scene by snapping up all of the best talent something they have been doing at an alarming rate over the past two years—then there will be nobody left to bring in. Soon, all of the big money matchups will be exhausted and talent who came in with a buzz will have been underutilised because of the bloated roster, reducing their marketability and ability to draw.
WWE likely feels it has no choice. Going back to the post-WCW buyout principle, the company realises they have to create (or buy) new stars to succeed, because television numbers are at their lowest level in years and the pressure to deliver something huge each year at WrestleMania continues to increase. The reality is, there are few rabbits left to pull out of the hat. Undertaker is retired—or very close, John Cena is winding down, mooted next big thing Roman Reigns has not taken off as hoped, and Seth Rollins has been hurt by continuously shoddy booking.
WWE instead needs to focus on going back to the methods that served them so well when their backs were against the wall in the fight with WCW, when they did not have money to burn. When fighting from underneath, Vince McMahon is a creative visionary who has the ability to turn lumps of coal into diamonds. He is now a victim of his own success, having headed a monopoly for so long that the need to make a new superstar is simply not a priority. However, as the years roll on, it will become increasingly apparent that WWE needs to get that competitive fire back. If they do not, they run the risk of running out of big money encounters, dream matches or otherwise, and of WrestleMania becoming just another show. That would be a travesty.
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