5 Wrestling Dream Matches That Lived Up To The Hype

#4 Hulk Hogan vs. Ric Flair - WCW Bash At The Beach 1994

WWE missed the boat with this one

Hulk Hogan was the biggest WWE star of the 1980's, and probably all of wrestling. Ric Flair was the biggest star of the 80's of the rival NWA. No one ever thought it would happen but in 1991, Ric Flair left the NWA after a major fall out with boss Jim Herd and signed with the WWE, and suddenly the biggest dream match in all of the wrestling was about to become a reality.... Until it didn't.

WWE did indeed have plans for the match even teasing it with stare downs between the two on television. So why didn't the ultimate dream match happen?.... Well in early 1992 WWE's live event attendance was getting pretty small and Vince McMahon decided to try to bring it up by booking a tour featuring Hogan vs Flair in the main event of each night, but surprisingly this did little to help attendance figures. WWE then got cold feet with the match happening as the main event of WrestleMania and scrapped it ans instead, we got Flair vs. Randy Savage (a great constellation prize) and Hulk Hogan vs Sid Justice (the less said, the better).

While this was bad news for WWE fans, it would turn into great news for WCW just two years later. Ric Flair had returned one year earlier and was Champion again, and Hogan signed with the company, and WCW did not hesitate to set up the dream match as Hogan's in-ring WCW debut at Bash At The Beach in 1994.

Now it was by far a technical masterpiece, but it was also by far a bad match. It was a pretty good contest, but what really put it over was the fact that it was Hogan's debut, WCW broke their attendance record and pay-per-view buy record going into it, the fans were on the edge of their seats, everything about it was just big match feel with a lot of media coverage and appearances from Mr. T and Shaquille O'Neal, and it had the right and popular outcome of Hulk Hogan becoming WCW Champion.