Clash of the Champions 10 Page 2
Back in, Mil
gets a Boston Crab, but Jack makes the ropes. Jack tosses him, but he won’t
sell. Jack sets up for the big elbow, but Mil sneaks into the ring and pushes
Mick off…into the Nestea Plunge, Mick’s signature spot at the time. For
those who haven’t read his book, here’s a quick description: Foley falls
backwards off the apron and lands flat on his back on the concrete. It’s quite
possibly one of the sickest looking things I've ever seen to be done on a
regular basis by a wrestler. So of course the bookers had him do it every night.
Thankfully by 1990 he was over enough to retire it permanently. Mil finishes
with a flying bodypress at 4:55. Point? ¼*
- The house band (“The Tough Guys”) annoys Cactus Jack (and myself) so he
attacks the obnoxious guitar player and gets into a brawl with the drummer.
Thank god this angle went nowhere, although the drummer (named “Wolf Wild”
here) is actually a fairly decent wrestler from the AWA who was better known as
JT Southern, and who in fact had another cup of coffee in WCW years later as
Maxx Payne’s evil guitar playing nemesis. Honest to god, I don’t know why he
didn’t make it. He had the blond hair, juiced physique and Brutus Beefcake
tights. No wrestling ability, but that’s never stopped anyone else before. One
can only assume that he pissed off the wrong person at some point and got
flushed from the business.
- Falls Count Anywhere: Norman the Lunatic v. Kevin Sullivan. Mike Shaw’s
horrible babyface push continues, as we get a vignette of him visiting a zoo and
petting the pigs. Kevin tosses Norman right away, he eats post. Back in, Norman
hits a sitdown splash, but runs into Kevin’s foot trying an avalanche. He
misses a big fat splash and gets dropkicked out. Sullivan slams on the floor for
two. Bad looking suplex gets two. Boring brawl follows, with Sullivan getting
all the offense (I know, I’m as shocked as you). They head down the aisle and
into the dressing room, then into the women’s washroom. However, since WCW is
a family company or something, we only hear various sounds of battle without
seeing anything. Sullivan emerges first, flops to the floor, and Norman follows
with a toilet seat in hand and is declared the winner at 7:10, presumably
getting the pin behind the forbidden door. I’m surprised that such an elegant
and yet utterly cheap cop-out non-finish has yet to be lifted by Kevin Nash for
use in an important match. DUD
- Terry Funk brings out Lex Luger for an interview and they play mutual
admiration society for a bit as Funk inexplicably goes heel on the fans. Nothing
of consequence is said.
- The Skyscrapers v. The Road Warriors. This is the Mean Mark era of the
Skyscrapers, and is also the last match with them, as Spivey left soon after.
Spivey tosses Hawk, who no-sells. Shoulderblock from Hawk and now Spivey bails.
Back in, Callous and Animal do a sequence that goes nowhere. Hawk hits the floor
on a blind charge and plays face-in-peril. Mark hits the ropewalk, but a second
one goes awry. Hot tag Animal, and Doomsday Device for Spivey, but Callous hits
him with a chair and it’s a donnybrook, pier-six, and it’s breaking loose in
Tulsa for the lame no-contest at 7:00. Whatever. ½* This would set up the
street fight for WrestleWar 90 that ended up being Callous and a masked Mike
Enos when Spivey left the promotion shortly before the show.
- NWA World tag title match: The Steiner Brothers v. Doom. If Doom loses, they
had to unmask. Finally, their long-buried and very secret identities would be
revealed! Okay, so even JR admits that pretty much everyone already knew who
they were, but it’s wrestling so you do what you gotta to sell an extra ticket
or two. But I mean, you’ve got exactly two black wrestlers under contract (not
named “Ranger Ross”) and one week a mysterious pair of black wrestlers shows
up while the two contracted black wrestlers disappear, and people AREN’T
supposed to know who they are? Stallfest to start, then Scott outwrestles Ron
Simmons (er, I mean, “Doom #1”) to frustrate him. Release german suplex and
Butch Reed (oh, excuse me, “Doom #2”) tries. He bails quickly off a
dropkick. Doom regroups. Back in, and Scott goes unsuccessfully for the mask.
Rick goes next and more stalling follows. Simmons misses a blind charge and
takes a release belly to belly. Scott comes in and gets hammered by Reed. Really
boring heat segment follows and drags on forever. Reed gets two on a piledriver
and they brawl outside. Reed neckbreaker gets two. Scott comes back with a fluke
Frankensteiner, and hot tags Rick. Atomic drop for Reed, and a powerslam.
Slugfest sees Rick headlock the mask off Reed, revealing…BUTCH REED! No! I’m
shocked! Ross acts suitably surprised to see him. Reed is so disoriented that
Rick easily rolls him up for the pin at 13:19. Simmons is also forced to unmask
and indeed, it’s Ron Simmons. Well, that’s reassuring. If it had ended up
being Ranger Ross the whole world might be in trouble. **
- Cage match: Buzz Sawyer, The Great Muta & The Dragon Master v. Ric Flair,
Arn Anderson & Ole Anderson. HUGE heel heat for the Horsemen here. I mean,
it’s so big that the fans just start cheering the mega-heel J-Tex team to piss
them off. Muta of course plays it up for all it’s worth. Arn and Sawyer start
and ram each other into a cage a few times, then Muta tags in and hits the
handspring elbow to a HUGE pop from the fans. Oh man, WCW blew it SO bad with
Muta, because they had a de facto face turn there and could have made big money
off that guy. The real story of the match then begins as Sting charges the ring
like a madman climbs up the cage, only to get dragged off by security while Ric
Flair stands on the top rope and taunts him. He charges again and Ric keeps
egging him on, but this time when security gets him down he lands a little funny
and limps away. Meanwhile, Arn DDTs Dragon Master for the pin that no one cared
about at 6:10. The Sting-Flair show continued as the cage was opened and Flair
bolted out, tackling Sting in the aisle and triggering a huge brawl as the
credits rolled. Can’t really rate the match because the camera was on Sting
most of the time. Seemed about * from what I could see, though.
- Did you know that WCW used to have a guy listed in the credits for “Audio
Sweetening”. Is that something you REALLY want to be admitting to?
The Bottom Line: Oh, yeah, nearly forgot something: When Sting landed on that
leg, he didn’t just get a boo-boo, he tore an entire ligament in his knee and
had to be rushed to the hospital for major surgery to repair it. He ended up
being on the shelf for months and the Sting-Flair money match for the PPV had to
be cancelled and Lex Luger was inserted instead. Ric Flair was fired as booker
because of this, and really WCW never recovered as everything he had built
crumbled under the half-assed booking of Ole Anderson until finally Flair left
for the WWF in 1991 and WCW went into the toilet financially for a good six
years. Sting never truly recovered, either, as he failed to live up to the huge
potential that he had shown in his early years and might have fulfilled had he
been able to do a ****+ match with Flair and win the title.
Pretty amazing what one little injury can do to an entire promotion, isn’t it?
Anyway, there’s nothing of worth on this show in terms of wrestling and as
good as the Sting-Flair angle was it ultimately didn’t lead anywhere due to
the injury, so take a pass here.
Strong recommendation to avoid.