Clash of the Champions 5 Page 2
- Ric Flair and his entourage of escorts are out for a pre-PPV gloating session. Nothing out of the ordinary gets said – "I’ll keep the title against Steamboat, yada yada" – until Steamboat comes out to rebut. Flair’s a bad person, blah blah. Cue the brawl, as Steamboat destroys Flair and rips his clothes off, but Hiro Matsuda attacks and they beat him down. They brawl into the now-super-hot crowd until Flair retreats. Boring interview, GREAT brawl.
- Lex Luger v. The Blackmailer. The Blackmailer is Jack Victory working double-duty under another mask. Hiro Matsuda is managing him in order to build interest for Luger’s match with Barry Windham at Chi-Town Rumble. Luger casually overpowers Mr. Mailer to start. Headlock sequence goes on a while. I retract my statement about the last match being the most boring ever. Luger misses a lariat and hits the floor. Blackmailer knocks him off a couple of time, but Luger sunset flips in. Blackmailer hits the chinlock. Can’t really blame Victory for being gassed after a 13-minute opener against the Midnights. Luger gets a suplex and comes back, no-selling all kinds of offense, then finishes with a superplex at 12:51. WHY WHY WHY did we need 13 minutes for this? ½*
- US Tag Team title match: Steve Williams & Mike Rotunda v. The Fantastics. Cap’n Mike is subbing for Kevin Sullivan, thus pre-dating the Triad by 10 years. Hey, remember the Triad? Me neither.
- Mucho stallo to start, as Ross ponders the possibility of a Varsity Club submission victory, as though anyone might actually care about such a thing. Slugfest between Doc and Fulton puts Fulton in the heel corner, but Rogers gets in and gets beaten up. Standard stuff here. Fulton comes in and takes a longer beating. Doc works in a four-rep press-slam, but Fulton blocks the Oklahoma Stampede. Hot tag Rogers, and he’s a house of fi…oh, wait, bad choice of metaphor this week. He’s REALLY ANGRY! There, that’s better. Rogers gets dumped, but comes off the top with a flying something on Williams. God, that was ugly. Rotundo nails him in the head and puts Doc on top for the pin at 13:22. The point of this completely eludes me, but it was an okay match. **
- Rick Steamboat v. Bob Bradley. Speaking of the point eluding me, this is the match they chose with less than a week to go before Rick’s big shot at Flair on PPV. Bradley had one notable stint playing Battle Kat in the WWF, but that’s about the limit of interesting things to say about him. To show how over Steamboat was, the fans chant "We want Flair". Steamboat hits a series of slams and Bradley bails. Bob comes back with a pair of slams and a lariat, but a blind charge misses and Steamboat goes to the arm. "We Want Flair" again. Bradley gets a chop off two leapfrogs, then a sideslam. Top rope move misses and Steamboat ends it with the usual at 6:23. Not half bad for a moronic choice of squash, but that’s not a ringing endorsement or anything. *1/2
- Rick Steiner v. Rip Morgan. What is this, NWA Main Event? Rick finishes quick with the belly-to-belly at 4:38, as I rapidly lose patience with this show. ½*
- Kevin Sullivan locks Sting, JYD and Michael Hayes in a cage backstage, just to screw us out of the advertised main event of…
- World Six-Man title: The Road Warriors & Tenryu v. Sting, JYD and Michael Hayes. Sting’s team is still locked in the back, so the Varsity Club hits the ring for an impromptu brawl that ends in a double DQ at 5:56. STUPID STUPID STUPID.
The Bottom Line: The very definition of a throwaway show. No purpose, no real highlights, no good matches. Thank God it led to the greatest series of matches ever.
Strong recommendation to avoid.