Clash of the Champions II

Legacy Review

Clash of the Champions II: Miami Mayhem

June 8, 1988 from the James L Knight Center in Miami

Commentary: Tony Shiavone and Bob Caudle

JR's off commentary tonight. Instead, he's hanging out in the parking lot doing the red carpet report as the grandees arrive in their limos. I smell a potential parking lot beatdown.

NWA United States Heavyweight Championship: Barry Windham (c) (w/JJ Dillon) def Brad Armstrong in 13:35- Dusty Rhodes was stripped of the title soon after the first Clash for attacking Jim Crockett during a brawl and Windham won the tournament for the vacant title, giving all of the Four Horsemen gold. The first real move of the match after lockups is missed because the camera was on a sign in the crowd. Windham hits an armdrag and locks in hold #473: ARMBAR. Or is that 474? Anyway, Armstrong slams out of it. Armstrong slides between Windham's legs to avoid a punch and rolls him over with a flying headlock. Windham counters into a headscissors before rolling out to have a strategery word with Dillon. Back in the headlock, Windham pulls hair to get Armstrong in a headscissors. Windham argues with ref Teddy Long (who refs every match on this show) and stalls some more. Sucker punch by Windham on a corner break. Armstrong dodges a fistdrop and Windham rolls out again. Armstrong grabs another headlock and walks up the corner to flip Windham over. He does it a second time and gets a 2 count. They crank the pace up a bit. Armstrong catches a leapfrogging Windham and slams him. He tries the walking up the corner move a third time, but this time Windham counters it into a back suplex. Powerslam for 2. Figure four! Dillon provides a leverage assist and they play cat and mouse with Long for a good 5 minutes. Armstrong tries to reverse it a one point but Windham fights it off with Dillon's help. Finally, Long catches Windham using the ropes and forces a break. Windham throws Armstrong out and drops him on the guardrail. Windham goes for an elbow off the top rope but Armstrong dodges and goes into comeback mode. Dropkick, gut punch and kneelift. Armstrong crossbody off the top for 2. He goes for a second one, but this time Windham rolls through it, and as he's doing it locks on the claw! The claw gets the pin. Cool finish. Perfectly solid free TV title defense. **3/4

The Rock N Roll Express come in and announce their NWA return after being gone nearly six months.

Next up is footage of the contract signing on a luxury yacht for the Ric Flair/Lex Luger world title match to be held at the Great American Bash PPV. Jim Crockett calls it "the biggest world title match in NWA history". I'm dubious. Back live to JR as the rest of the Horsemen arrive at the show. Back to the ring, the cameraman clearly gives the ring announcer a cue to start announcements for the next match. But before it starts, we go back to JR in the parking lot because Luger's limo is arriving. As soon as he steps out of the door the Horsemen jump him! They tear his tux off, slam his head against the trunk and leave him bleeding in the parking lot.

NWA United States Tag Team Championship: The Fantastics (c) def The Sheepherders (w/Rip Morgan) in 19:29- I'm pretty sure the match started during the Luger beatdown and is JIPped. Rogers hits a crossbody on Butch for 2. Dropkick from Fulton, and he follows Luke out to the floor. Morgan hits him from behind, but Fulton dodges the follow up and Morton hits Luke. The faces take them both out. Fulton slips out of a slam and locks in a sleeper. Butch breaks it up. Luke screws up what looks like what should have been a Rogers crucifix, but still lays there for the 2 count. Rogers slides under the legs, flips out of a backdrop and hits a slam! The heels go out again to regroup. Butch attacks Rogers' throat. Luke locks in a abdominal stretch. Rogers hiptosses out. Heel double team to prevent a tag. Rogers dodges a double team and gets the tag. Fulton ends up in the heel corner and gets popped. Midring collision. Fulton crossbodys both Herders! Crazy sequence where both Fantastics take turns covering both the Herders at once for 2 counts. When things calm down the faces work Luke's arm. Butch pulls the top rope down and Rogers crashes to the floor. While he's laying on the floor a fan nudges him in the back with their foot and gets told off by security. Rogers stays on the floor for a while and takes shots in the back from both one of the title belts and a chair. Back in, the heels work the back some more. Butch gets a knee in the gut and fistdrop for 2. The heels try to run Rogers into the chair again, but Rogers dodges and Luke take the shot! Hot tag! Fulton rolls Luke up, and despite Butch's attempt to break it up gets the 3 count! Man, the Fantastics were pretty damn good. The match was too long, but at the same time they used the length well to turn a mediocre match into a fairly good one by the end. ***

"Dr. Death" Steve Williams joins commentary for the next match. After the announcements for the next match we again go back to JR, who says Luger has been taken to a local hospital. We also get the full replay of the entire Luger attack, then go to commercial before getting back to the next match. What is this, the third hour of Raw?

 

"Gorgeous" Jimmy Garvin and Ronnie Garvin (w/Precious) def The Varsity Club in 13:11- It's NWA TV champ Mike Rotunda and Rick Steiner wrestling for the VC, while Kevin Sullivan is locked in a cage at ringside. Precious has the key. Pretty sure this is another JIP as all four guys are fighting in the ring when they come back from commercial. Stereo sleepers on the heels by the Garvins. Reset with Ron and Steiner. I'm not sure what they intended to do there, but Steiner did a huge 360 sell of it so cool. He ends up in the face corner and takes shots from both Garvins. Sullivan keeps trying to get Precious' attention. Rotunda breaks out the epic stalling. He and Jimmy exchange amateur takedowns. Sullivan's got a piece of paper he's trying to get Precious over to look at. The heels work Ron's arm while Jimmy keeps jumping down to calm Precious down. He eventually goes over and gets in Sullivan's face. The heels double team as Jimmy gets back on the apron. They do the phantom tag spot before Ron punches out and gets the real tag. Long Jimmy front facelock on Steiner while Sullivan continues to entice Precious over. Ron rolls Steiner up for 2. After a shot from Rotunda he goes Garvin in peril again. Rotunda chokes him with a rope. They drag Ron to the cage and Sullivan gets a shot in. Finally he headbutts Steiner and tags. Donnybrook. Ron and Rotunda have a chopfest on the floor while Jimmy and Steiner wrestle in the ring. With all that going on Precious finally gets close enough to the cage for Sullivan to reach out and grab the key from her. Jimmy pins Steiner off camera because who cared about the match anyway right? It's like Russo's booking this thing. Sullivan unlocks the cage and immediately chokes Precious. Williams comes out of commentary to fight Sullivan off. Precious gets mad at Jimmy, shoves him and walks off. Decent action, but it was all second fiddle to the Precious angle. *3/4

Commentary hypes up the Tower of Doom match coming up at GAB that will be the final blowoff of the Varsity Club/Garvin and Precious angle. They even have a blueprint for the cage structure. Spoiler: it sucked. They even laughably have a parchment "discovered by Kevin Sullivan" of the "very first Tower of Doom". Looks more like one of the huts from the cannibal village in Secret of Monkey Island to me.

Nikita Koloff def Al Perez (w/Gary Hart) by DQ in 11:51- Rough lockups. Finger pointing and shoving. Sloppy slugfest. Arm wringer exchange. Perez tries a corner whip. Koloff reverses it and flips him over. Perez gets in a few shots in the corner and dodges a charge. Koloff's shoulder rams into the top turnbuckle and he rolls out. Hart gives him a table shot. After another Hart shot Koloff goes out again and stalks him, allowing Perez to hit him from behind. Slam on the floor. Perez tries to suplex Koloff back in, but he twists in midair and falls on top of Perez for 2. Perez with a double chinlock. Koloff lifts him up into an electric chair and drops him. Koloff runs the ropes and looks like he ducks a clothesline, but goes for some kind of move at the same time and they fumble something around until Perez recovers to put him on the mat and drop a knee. I don't know what that was, other than freaking ugly. Koloff gets thrown out and sunset flips back in. Perez backs up to the ropes. Koloff reverses a suplex and pounds Perez around. A back elbow sends Perez over and out. Larry Zbyszko runs in with a chain. Koloff punches first, but it still gets a DQ. The heels choke and beat down Koloff after. Blech. Terrible sloppy showing by Koloff. He was lucky Perez is as solid a pro as he is to save that to being almost watchable. *1/2

 

NWA World Tag Team Championship: Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard (c) (w/JJ Dillon) and "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes & Sting go to a double DQ in 10:58- Sting and Arn start. Sting shrugs off Arn's hair pulling. Arn gets a cheap shot in over Long on a corner break. Sting's pushed outside. He dodges a charge and Arn posts his arm. Sting wraps it around the post and goes to work on it in the ring. Tully tags in and runs into an armdrag. Sting with a flying headscissors! Dusty gives Tully a classic Dusty Rhodes funky beatdown. Figure four from Dusty. Dillon gets on the apron and Tully eye pokes out of it. Arn tries to suplex Dusty. I don't think that's going to work. Dusty reverses, but Arn slips out and tags. Tully walks into a flying clothesline. Sting hits a press slam. Stinger Splash! Arn runs in as Sting looks to hook the Scorpion Death Lock in and Tully knocks him outside. Rail shot. Arn goes for a Vader bomb but Sting gets his knees up. Tully cuts the tag off. Arn hooks Sting up for a suplex and sneaky tags Tully. While Sting's trying to reverse the suplex Tully gets him with a sunset flip off the top rope! While he's fighting that Arn kills him with a clothesline! That was awesome. Tully covers for a 2 count. They go out again and Arn DDTs Sting on the bare concrete floor! Dillon rolls Sting back in, but Dusty has Long tied up and by the time he gets free Sting kicks out at 1. Sting then immediately goes into comeback mode. I haven't seen such an egregious no sell of a DDT on the floor since Summerslam '10. Sting hot shots Tully and gets over to tag Dusty. Bionic elbows for everyone. Donnybrook! Both Sting and Dusty throw Long out of the way to keep fighting. Windham runs in and the bell rings while he's putting the claw on Dusty. Flair also comes in and beats down Sting, but the focus is on Windham and Dusty as they're feuding over the US title. Windham still has the claw on Dusty on the floor as we go to commercial. They got what they could in for the short time and crappy non-finish. **3/4

To wrap up, JR says Luger is still at the hospital and he'll have an update on Saturday night's weekly show. Tony says the Braves are on next. The 1988 Braves? I'd rather watch the Tower of Doom match for three straight hours.

OVERALL SHOW THOUGHTS: As middle of the road as middle of the road gets. Pretty good build for the Bash, though.

OVERALL SHOW GRADE: C