Clash of the Champions X

Legacy Blog

Clash of the Champions X: Texas Shootout

February 6, 1990 from the Memorial Coliseum in Corpus Christi, TX

Commentary: Jim Ross and Jim Cornette

The Turner graphic boys have finally (and sadly) completely dispensed with the classic "lightning and belts" opening from the original Clash. Because this show is in Texas, the intro consists of a bunch of static cardboard South Park-style but with even less animation cutouts of wrestlers being shot. Some in the head. It might be horrific if it wasn't so cheesy. Cornette instantly jumps into the sub-Jerry Lawler one liners and I'm sad to say it goes on the whole show.

"Dr. Death" Steve Williams def The Samoan Savage (w/The Big Kahuna) in 7:55- We get another Jim Herd Special gimmick video package during the intros. Williams is Doctor Death, see, so let's make him an ACTUAL doctor. In an ambulance. Saving people. "Get this man to a hospital!". Gurning for the camera on the way out. Yeah, it's little wonder Williams said "screw this shit, I'm going back to Japan" right after this. Williams jumps Savage from behind at the bell. After a huge clothesline Savage bails. Football tackles. Savage counters with a clothesline of his own. He throws Williams out and Humperdink gets a choke in. Woman comes down and takes a seat at ringside, scouting for new talent after dumping Doom. Savage hooks in the Nerve Pinch of Samoan Pinchiness Prowess +1. Williams tries to come back but Savage kills it with a powerslam for 2 and goes back to the nerve pinch. Williams tries a sunset flip. Savage chops him in the forehead but Williams no sells it before missing an elbow drop. Savage side suplex. Williams dodges a splash off the top rope. Huge delayed press slam. Williams blocks a hiptoss and rolls up a backslide to win. Big disappointment. Plodding and not nearly as stiff as you'd expect from these guys. *1/4

Commercial for the upcoming Wrestle War PPV. It advertises the currently scheduled top two matches: Flair vs. Sting and Luger vs Williams. Like the man says, card subject to change.

Terry Funk is in the ring to interview the reformed Four Horsemen: Flair, Sting and Ole & Arn Anderson (Ole coming out of retirement to replace Tully Blanchard). Ole has some words for Sting, and he's going to stand there and listen because it's 3 on 1. That's ominous. Ole says Sting is no longer a Horseman. He wasn't even in the group long enough to get his Horseman card laminated. Ole says Flair brought him and Arn back in to take Sting out. Sting got a reprieve because he helped Flair out against Funk. They were set again to take him out at Starrcade, but Flair waved them off at the last second. But now, Sting's signed for a title match against Flair. That's an unforgivable sin. But, Sting helped Flair so Flair owes him one. They're going to save his life tonight. Ole gives Sting an ultimatum: go to the promoters and cancel the match by the end of the show tonight, or face Horseman justice. Sting refuses and tries to grab Ole. Flair blindside punches him. The Andersons hook Sting up and Flair tells him to do the smart thing and walk away, and slaps him. The 3 Horsemen leave Sting laying in the middle of the ring. Just tremendous long term storytelling. Unfortunately it would all get derailed later in the show.

 

"Flyin'" Brian Pillman and "The Z Man" Tom Zenk def The MOD Squad in 9:53- Pillman and Spike start. Basic back and forth. The faces work Spike's arm. Pillman and Zenk do a big boot/enzuguri double team on Basher. Spike saves the pin. The Squad try to double team, but Pillman takes them out with a slingshot double clothesline! Pillman gets a backdrop and whiffs on a spinning heel kick, but Spike sorta sells it anyway. Shades of the Aleister Black/Lars Sullivan NXT title match Black Mass botch. Random side thought: has WWE botched post-NXT main roster booking any worse than Black? (and I know that's a very competitive list) Guy should be a star. Well, him and Almas. Anyway, Spike face plants Pillman and they go into a bland a face in peril sequence. Pillman gets a leapfrog and diving back elbow follow up but the tag is cut off. After Spike misses an elbow off the top Pillman gets the hot tag. Zenk hits a springboard reverse crossbody to win. Pillman and Zenk were a dynamic team but they didn't have much to work with here. Between this show and Wrestle War they would win the tournament for the revived US tag titles. *1/2

 

Mil Mascaras def Cactus Jack Manson in 5:00- Gary Capetta Lillian Botches Foley's entrance, calling him captain instead of Cactus. Foley famously wrote in one of his books how much he hated this match. Apparently Mascaras wasn't interested in working with him or his style, and it shows. After initial lockup jockeying Mascaras hooks up a bow and arrowish hold, transitions to a cloverleaf then tries for a cover. Foley escapes. During a test of strength Mascaras wraps up a headscissors. A flying headbutt and dropkick send Foley out. Foley goes after Capetta for messing up his name like Bad Luck Fale charging down Abe-san, but backs up and trips himself over a chair. Back in Mascaras hooks in a full nelson. Foley backs him into the corner and they slugfest a bit. Mascaras puts on a Liontamer style Boston crab. Foley gets to the ropes, gets some shots in and throws Mascaras onto the floor. He hits a backbreaker on the floor and sets up for the Cactus elbow 1.0 (off the apron instead of the second rope), but Mascaras sneaks behind him, hits a dropkick, and Foley splats down straight on the concrete! I'm pretty sure his head really hit the floor. Mascaras suplexes him back in, hits a crossbody off the top, and good night. Apart from the crazy Foley bump this never got out of first gear. 1/2*

 

Falls Count Anywhere Match: Norman the Lunatic def Kevin Sullivan in 7:26- Sullivan does the ambush and they go right outside. Norman reverses a whip and Sullivan gets posted. Back in Sullivan tries a sunset flip but Norman sits on him. Norman Flair throws Sullivan off the top but misses a splash off the second rope. Sullivan slams Norman on the floor for 2. Back suplex (barely) on the floor for 2. Long, dull sequence of Sullivan in the ring keeping Norman on the floor. Norman comes back with headbutts. They brawl up the aisle and tease something good actually happening with the stip. A rail shot on Sullivan gets 2. They go up the stage and to the back. Sullivan hides in a women's bathroom. Norman won't go in at first because it says women's, then decides screw it, I'm going in anyway. The camera doesn't follow. Instead, the door closes, there's sounds of fighting, the door opens and Sullivan collapses out, Norman comes out holing a toilet seat and ref Nick Patrick says he's the winner. Oy vey what a shit (no pun intended) finish. The stip was ahead of its time and they didn't have a formula down for it yet, and this was the wrong pair of guys to try to pull it off. DUD

Once again Tuxedo Terry Funk is in the ring, this time to interview Lex Luger. Funk does the heel super butter up job and Luger gives a weird promo about not wanting a fresh Sting to jump in line and take out a "wounded" Flair, and all but challenging for the world title. Funk cuts him off mid-promo just as he was getting to his scheduled US title defense against Williams because of time constraints and a hard commercial break coming up. Very odd segment, especially in context of what would happen later in the show and the next few weeks.

 

The Road Warriors (w/Paul Ellering) def The Skyscrapers (w/Teddy Long) by DQ in 7:26- We've got two teams that practically never lose clean so the ending should be interesting. This is the 2.0 version of the Scrapers, with future Undertaker Mean Mark Callous replacing the injured Sid Vicious. Spivey and Hawk start. Spivey thinks he uses Hawk's momentum to throw him out, but Hawk slammed on the brakes and he whacks Spivey from behind with a clothesline. Cool bit where Hawk tries for a neckbreaker but Callous grabs Spivey to keep him from being dropped. Callous/Animal shoulderblock standoff. Callous has got some serious pinkness going on his back. If that's a sunburn those back bumps must be killing him. A surprisingly long speed sequence ends with Animal ducking a Callous crossbody. Hawk does his usual posting his shoulder and crashing to the floor. Spivey scoops him up and rams it into the post again. Callous does the rope walk! Hawk tries a clothesline with his bum arm but Callous grabs it and wraps it up again. He tries the rope walk again but Hawk flips him off (of the rope). Tags on both sides. Animal powerslam on Spivey for 2. There's a bit of a miscommunication in the next sequence. The heels start to whip Animal, but then pick him up instead and Animal flips out. During all of that Hawk kept starting and stopping getting into the ring, not sure where his cue was. A double clothesline sends Callous to the floor. Doomsday Device on Spivey! The ref decides to get Hawk out instead of counting, allowing Callous to come off the top rope with a chair to the back of Animal's head. Ellering also pops Long. In the mayhem the ref ended up on the floor. The Scrapers go to town on the Roadies with the chair and walk out. No decision is given on TV. Meh. This was supposed to set up a big blowoff brawl at Wrestle War, but Spivey hopped on the same plane to Japan that Williams got on, leaving WCW to scramble to put the pieces back together. *

 

Title vs Masks Match for the NWA World Tag Team Championship: The Steiner Brothers (c) def Doom in 13:04- Scott and Doom 1 (non-elbow pad) start. Lockup and some speed end with a Scott powerslam and some mat wrestling. D1 does the Bret bump and Scott German suplexes him off the ricochet. Doom 2 (elbow pad) and Scott do a shoulderblock standoff. A dropkick sends Doom out to regroup. Scott goes after the mask. Rick tags in. He wants to mat wrestle but Doom stalls. And stalls. Finally they get going with Rick whipping him into two corners followed by a backdrop. Rick goes for the mask and D2 rolls out again. Belly to belly suplex on D1. Scott tries to fight out of the heel corner but Doom gets some double teams and Scott is Steiner in peril. Doom throws him out and drops him on the guardrail. D1 spinebuster for 2. Double backdrop. A clothesline puts Scott outside again. Slugfest on the floor. Scott gets a sunset flip for 2. D2 with a neckbreaker for 2. Frankensteiner! JR miscalls it a Steinerline and Cornette corrects him. Hot tag! Rick atomic drop. Steinerline! Powerslam! Steinerline! Rick goes for the mask again and gets his half off. D2 hits the ropes, and Rick grabs the mask on his way across and gets it off! It's Butch Reed! Bah Gawd it's Butch Reed! (Like most everyone hadn't figured it out by now, JR even acknowledged as much early in the match.) Rick puts Reed's mask on, pushes him into D2 and rolls him up to win. D2 stalls with the mask removal until he's threatened with suspension. Finally he takes it off and it's.....Ron Simmons! No time to feign more shock, we're going to commercial. Of course it would turn out that losing the masks would be the best thing that happened to Doom. Match was borderline decentish. **1/4

 

Steel Cage Match: The Four Horsemen def Gary Hart International in 6:10- Weird dynamic here as Hart's crew were established heels and the Horsemen just turned back heel by turning on by far the most popular guy in the company. Gary Hart International/The J-Tex Corporation was barely even a thing anymore. Hart's not even here and this would be their last gasp. They've also got the short cage out tonight. That's certainly not 15 feet high. Huge "we want Sting" chant before the bell. Arn goes after Sawyer in a "well, we gotta do it, let's get this crap over with" way while everyone else is still in the ring. Arn dodges and Sawyer dives into the cage. Sawyer gets a boot up in the corner and Arn takes a cage shot. Guys keep running in the ring without tagging, and then going back out to get tagged. Another tag team cage match, like Halloween Havoc '89, where they couldn't figure out beforehand how much tag rules would matter. Muta amusingly uses the cage to get bicycle kicks in Arn's face. More cage shots. Flair and Sawyer have a chop exchange. Muta is trying his damndest to get the crowd into it. Ole and Dragonmaster slugfest. Muta tags in to a pretty big pop. Like the crowd suddenly collectively decided "screw it, we're cheering for Muta". Handspring elbow on Arn with an amazing Arn sell flopping out of the corner. As Muta puts on the Mutalock Sting runs out to by far and away the biggest pop of the whole night. He tries to climb the cage but a combination of officials and face wrestlers stop him and drag him back up the aisle. Flair gets up on the top rope to yell at and taunt Sting. During this whole thing Muta is also standing on the top rope, just because. Maybe he's trying for a better view. Sawyer gets backdropped into the cage. Sting gets away and goes to climb the cage again, but you can almost see the point on TV as he's running he lands wrong and hurts his knee. He feebly tries to climb the cage again but can't get far and limps away while the crowd surrounding him tries to make it look like they're holding him back while being very gentle with him at the same time. Sawyer goes to the top of the cage and misses a splash. Arn hits the World's Greatest Spinebuster on Dragonmaster. Donnybrook! Arn plants Dragonmaster with a DDT and gets the pin. Flair tears out of the cage, up the aisle, and LEAPS onto Sting, damn near clearing him midair. They brawl and get separated as the credits roll. Yes, the "match" is all angle, everything in the ring was secondary and hardly mattered anyway. But I'm going to go higher on the rating than might be expected, because despite all that there was some serious effort going on inside the ring from everyone involved to try to get something decent out of all this, and that should be acknowledged. **1/2

 

As documented in my PPV reviews, Sting suffered a knee injury during the main event that knocked him out of action a few months and blew up the long laid plans of him winning the title at Wrestle War. Instead, Luger turned back face to wrestle Flair the next couple of PPVs (and would have won the title if Flair hadn't been adamant about keeping his promise to Sting to drop the belt to him) before Sting finally won the big one in his comeback match at Great American Bash '90.

OVERALL SHOW THOUGHTS: Well, seeing as how this show is in Texas and I'm a native Texan, I think I can say "all hat and no cattle" unironically, because that's this show. The Sting/Horsemen angle work was great, especially the early show promo, but none of the matches here are worth bothering with unless you're watching everything.

OVERALL SHOW GRADE: D+