AWA SuperClash I

Legacy Review

AWA SuperClash I

September 28, 1985 from (old) Comiskey Park in Chicago

Commentary: Larry Nelson

After the success of Wrestlemania, the other major territories in the US decided they needed to get together and try to do something just as big. This is that something. Promoted under the AWA banner, talent was brought in from the NWA, WCCW and even Japan to try to hold the supercards of supercards. Vince didn't sweat for a moment as he knew it'd be almost impossible for these guys to agree on what kind of pizza to order, much less form a long term booking alliance. Didn't stop them from trying though.

For some reason this is the only AWA supercard not on Peacock/WWE Network, so I'm left with a recording from the old WWE 24/7 service that's so far managed to not get taken down on Youtube. Don't report them. There's a lot of obvious edits in between the matches. The ring is set up just on the home plate site of the pitcher's mound and all the wrestlers come out of the 1st base dugout.

 

AWA World Light Heavyweight Championship: Steve Regal (c) def Brad Rheingans in 8:15- You know how light/cruiser or junior heavyweight usually means more athletic and high flying matches? Well this ain't it. Regal had been champion about a year and a half to this point. Even though Regal is a clear heel they have a Code of Honor handshake at the start. Regal sticks his gum on top of the ring post. Rheingans dodges a rope break cheap shot. Regal uses tights pulls to leverage Rheingans into a pin while in a headlock. They crank it up and Regal takes a monkey flip. Rheingans dodges in the corner and works Regal's arm. For some reason Nelson is obsessed with the fact that Regal shaved his beard before this show. Rheingans uses a cartwheel to dodge but misses a dropkick. Regal locks in a chinlock, bitches about a phantom hair pull and then pulls Rheingans hair to keep him in it. Regal cranks up the comeback after dodging an elbow drop. Backdrop for 2. Jimmy Garvin comes out and stands on the apron, allowing Regal to get Cheap Raw Finish 1A, the distraction rollup. He probably held the tights too, we don't see because the camera work is awful. 3/4*

 

AWA World Women's Championship: Sherri Martel def Candy Divine (c) in 11:45- Martel is the future Sensational Sherri. Wait, before we get to that, Regal and Rheingans aren't done! Regal gets slammed on the Comiskey turf! Anyway, back to our original programming. Martel makes a big show of not wanting the ref to check her. Would have been nice if that actually went somewhere at the end, she pulls an international object out or something. Divine hits an armdrag as soon as they lock up and Martel bitches to the ref about.....something. Martel goes full heel 101 with hair and tights pulls. She hits some shots to the back of Divine's head and tosses her to the grass. Divine sneaks around the ring and dropkicks Martel in the back to send her outside, kicking off the usual hand wringing about a possible DQ for an over the top rope throw. Best decision Vince ever made was to not bother with that rule. Divine flips Martel back in (who needed to work her way around the ropes instead of doing it in one shot). Boston crab by Divine. Martel reverses it and they reverse cradles a couple of times. Divine gets tossed out again onto the pitcher's mound and Martel knocks her off the apron every time she tries to get back in. Finally Divine grabs Martel's leg and wraps it around both the apron and the post. Back in Divine goes right to work......on the arm. Sigh. Martel gets some more shots in on Divine's head, so at least someone is trying some consistent strategery. They mess up a sunset flip spot so they do it again. Every time someone hits the ropes Nelson says "off the ropes anything can happen". It's as incessant as Vince's constant "ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN IN THE WWF!" during the New Generation era. Martel hits a clothesline, suplex, and splash.....knee....something off the top rope for the win and the title. Since she won clean after the bell she attacks Divine with the belt to get the crowd to boo her again. Man, that's the cheapest looking belt I've ever seen. Backyard wrestling promotions have better belts. Pretty typical '80s women's match. *

 

"Asian Six Man Tag Team Championship": Jumbo Tsuruta, Giant Baba and Genichiro Tenryu def Harley Race and The Long Riders in 10:57- Man, Harley Race is slumming it on this card. I know it's a couple of years after Flair dethroned him as the face of the NWA but still. The Long Riders are brothers Bill and Scott Irwin. I'm pretty sure these "Asian 6 man titles" are something they made up for the night. There's no belts and I can find no evidence that there was any sanctioned title on the line in this match. AJPW legend Tsuruta was actually known to AWA audiences, in 1984 he was the transitional AWA world champion between Nick Bockwinkel and Rick Martel. Scott and Tenryu start. Tenyru gets a hiptoss and dropkicks Scott into his corner. Race tags in. Race against any three of his opponents would be a huge draw match in Japan. He walks right into a Tenyru armdrag. Tenryu ducks under a leapfrogging Race, slams on the brakes, turns and slams him. Race gets Tsuruta into the face corner and the Riders knock him around a bit. Tsuruta tries to power out of a Bill hammerlock. Bill blind tags Race and he ambushes Tsuruta. Tsuruta counters by hitting Race with his own high knee. Race is only hitting the ropes at about 50% speed this whole match. Baba gets an ugly Russian leg sweep on Race. Race headbutts Baba back into his corner. Bill with a big boot on Tenryu. Tenryu chops back and enzuguris Race for 2. Race hits a piledriver. The pin is broken up. Riders double elbow on Tenryu for 2. Bill hits a huge kneedrop and covers. Tenryu gets a foot on the rope. He counters a backdrop and tags Tsuruta. Bill does a Shawn Michaels/Triple H flip over the corner to the turf. Back in Tenryu whips him into the corner but Bill pops out with a clothesline. DONNYBROOK! Baba big boots Bill and gets the pin. This was much more an NWA style match. In other words, a hell of a lot better. **1/2

 

NWA World Midget's Championship: Little Tokyo (c) def Little T in 6:54- Yes, there really was such a thing. Little T looks just like Mr. T. T goes off after a Tokyo rope break cheap shot. Tokyo tries to run but T flips him back in the ring and wobblelegs him with a forearm. T no sells shots to the head. Both guys work through holds 15, 77, 278 and 714 on the List of 1004 Holds: ARMBAR. Tokyo hits a suplex and backdrop for 2. Tokyo hits the ropes. T yells to stop and look up. Tokyo does and T pops him. All well and good, but they keep going with the bit. T keeps looking up. Now the ref is looking up and pointing. The hell. T hits the ropes. Tokyo yells at him to stop and points up. Naturally it doesn't work, and then they reset like nothing happened at all. Lord have mercy. I mean, you expect comedy spots in midget matches but this isn't working at all. T stomps on Tokyo's bare feet and gets a couple of hip attacks. Tokyo whips T, hits him with a double chop in the throat, and gets the pin. 1/4*

 

IWA World Heavyweight Championship: Mil Mascaras (c) def Buddy Roberts in 6:57- Roberts is a member of the Fabulous Freebirds. The IWA title was technically defunct, but Mascaras defended it every once in a while to add some prestige to his matches, and SuperClash was certainly going for that. It's alternatively called just the Mexican title.The match is JIP'd with a test of strength. Mascaras flips Roberts around with a headscissors. Roberts slaps on a full nelson that Mascaras breaks easily. Mascaras slaps on a full nelson that Roberts breaks less easily. He slips out through the bottom but Mascaras puts it right back on. Roberts tries to climb the ropes to get out so Mascaras just lets go and he drops down. He puts Roberts in a chicken wing and twists it into an abdominal stretch. Roberts blocks a drop toe hold and gives Mascaras an eye rake. He uses the tag rope to choke Mascaras. Elbow off the second rope. Swinging neckbreaker for 2. Chop exchange in the corner. Mascaras dodges and Roberts ends up dangled in the corner in a .5 Tree of Woe. Snap suplex from Mascaras. Flying forearm. A crossbody off the top gets the pin. Decentish. **1/4

 

NWA/WCCW Texas Heavyweight Championship: Kerry Von Erich (c) def Jimmy Garvin (w/Precious) in 6:54- This is the same Texas title proudly worn today by the perennially underrated Chase Owens. Absolutely 100% true, look it up if you don't believe me. The ladies love Kerry. Prematch shoving and Precious gets in Von Erich's face. Garvin immediately goes heel 101 with phantom hair pull bitching out of the lockup. Von Erich mocks Garvin's strut. A speed run ends with Von Erich dropkicks and Garvin bailing. He runs back in to an atomic drop. Nice back and forth dodge and counter dodge sequence. Von Erich hooks in an abdominal stretch. Garvin hooks on a sleeper. Von Erich goes down but eventually armdrags out. Garvin gets a knee to the gut and Von Erich rolls out to the turf. Precious jaws at him again. Von Erich takes his time getting back in. As soon as he gets on the apron Garvin ambushes him. Precious distracts the ref and Garvin tosses Von Erich over the top back to the grass. After some more recovery time Von Erich sunset flips back in for 2 and hits discus punches. Garvin begs off and blocks the claw. He goes up top. Von Erich punches him, Garvin bounces crotch first off the top turnbuckle, falls to the mat, and Von Erich pins him. After the bell Precious and Garvin attack but Von Erich slaps the claw on him. Pretty fun stuff. Could have been better with more time. **3/4 

 

Curt Hennig, Scott Hall and Greg Gagne def Nick Bockwinkel, Ray "The Crippler" Stevens and Larry Zbyszko in 12:30- As this is primarily an AWA promoted show, this is them throwing most of their top or upcoming stars that aren't in title matches into a match to get them on the show. It's weird seeing Curt Hennig as the young, spunky babyface. Even weirder seeing very young Scott Hall with that Burt Reynolds mustache. Legendary Chicago sports broadcaster Jack Brickhouse handles the ring announcing duties and does a great job of putting himself over while taking way more time than he should be. Finally Bockwinkel and Hennig start. Bockwinkel shocks Nelson by wrestling clean. Something happens in the crowd that gets everyone's attention and the wrestling stops for a moment. Whatever happened it's something they don't want to acknowledge on TV. Knowing the era probably a streaker. Hennig gets a flurry of offense and Bockwinkel hides in his corner. Nice high speed sequence between Zbyszko and Hennig. I know, Zbyszko and high speed in the same sentence. Almost unheard of. Bockwinkel falls in the ring reaching for a tag. Gagne illegally works Zbyszko over in the corner while the ref's distracted. They tease the whole thing breaking down about every ten seconds but always stop just short of full blown chaos. Gagne with a monkey flip and flying headscissors on Zbyszko. Zbyszko back suplexes out of a Hennig headlock and tags. Hennig is choked in the heel corner as he goes face in peril. Hall runs in to save him. Hennig gets tossed out, slammed on the grass, and worked over for a couple of minutes on the outside. Back in they get the "ref didn't see the tag" spot in leading to more heel corner beatdowns. Zbyszko suplex for 2. Hennig gets a near Perfect like sell when Bockwinkel snaps his throat over the top rope. Desperation Hennig crossbody for 2. Midring collision with another .5 Perfect sell. Hot tag to Gagne. Everyone in the pool! Zbyszko and Bockwinkel are whipped into each other. Hall powerslams Stevens, the ref says screw figuring out who the legal guys are, and counts the pin. Paint by numbers 6 man tag layout, but it was very well executed. ***

 

AWA World Tag Team Championship: The Road Warriors (c) (w/Paul Ellering) def The Fabulous Freebirds (w/Buddy Roberts) by DQ in 14:12- This is the original Michael Hayes and Terry Gordy version of the Freebirds. They have on their Confederate flag facepaint to counter the Roadies' paint. They instantly jump the Warriors as they get into the ring. The Warriors fight them off and clear the ring out, then we get introductions and the opening bell. Hayes wanders all over the field to rile the crowd up. Hawk easily overpowers both Gordy and Hayes at the start. Gordy goes upside down in the corner. Hawk hits a fist off the second rope. The managers have a standoff outside. Hawk blocks a Hayes sunset flip. Hayes gets to his corner but Gordy doesn't want to tag in. He finally relents, dodges in the corner and Hawk posts his shoulder. Gordy suplex. Hayes side suplex. Hawk's kickout send Hayes out to the turf. Freebirds double elbow. Gordy hits a piledriver. Hawk fights out of the heel corner. Hayes goes up top but Hawk slams him off. The tag is cut off again. Gordy and Hawk run into each other. Tag to Animal! Powerslam for Gordy. Hayes breaks the pin up. DONNYBROOK! Roberts gets on the apron, Ellering pulls him off, and they go at it too! Roberts hits him with a chair. Hawk jumps outside to help. Animal press slams Gordy and powerslams Hayes. While the ref is messing with the brawl outside Hayes hits Animal in the back of the head and Gordy covers for the 3 and the titles! Or is it? After the Freebirds have already left with the belts Verne Gagne comes up and demands a replay of the end of the match. After that's shown he reverses the decision and gives the belts back to the Road Warriors. Well, there's an edit and the next thing is the Warriors are leaving with the belts so we can assume. Weak sauce. That match didn't end any differently than a hundred other tag matches. They were going pretty well before the crap finish. Given 10 more minutes and a non-screwy ending this might have turned out really good. **

NWA World Six Man Tag Team Championship: The Russian Team (c) def The Crusher, Dick the Bruiser and Baron von Rashke in 8:54- The NWA 6 man belts actually make an appearance on a major show. Crockett could never be bothered to include them in any. The faces flip the script with the Suzuki-Gun jump before the bell. Gotta take it to those commies early before it has time to spread. Domino theory in action. Crusher gets trapped in the Russian corner. Ivan Koloff is already bleeding. Nikita Koloff backs away from Rashke's claw. Ivan gets knocked around for a bit. Lots of, shall we say, aged man brawling going on. Bruiser and Ivan have a test of strength. Crusher and the other Crusher, Kruschev, can't figure out what they want to do. Probably arguing about who should be called Crusher. Kruschev gets a shoulderbreaker on Rashke and Ivan legdrops him for 2. Crusher drops an elbow in Ivan's gut. Rashke hooks the claw on. Kruschev goes up top and gets thrown off. Nikita is also cut off trying to break it up. While the camera is focused on a brawl on the floor something happens in the ring and Ivan covers Rashke for the pin. More bang up camera work. Huge bullshit chant from the crowd. The faces were all well past their sell by date. *

 

AWA America's Championship: Sgt. Slaughter (c) def Boris Zukhov by DQ in 9:34- This time Zukhov ambushes before the bell. Slugfest. Slaughter holds Zukhov's boot forever, finally spinning him around and eye poking him. Anticlimactic. The cameras shift to look at the stands. Nelson says there's a "commotion" going on up there but we don't see what. Another slugfest. Zukhov posts his shoulder. Slaughter grabs a US flag to taunt Zukhov with. Corner whip reversal and Slaughter does his crazy flying over the corner and bouncing to the floor bump. Zukhov slams him on the grass. Back in he works Slaughter over with generic slow heel offense. Slaughter gets pushed out right by the announce area and Zukhov slams his face into it, taking out one of Nelson's tables. Slaughter backdrops out of a piledriver attempt on the grass. Zukhov goes up top and Slaughter slams him off. Dropkick from Slaughter. He goes for a clothesline, but Zukhov pulls the ref in the way and he goes down. Zukhov loads up his elbow pad with an international object and whacks Slaughter with it. Slaughter's bleeding. As Slaughter gets rammed into the post the ref calls for the bell to DQ Zukhov. The match got cut off just as it was getting into a groove. *3/4

$10,000 Body Slam Match: Jerry Blackwell def Kamala (w/Sheik Adnan Al-Kaissie) in 9:54- Adnan insists on singing the "Arab" national anthem before the match. Like, Saudi Arabian? The UAE? Some generic mishmash of current Arab countries? Sadly he gets through the whole thing with no interruption. Slugfest start. We get visual proof the $10K check does indeed exists. Can't tell if it's made of paper or rubber, but it's there. Kamala works his usual dull offense. Blackwell gets a clothesline and Kamala actually goes down without a ton of weebles wobble teasing. Big splash. Both fight for slam leverage and get nowhere. Kamala locks on the Nerve Pinch of Gratuitous Stalling +1. Blackwell hulks up and starts no selling. Avalanche. He slams Kamala and it's over. After the bell Adnan attacks with his sword. Not the pointy end, that'd make too much sense. He also steals the check. Some jobber faces run in and get tossed out. Rashke finally makes the save with a bat. This was at least three times as long as it needed to be. DUD

 

AWA World Heavyweight Championship: Rick Martel (c) and Stan Hansen double DQ in 2:30- Entrances are skipped on this recording and we cut right to Hansen throwing a chair in the ring and IT'S ON. Martel gets tossed out and they brawl in Suzuki territory. Martel fights back and posts Hansen. They get back in the ring and the bell rings to officially start the match. Martel sunset flip for 2. He dodges and Hansen crashes in the corner. Roll around brawl on the mat. Back outside they go. Both guys whack each other with chairs and the ref calls for the bell. They keep fighting around the field and all the way to the dugout. See, this right here is why the AWA could never get out of their own way when the nationalization wars started and they were always third fiddle at best to the WWF and NWA/WCW. This is what you put on to build to the major show, not on the major show itself. Getting that ESPN contract likely kept them in business years longer than they should have been. 1/2*

 

NWA World's Heavyweight Championship: "Nature Boy" Ric Flair (c) def Magnum TA in 25:48- You don't have a major non-WWF show in the '80s if Ric Flair and the Ten Pounds of Gold (or later the Big Gold Belt) don't roll into town. Magnum is taking time away from his blood feud with Tully Blanchard over the US title to have an early warm up match with Flair on a big show. The NWA saw huge things in him. Flair gets a takedown and Magnum escapes. Good extended chain wrestling. Magnum wins a test of strength. Speed run and Magnum gets a hiptoss and dropkick. Press slam and Flair begs off. Here come the chops. Magnum reverses a corner whip and hits a backdrop. He works a hammerlock for a bit. Flair gets some punches to the ribs to get out. He throws Magnum out, but he pops right back in and stalks Flair, who does some serious backtracking. Magnum pounds Flair down in the corner. Flair dodges a dropkick. Snap mare and kneedrop. Double underhook suplex for 2. Flair hooks in an abdominal stretch and uses either tights or hair for leverage depending on which one the ref's not looking at before getting caught. Flair forearms and chops in the corner. Magnum dodges a kneedrop and hooks in a figure four! Flair fights and slowly gets to the ropes. Magnum goes for it again. Flair fights it off. He goes for a suplex but his knee gives out. Magnum reverses it and covers for 2. Magnum backslide for 2 that the crowd really bit on. Flair eye poke and Magnum is tossed out. Magnum's shoulder is posted. He tries to sunset flip back in but Flair breaks it up. Flair goes to work on the hurt shoulder, alternatively trying for leverage pins both legal and illegal. He gets Magnum in a cruicifix for near falls that Magnum barely gets his shoulder up on. Finally Flair loses patience and pounds away on Magnum in the corner. Magnum reverses a whip and locks on a sleeper! Flair slowly goes down. He reaches for the ropes but can't get there and falls all the way to the mat. Magnum covers and Flair just gets a foot on the rope. Magnum grabs a headlock. Flair turns it into a kneebreaker! Figure four! Magnum slowly reverses it to break it. Flair tries to hook it on again and Magnum small packages him for 2. Slugfest. Flair Flip! He goes all the way down to the turf. Flair gets posted and busted open. Come on, you really thought Flair wasn't going to bleed? Magnum hits mounted punches back in and targets the cut. Flair wants a fight but Magnum keeps beating him to the punch, literally. Bridge up spot and another Magnum backslide for 2. Magnum belly to belly suplex! But Flair's foot knocked the ref down as he was coming over! He crawls over for a delayed count. Flair kicks out! Magnum pushes Flair into the corner and rolls him up. Flair grabs a handful of tights to reverse it, and hangs on to the tights for the 3 count! Perfectly typical mid-'80s Flair title defense. As I covered extensively in my Starrcade reviews from this period, Magnum was scheduled to win the title from Flair at Starrcade '86 and become, in the NWA's mind at least, their major babyface star that could go toe to toe with Hulk Hogan, before a light pole jumped in front of his car and Magnum suffered career ending injuries from the resulting crash. ****

 

OVERALL SHOW THOUGHTS- Outside the great main event there's not a whole lot going on here. The first Wrestlemania wasn't exactly a masterpiece of quality matches either, but it captured the attention of fans and the general public in a way this show didn't. The whole show feels disjointed thanks to the recording available as well, it'd be nice if the Network put their copy up. Even though the alliance between companies mostly ended with this show, the AWA would continue to use the Superclash name for three more supercards in the subsequent years as they slowly lurched toward their inevitable end.

OVERALL SHOW GRADE: C-