Dark Pegasus Video Review: Clash of the Champions XI: Coastal Crush

Clash of the Champions XI: Coastal Crush by J.D. Dunn Twitter.com/jddunn411 Brightkite.com/jddunn411 Facebook.com/jddunn411 We are heading into The Great American Bash and the long-delayed blowoff between Sting and Ric Flair. Flair revamped the Horsemen, bringing back Barry Windham and recruiting Sid Vicious to round out the crew. Ole Anderson moved into the managerial role. To combat this Legion of Doom, Sting recruited his own Justice Society – the Dudes With Attitudes of the Junkyard Dog, Lex Luger, Paul Orndorff, and the Steiner Bros. We’re also well into the Ole Anderson booking era, which means stupid gimmicks and puzzling results throughout the card. June 13, 1990 Live from Charleston, S.C.. Your hosts are Jim Ross and Bob Caudle. Opening Match: The Wide-Eyed Southern Boys vs. The Fabulous Freebirds. The Southern Boys are Tracy Smothers and Steve Armstrong (brother of the BG Jammes and perennial JTTS Brad Armstrong). They are a highly underrated team in the annals of history. Maybe touting Confederate sympathizers isn’t a top priority. I should also note that the Freebirds, who used to be all about the South, now dress like a Poison cover band. See, if *everyone* wore the Stars ‘n’ Bars, people might get confused as to which team commits drunken incest. The Boys have a lot of nice tandem offense, á la the Rockers. This match is fast-paced and surprisingly never bogs down, even with the Freebirds involved. Tracy rolls up Jimmy Garvin but gets SHELLACKED by a Hayes clothesline. I thought that would be the end of it, but Armstrong knocks Hayes to the floor and dives off the top onto Garvin with a headbutt. That gives the Boys a big upset win at 7:29. They went through the motions, but energetically so… if that makes sense. ** Bam Bam Bigelow (w/Oliver Humperdink) vs. Tommy Rich. Rich would seem to be a greasespot here. He adopts the Bugs Bunny vs. the Bull method of ducking out of Bigelow’s way and punching him. He controls for a bit with a wristlock, but Bigelow finally catches him with an atomic drop. Bigelow blatantly grabs Rich by the throat and throttles him for the disqualification at 3:46. Who’d Rich blow to avoid jobbing? Not sure what this was doing here. 1/4* Gary Michael Capetta treats the signing of El Gigante much like the Orlando Magic treated the signing of Shaquille O’Neal. Capetta helpfully translates Gigante’s promo. The Samoan Swat Team vs. Mike Rotunda & Tom Zenk. You know why wrestling is down now? No Samoan tag teams. That’s like a staple of the promotion. Hopefully, TNA puts Umaga and Manu together (‘cuz you know they’ll sign ’em eventually) so all will be right with the world. Rotunda is doing the ship’s captain gimmick at this point. Who are the ad wizards who came up with this one? Captain Mike gets kicked in the head by Fatu to break the babyfaces’ momentum. He plays face-in-peril for a spell. The Samoans are sharp in the ring tonight, despite being a year or so removed from their peak. Gotta admire the effort. Rotunda avoids a charge and gets the hot tag to Zenk. Zenk cleans house but smashes the Samoans’ heads together. Silly Zenk. He gets headbutted, of course. Rotunda pulls the old switcheroo (which is goofy, considering they’re wearing different sets of tights) and gets the surprise rollup for the win at 5:25. The second tag team upset of the night. Nothing really became of the Rotunda/Zenk team, and Rotunda would turn heel not long after this to become “Michael Wallstreet.” **1/4 Mean Mark Callous (w/Paul E. Dangerously) vs. Brian Pillman. Callous is about to make Pillman famous. Actually, Pillman was more famous at this point. Callous attacks at the bell and mauls Pillman like a mighty sasquatch. He reminds me a lot of Mike Knox at this point. He’s much crisper, though, in his offense. Pillman avoids a legdrop but gets tossed over the top. He skins the cat and hits a missile dropkick. Something gets botched, and Callous can’t go for the Heart Punch because Pillman’s out of position. Callous catches him on a crossbody, though, and hits a hot shot for the win at 5:40. Pillman carried his end, which was basically getting slapped around like Rihanna… and that is a simile someone with poor taste might use. Callous was a good wrestler for a big guy, but he lacked the ring presence a certain gimmick would give him. **1/2 U.S. Tag Titles: The Midnight Express (w/James E. Cornette) vs. The Rock ‘n’ Roll Express. This is not one of their finer efforts, but it’s still decent. Ricky and Robert outwrestle the Midnights. Lane hits a back kick to Robert’s head but misses a charge and gets backdropped. Ricky busts out a huracanrana, which he’d been doing for years, but when he does it, it’s a “headscissors” and when Scott Steiner does it, it’s a “Frankensteiner.” JR talks about “Miami Vice” going off the air. No mention of “Quantum Leap,” though. The match breaks down, and they do a lot of complicated tandem maneuvers. It was probably second nature to them at this point. Cool double-rollup spot nets two for the Rock ‘n’ Rolls. They seem a bit confused after that, though. Lane yanks Ricky off the ropes, and Ricky briefly plays Ricky Morton. The match breaks down yet again, and Bobby gets knocked into the railing. The Rock ‘n’ Rolls get shoved into one another, but they recover and double dropkick Bobby. Lane yanks the referee up to prevent the count, though, and gets disqualified at 12:10. What a horrible finish. The match was actually much better than I remembered up until that. It did lack a certain cohesion, though. ***1/4 Barry Windham vs. Doug Furnas. Furnas was not a good singles wrestler. His team with Phil Lafon (aka Dan Kroffat) was awesome, though. Lafon was not that good either, so they’re the exception to the “you have to be a good singles wrestler to be a good tag wrestler” rule that announcers always talk about. Barry bumps around for Furnas, who looks muscular but certainly not “strongest man in the world” muscular. Now, Dino Bravo, I could believe. Mark Henry too. Jim Ross notes that Mike Campbell is in the crowd. Zang! Furnas tries a backflip and slips on the top rope. Barry takes over by CHEATING~! Furnas blows nearly every move he tries. He’s got the shoulderblock down, but that’s about it. Thankfully, Windham is game to hold the match together. Furnas whiffs on a dropkick, but Barry sells it anyway and falls to the floor. Furnas tries to suplex him back in, but Windham reverses to a back suplex and puts his feet on the ropes for the pin at 5:40. I wonder if performances like this are why Furnas and Lafon didn’t get another serious shot in the States for six years. *1/2 U.S. Title: Lex Luger vs. Sid Vicious (w/Ole Anderson). Luger goes after Ole and gets his back raked… viciously. He turns around and nails Sid with a clothesline for the win at 0:25. Um… running long? 1/4* NWA World Tag Team Titles: Doom (w/Teddy Long) vs. The Steiner Bros. Scott immediately busts out the standing fallaway powerslam… twice. No one does that these days. I doubt anyone *can* do that these days. Certainly not to guys the size of Butch Reed and Ron Simmons. Rick blocks a Simmons belly-to-belly and just TOSSES him aside. Good Lord! Teddy tries to settle down his crew. It works too because they take over on Rick soon after and isolate him. They toss Rick over the top behind the ref’s back and post his shoulder. Simmons gets a butterfly suplex and hits the chinlock, but Rick powers out and hits a double ax-handle. HOT TAG TO SCOTT! Scott cleans house and powerslams Reed. That sets up a superplex on Simmons, but Reed gets an “international object” from Long and nails Scott. Rick clotheslines Reed and covers, but the ref counts Scott down instead, giving Doom the win at 11:19. See, there’s a difference between big muscular stiffs like they had in the WWF at the time and the monsters who could move and sell for one another down south. Compare this to, say, Hercules vs. Dino Bravo. ***1/2 Non-Title: Arn Anderson vs. Paul Orndorff. I could never get into Orndorff as a babyface. The fans love him, though. Orndorff stays one step ahead of Arn early and slaps on the figure-four. Arn makes the ropes and hits the spinebuster to neutralize Orndorff’s momentum. Arn grabs an abdominal stretch for a little “red-light/green-light” with the ref. The match grinds to a halt, even after Orndorff escapes. They work in the “Arn spot” in the corner where his head bounces back and hits his opponent in the face. Arn small packages him, but Orndorff rolls it over for the win at 11:39. Started okay but didn’t go anywhere. At least the idea of Orndorff having everything of Arn’s scouted figured into the finish. ** Ric Flair guarantees victory. NWA Heavyweight Title: Ric Flair (w/Ole Anderson) vs. The Junkyard Dog. I think these two met back in 1983 or so back when JYD could see his own toes and had Bill Watts standing behind him with a cattle prod, forcing him to have better matches than he was otherwise capable of. JYD no-sells EVERYTHING. Everything. Even a chairshot. The Horsemen panic and attack the Dog for the DQ at 6:37. Bleh. This was less a match than an excuse to get the Horsemen out there for a big brawl with the Dudes With Attitudes. 3/4* Rocky King is sick of the Horsemen. Aw naw! Hell naw! Y’all went up and done it! You know you have plenty of time left in the show if Rocky King is getting interview time to run down the Horsemen. Not that the world needed more Flair vs. JYD.

The 411: Certainly not the best the NWA had to offer, but at least the tag team scene held up its end. The RR/MX and Doom/Steiners are worth a look. The setup to The Great American Bash was hot too. The wrestling was pretty poor by NWA standards, and that trend would continue arguably until Flair regained the book in late 1993. Very mild thumbs up.
Final Score:  6.5   [ Average ]