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Dark Pegasus Video Review: The Best of WCW Clash of the Champions (Disc Two)
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| The Best of WCW Clash of the Champions by J.D. Dunn Twitter.com/jddunn411 Facebook.com/jddunn411 Flair is *challenging* for the title here, which is odd. Both guys want the title to challenge Sting, although Luger purports to be Sting’s friend. He overpowers Flair early and clotheslines him over. Ref: “Um… that was… his momentum?” Back in, Luger roars out of the corner with a lariat. Flair feigns a shoulder injury and then suckerpunches Luger. Problem: Do guys like Luger, Sting and Steamboat *ever* learn from match to match? Flair goes to work on Luger’s leg. He does stop to threaten Ted Turner and Jim Herd. Luger slugs his way back but takes the good ol’ thumb to the eye. Flair goes up but gets caught and slammed off. SUPERPLEX by Luger. Flair goes back to the eyes, and a crossbody takes them both to the floor. That gives Stan Hansen an opening to run in and strangle Luger with the bullrope. That’s a DQ at 15:30. Typically great Flair vs. Luger match. Using it as a backdrop to a Luger vs. Hansen feud seems a little counterintuitive, though. ***1/2 The Young Pistols are the slightly repackaged Southern Boys. Bad Street is Brad Armstrong in a mask, desperately seeking something marketable. The Pistols hit stereo crossbodies, and the faces clear the ring. The Freebirds regroup but get more of the same. Bad Street demands to be tagged in, but it doesn’t happen. Silly finish as the faces hit triple sunset flips with referee Bill Alphonso counting each pin once for a total of three (4:44). The Pistols were an exciting team, but they rarely got a chance to do anything because they were always stuck with the Freebirds. ** Your participants are Big Josh, Oz, Steve Austin, Tracy Smothers, Barry Windham, Ranger Ross, PN News, Thomas Rich, The One Man Gang, Tom Zenk, Terrence Taylor, Buddy Lee Parker, Dustin Rhodes, Bobby Eaton and El Gigante. They sell this as some sort of tradition, but it’s just a good, old-fashioned battle royal. Z-Man, Parker, Taylor, and Ross go pretty early thanks to Gigante. They all gang up on the One Mang Gang. Gang fights them off and tosses Eaton. Windham and Austin eliminate each other and fight to the back. That leaves Oz, Dustin Rhodes, Gigante and the OMG as your final four. Oz and Gang team up to toss Dustin as Gigante staggers around like Lucille Austero with vertigo. He recovers and clotheslines both guys over at once to win the thing at 15:35. Pretty bad as no one cares about battle royals. * Paul E. gets on the mic and rants about what a bastard Sting is for letting all his fans down. ( First Fall: Pillman starts out with Arn, but mocks Flair instead of tying up. Arn keeps avoiding a headlock, so Pillman smacks in the face. Pillman gets caught trying to slip over Arn and Arn delivers a Snake Eyes. Austin tags in and mocks Arn’s belly, which is funny considering the condition of Austin’s gut these days. Anderson tags Flair to a HUGE pop and the old guys clean house. Flair tries to rip Austin’s jaw off. Finally, Austin goes to the eyes to counter and rolls outside. Flair drags him back in and Arn stomps a mudhole. Arn works the arm and gets the hammerlock slam. Flair comes in, drops the knee on Austin, and cheapshots Pillman on the apron. Arn tags back in and goes to work on the arm again. Pillman starts an argument with Flair long enough to distract the ref. Austin shoots Arn into Pillman who strangles him with one of the Blondes’ towel. Austin stomps away and distracts the ref long enough for Pillman to do some more choking. Pillman tags in and blatantly chokes him up until a four count. The Blondes double team Arn for a long time as he plays Ricky Morton. Austin misses his splash on the ropes, but lands on his feet and starts mocking Flair with the “roll camera” taunt. Arn jumps him and nails the DDT. Crowd is ON FIRE for all of this. Pillman takes Arn’s legs out from under him, but not before Arn can make the hot tag to Flair. Flair comes off the top and hits Pillman with an elbow. The Blondes jump him and try to double team him, but Arn grabs Austin’s leg from the outside and Flair hits Pillman with a flying forearm to win the first fall around 10 minutes in. Second Fall: Arn is injured on the outside, so Flair has to go it alone for a while. That is so All Japan. Pillman gets some nasty chops on Flair and then they trade them back and forth. Flair flip in the corner, and he takes out both men. Pillman knocks him off the apron, however, and the Blondes take control on Flair. Austin and Pillman take turns distracting the ref and ramming Flair into the railing until Arn comes around with a chair to clear them out. Austin sets Flair up on top and delivers a superplex. Nicely done, too. It gets two. Crowd tries to get Flair back in it, but Austin whips him into the turnbuckle and hits some football sled shoulderblocks. Flair and Pillman exchange some NASTY chops. That’s just sickening. Pillman shoves Flair off and they hit heads, leading to a double KO. Both sides tag and Arn hits Austin with the spine buster. Pillman breaks up the count, though, before the ref can count. Pillman takes out Arn’s bad knee and puts Austin on top. ONE, TWO, TH—NOOOO!! Pillman then goes apeshit on Arn’s knee like he was…well, Ric Flair. Tony tries to capitalize on Jurassic Park by saying Pillman is like a Tyrannosaurus Rex who goes wild when he smells blood. I believe that the T-Rex hunted mostly through sight, though, because he couldn’t smell Sam Neill even though he was close enough to blow his hat off when he exhaled. Then again, he couldn’t see him either. Oh well, I guess WCW would know more about dinosaurs than I would. Anderson tries to spin out of a stepover toehold, but Austin holds on long enough to tag to Pillman so they can keep Arn in the corner. This is awesome with a lowercase “a”, but that doesn’t mean it should feel bad because size isn’t that important. Pillman with the Austin-assisted half-crab puts even more pressure on Anderson. Flair goes nuts on the apron and the crowd is BEGGING Nick Patrick to look up. Anderson staggers to one foot, but Pillman has the other. Arn Anderson hits an enzuigiri!!! WTF?!!! Pillman is able to reach Austin first, though, so they cut off the tag again. Stunning Steve gets a few shots in and tags back out to Pillman who goes up for a double ax-handle off the top rope. Anderson lifts his boot and catches Pillman on the chin. HOT TAG TO FLAIR!! Actually, that’s pretty poor psychology, especially coming from Arn. The sequence should have seen Arn’s leg injured even further. Flair goes psycho on Austin in the corner and tosses Pillman over the top. That would normally be a DQ, but the ref didn’t see it. Flair puts Austin in the figure-four, but down comes Barry Windham to jump Flair and ruin a perfectly good match. The ref throws the whole match out at 21:06. That was 20 minutes of great match ruined by one bad point of psychology and a horrible screw job finish. ****1/2 From The Legacy of Stone Cold Steve Austin disc. The Blonds were dominant for several months until WCW decided to break them up. Sadly, because of the infamous Orlando tapings, the continuity was all screwed up. WCW had filmed weeks’ worth of footage in one big block to cut costs. Unfortunately, they filmed the Nasty Boys with the belts when the Blonds hadn’t even lost them yet. Disaster struck when Brian Pillman got injured, and the Blonds were unable to drop the titles, which led to a silly stipulation where Steven Regal was subbed for him, and they lost the titles. This is a bit plodding and lifeless for what should have been a hot blowoff. Brian knocks Austin to that ramp that WCW used to use, but Austin gets a boot up and tosses him onto the barricade. Back in, Austin heels it up with a rope-assisted half-crab, but Nick Patrick catches him. Pillman crotches him on the top, but his superplex is blocked. Austin tosses him to the apron, and when Pillman tries to springboard back in, Parker trips him up. That allows Austin to get the pin at 9:12. Disappointing considering the talent these guys had. **1/2 Gordon Solie joins commentary. Regal refuses to give Dustin a clean break and gets his dick knocked in the dirt for it. Actual wrestling follows, and it’s not bad. Nothing special, but it’s competent. I love how milquetoast Solie is. Heenan unloads on him with a barrage of passive-aggressive insults, and Gordon just laughs them off. Rhodes fights out of the shinni no make, but Regal suplexes him. Gary Capetta gives the five-minute warning, so this one is pretty clear because they haven’t even warmed up yet. Dustin blocks a sunset flip and pummels Regal. Regal runs away, but Dustin catches him with a dropkick for two. Rhodes backdrops Regal into the ring from the ramp and flies over the top onto him for two. Regal darts to the floor to kill some time. Dustin comes off with an elbow and the bulldog, but time expires at 15:00. Solidly wrestled, but this was cookie-cutter Regal after a point. **1/4 This goes about how all Vader matches go: his partner starts and gets his ass kicked, so Vader tags in and destroys everything in sight. He even tries a freakin’ sunset flip off the second rope. Sting blocks it, though, and tags in Flair to a huge pop. Flair peppers Vader with strikes as we go to commercial. We come back to Rude holding Sting in a bearhug. Sting claps his way out of it and tags Flair. Flair actually gets a chance to come off the top. Atomic drop to Rude, and they do an ugly spot where Rude was supposed to block Flair’s charge, but Flair has to sell for an invisible boot. Vader tags in and pump splashes Flair. Race calls for more punishment, so Vader superplexes Flair. Race wants a top-rope superplex this time. And Vader does it! Flair sounds like he was in another plane crash. Vader goes up again, but Sting comes to the rescue and drags Flair out of the way. Rude and Sting brawl in the ring as Vader and Flair, the two legal men, go to the floor. Both guys get counted out, leaving Rude versus Sting. Sting clotheslines Rude over the top, presumably missed by the referee. The security squad has to help Flair to the back thanks to Vader’s attack. Sting botches an atomic drop and hurts his neck. Way sloppy tonight. Rude smacks him around and poses. They clothesline each other, and Rude recovers first. Sting blocks the Rude Awakening and hits his own. ONE, TWO, THR-NO! Rude gets an atomic drop for a change, but he misses a charge. Sting reverses a Tombstone Piledriver to his own and comes off the top with a flying splash to pick up the win at 20:45. Sloppier than usual for four guys who generally deliver the best matches on the card. Even at 20 minutes, it felt a little rushed (granted, commercials made up a decent chunk of that time). Good, but not great stuff here. *** |
The 411: As you can tell, when Flair wasn't involved, the pickings were pretty lean for ol' dubbya cee dubbya – and Flair left for two years. There were some great moments in the early 1990s, but most of them didn't happen on the Clashes. The Blondes and Vader/Sting were the exceptions.
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| Final Score: 8.5 [ Very Good ] legend |
