The Netcop Retro Rant for Clash of the Champions XIII (November, 1990)
– Live from Jacksonville, Florida.
– Your hosts are Jim Ross and Paul E. Dangerously.
– Opening match: The Fabulous Freebirds v. The Southern Boys. It was
supposed to be a six-man with Bobby Eaton on the heel team and El
Gigante on the face team, but the ‘Birds brag about beating up Gigante
and stuffing him in a box back to Argentina, thus explaining his absense
and rendering this a straight tag team match. The Freebirds have Rocky
King with them, in case you care. They also have more makeup than Tammy
Faye Baker. The Freebirds had degenerated about as far as they would go
by this point, and were just awful. Case in point: Rocky King was
their valet. Lots of goofy shit to show how cowardly the ‘Birds are,
then the usual melee breaks out and Rocky trips Tracy Smothers, allowing
Hayes to DDT and pin him. Bleh. *1/2
– Sting interview. The Black Scorpion (Ole Anderson with a voice
distortion box) interrupts over the PA. This was beyond bad. More
later, sadly enough.
– Buddy Landell v. Brian Pillman. Not bad, but Budro is just about the
most non-descript wrestler in history, so I’m never terribly excited to
see him. Still, it’s not El Gigante, so I’m happy. Pillman makes short
work of him and finishes it with a flying bodypress. **
– Big Cat v. “Candyman” Brad Armstrong. Speaking of stupid gimmicks,
Curtis “Mr.” Hughes got saddled with the “Big Cat” gimmick and Brad
Armstrong was the “Candyman” in a match to determine who was the biggest
flop. They were pushing the Big Cat/Motor City Madman/Nightstalker trio
as monster heels at this point, which still gives me a chuckle today.
This was a total squash, although Brad makes it watchable by selling
like a champ. *1/2 More proof of WCW (and specifically Ole Anderson’s)
magic power to make anything turn to crap.
– Z-Man v. Prime Time Brian Lee. This was Lee’s tryout match, and he
looks like a dead ringer for Johnny Ace today. He does absolutely
nothing here, and it’s no wonder WCW didn’t sign him. On the other
hand, they signed Big Cat, Nightstalker and Motor City Madman, so who
knows what they were thinking. The fact that Lee actually got *worse*
after this frightens me greatly. Zenk wins with a dropkick off the top
rope in a sloppy match. DUD
– Mike Rotunda introduces Alexandra York and dubs himself Michael
Wallstreet.
– Michael Wallstreet v. Starblazer. No, I don’t know who the Starblazer
is, either. Probably just some jobber. He does, however, make a match
of it, but it’s an ugly, sloppy match with half the moves missing.
Better work on the computer program. Wallstreet with the fallaway slam
(“Stock Market Crash”) for the pin. **
– Gordon Solie with the top 10.
– Sgt. Krueger & Col. DeKlerk v. Kalua & Botswana Beast. This is the
“African finals” of the Pat O Connor tournament (with the 8 winning
teams going to Starrcade) and it seems designed to insult the
intelligence of everyone outside of Georgia and piss off an entire
continent. Krueger and DeKlerk are supposedly from South Africa, Kalua
& the Beast are from “Africa”. Just plain old Africa, eh? Guess which
are the black guys here. Krueger is Matt Bourne, aka Big Josh, aka
Doink the Clown. DeKlerk is Ted Petty, aka the Cheetah Kid, aka
“Flyboy” Rocco Rock of the Public Enemy. Petty weighs about 200 pounds
here and looks like a luchadore. He also carries the entire match, what
there is of it, with some cool high-flying shit. Of course, the evil
South Africans cheat the black men and win, advancing in the tournament.
* Ole Anderson’s firing didn’t come fast enough for my liking…
– Review of Hanson-Luger feud. No, not *THAT* Hanson….
– Lex Luger v. The Motor City Madman. The Madman is no one of
consequence, before everyone asks. He’s just a big stiff who was
successful enough in the indies for WCW to pick him up. Big Cat attacks
Luger before the match, but Luger doesn’t even bother to sell. Bravo!
The match, of course, sucks big heaping piles of horseshit. Luger wins
with a shitty clothesline, and seems embarassed to even be out there.
DUD
– Tony interviews Nick Patrick, who notes that the Steiners don’t like
the Nasty Boys. Gosh, thanks.
– The Nasty Boys v. The Renegade Warriors (Mark & Chris Youngblood). I
really have to question WCW’s contract system at this point in time.
They signed the Nasties in the summer and proceeded to give them as big
of a push as a team could get without going over the Steiners and/or
Doom, and right in the middle of a super hot feud with the Steiners, the
WWF just snaps them up and locks them into a long-term contract. How
stupid do you have to be to allow something like that? It’s no wonder
the WWF kicked their ass for 8 years when shit like that is allowed to
go down because the head office can’t get their noses out of their
bosses’ ass for the five minutes necessary to note whose contract is
expiring within the next week. And this match really sucks, too, before
the Steiners mercifully run in and cause a double-DQ or something. DUD.
(It should be noted that this was *before* Vince turned the Nasties in
actual World title contenders, so they weren’t allowed to get a win
before the Steiner attack).
– The Nightstalker v. Sid Vicious.
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!
Sorry, just felt the sudden need to scream in pain. Nightstalker is of
course Brian “Adam Bomb/Wrath” Clarke. This match has been referred to
by many as quite possibly the worst wrestling match in the history of
the world. That seems a little harsh, but good lord is it bad. Kick,
punch, bearhug. Then Big Cat, who was previously against Lex Luger and
is now picking on Sid for some reason, waddles down and does something
and Nightstalker does something and Sid does something else and then
someone gets a pin. Probably Sid. Who knows. Who cares. I’ll give it
a DUD because I’m feeling generous, but don’t ever ask me to watch it
again.
– The Freebirds piss on El Gigante’s leg and then get chased off by him.
– The Steiner Brothers v. Magnum Force. I’ve never seen so many no-name
losers in the same show, swear to god. Quick squash and then the
Nasties attack. DUD
– Review of the captivating Black Scorpion saga.
– Paul E interviews Sting. Welcome to rock bottom. This is positively
as stupid and insipid as professional wrestling gets, and may be the
reason why Ole Anderson has never again been hired as a booker by
anyone. Sting is a few lines into his interview and then The Black
Scorpion comes out and “kidnaps” a member of the audience, who acts
suitably terrified. He brings out a gimmicked box and places it on the
audience member’s head, creating the illusion of spinning his head
around in the box while the guy acts terrified. Badly, I might add.
Then he picks up the guy and places him in a conveniently placed animal
cage, pulls up a silk curtain, and turns him into a tiger. He then
steps into another cage, pulls up another curtain, and disappears. Ole
Anderson has been doing a rambling, voice distorted soliloquy over the
PA the whole time. And *this* was Ole’s big plan to draw monster heel
heat for the Scorpion? Have him go out and do a fourth-grade magic
show? Why exactly are we supposed to boo this guy? Because he turned a
guy into a FREAKIN TIGER?
Anyone, and I mean ANYONE who complains about the goofiness of the Kane
angle should be bound, gagged and made to watch the entire Black
Scorpion fiasco from start to finish, with no bathroom breaks. You will
truly come to realize what a bunch of drunken boobs were running WCW
from 1988 until 1995 and will ponder, as I do, why they didn’t go
bankrupt 10 times over, even with Turner’s funding. This angle was
easily, EASILY, the worst angle in the history of professional
wrestling. EVER. And that covers a lot of ground. Papa Shango was
bad, but he drew heel heat. With this, the fans were so confused by the
whole f*cking thing that they didn’t know whether to boo the Scorpion or
throw flowers at him and ask when the next show was. Ole Anderson took
control of the company and hinged the success of Sting’s title reign on
this garbage and nearly took WCW down with him. Amazing.
– Main Event: Ric Flair v. Butch Reed. If Reed wins, Doom gets the
limo and yacht of the Horsemen. If Flair wins, the Horsemen get a title
shot at Starrcade. Guess who wins. Flair and Arn cheat like bastards
and the fans eat it up with a spoon. Actually a pretty good match, too,
although Reed’s punch/press slam/shoulderblock offense gets mighty
repetitive after a short while. Chaos ensues as Nick Patrick gets
decked outside the ring, and Anderson nails Reed with a chair to allow
Flair to get the pin. Not bad. ***
The Bottom Line: This was absolute zero for WCW. They completely
crashed and burned before trying to rebuild in 1991 with Ric Flair and a
new direction that didn’t involve ANYTHING with Ole Anderson, and of
course that was doomed to fail by July. A staggeringly bad live card
that would get crucified by RSPW were it held tomorrow.
The eventual “payoff” for the Scorpion angle was Ric Flair being under
the mask at Starrcade, and then winning the title in January of 1991,
but that certainly was not worth the pain of watching the buildup.
Thumbs down.