The SmarK Retro Repost – Clash Of Champions XIII

Archive

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.