Clash of the Champions 2 Page 2
So each show we got wacky clips of The Maniac getting his ass kicked by NWA stars (with the running gag being that some week he might actually get a win) and interacting with other wacky wrestlers in the dressing room, having wacky conversations and interacting with wacky ring announcer/commentator Bertie Baxter, who was about as hip and cool as his name might imply. Plus there was some stuff at the school. Now, you might read a summary like that and think “Aha, ratings GOLD, baby!”, but in fact Lyle Alzado’s acting ability is roughly on par with Stephanie McMahon’s, without the dynamic range of emotions and fashion sense. Not to mention that Lyle is a foot taller than most of the guys in the promotion and would, in any kind of realistic world, be immediately pushed to the moon regardless of any skill he may or may not have possessed. Finally, he didn’t even do his own matches, which is why the character in question was hooded. The in-ring role was done by Steve “Dr. Death” Williams, who is of course a foot shorter than Alzado and looks nothing like him. This is why we, as Canadians, hold no false ego about the quality of our TV productions, historically speaking. Most disturbingly, the visual design of the wrestler in question was recycled two years later by Ole Anderson for the Black Scorpion character. Actually, the most disturbing thing about the show was probably the Family Ties-ripoff theme song, but that’s a minor quibble at this point. Speaking of bad wrestling-TV connections, the A-Team is shown on Movie Central’s action channel up here every night, and on Wednesday it cycled around to the Hulk Hogan episode. It’s the one where Hogan is lifelong friends with B.A., and they team up to stop an evil corporation from taking over an orphanage. Okay, that’s every episode, but Hogan was in this one. Anyway, wrestling was treated as real (with Murdoch of course being a super-mark) and Hogan had two matches on the show: A knockout victory over John Studd via the Axe Bomber (complete with slow motion stills to show just HOW fake wrestling is) and a pinfall win over Greg Valentine via the usual. The most notable thing about this one for me was Hogan being treated by the writers as if all wrestlers can toss around guys at will without their cooperation, specifically through windows and the like. The most surreal moment was when the Hired Goons (because there’s always Hired Goons in the A-Team for them to dispatch and/or interrogate, sort of the equivalent of jobbers in wrestling) chased Hogan and B.A. into a gym, where the likes of the British Bulldogs and Ricky Steamboat were working out. Needless to say, Steamboat used some melodramatic martial arts to dispatch one guy, while Davey Boy Smith headbutted another one into unconsciousness. The whole time I was thinking “Hell, 3 guys against Dynamite Kid is barely a workout for him, why even bother with the other wrestlers?”, but it was 1985, and we didn’t know any better at the time.
Speaking
of bad acting, Flair and Luger sign the contract
for their Bash 88 match on Flair’s yacht.
Backstage,
the Horsemen are HERE.
I know the WWF’s officially mandated
and notorized position on just about everything
in the wrestling world is they invented it from
whole cloth and Vince’s glorious loins, but
Crockett was doing the “Wrestlers arriving an
hour late in limos” shtick 10 years before
Vince Russo started stealing it for RAW.
US
tag title match:
The Fantastics v. The Sheepherders.
Due to a tearful request from a New
Zealander fan, I will refrain from using my
usual insulting alternate name for the
Sheepherders, because apparently it’s what
Australians like to call New Zealanders.
As someone of Scottish descent, I can
sympathize with that position.
Rip Morgan is the flagbearer of note at
this point.
We cut back to Luger arriving, at which
point the Horsemen storm the parking garage and
kick his ass all over the place.
JJ Dillon is nice enough to blade Luger
right on camera, which results in a better blood
flow than what we got at Bash 88.
Back to the arena:
Tommy gets pounded by Luke Williams right
away, but gets a bodypress for two.
Bobby comes in and cleans house.
Butch works him over and gets an elbow
for two. They
do some double-teaming on Fulton, but he
dropkicks Luke out and they brawl.
Rip nails his own man by mistake with the
flag, but the ‘Herders don’t sell it and
keep on offense.
Huh.
Tommy comes in and drops an elbow for two
and gets a rollup for two, but Butch nails him
and pounds away.
Tommy comes back and it’s a donnybrook.
The Herders bail and stall.
The mysterious glitter-painted signs at
ringside return again, with another woman
holding up a sign saying “Hunk Hunk Hunk” in
tacky glitter-painted letters and carefully
arranged formatting.
Now, I’m not saying they’d stoop to
planting signs in the crowd, but this is getting
a WEE bit suspicious.
I’ll keep an eye on the situation.
Back in, Butch goes to work on Tommy as
he plays face-in-peril.
Luke gets the ABDOMINAL STRETCH OF
DISCOMFORT, and more double-teaming follows.
Tommy Rogers ducks a big boot, gets the
theoretical hot tag to Bobby Fulton, and Bobby
promptly gets planted and beaten down in the
heel corner.
Did the Fantastics do something to piss
off the Sheepherders backstage or did they
always cut off babyface comebacks like this?
Double-KO with Luke and Bobby, and Fulton
fights off Butch and bodypress on both guys at
one for two.
They do a comedy spot with Bobby &
Tommy taking turns trying for the pin, until the
Sheepherders get frustrated and bail.
Tommy works on Luke’s arm, but ANOTHER
cheapshot puts him on the floor, where he gets
absolutely demolished in several ways, the most
nasty of which involves a non-folding chair to
the back. The
timekeeper appears to be legally stupid, as he’s
compressing 5 minutes into 4, resulting in “5
minutes” being announced at 4:00 and “10
minutes” at 8:00.
I’ve never understand that practice –
I can understand lying about attendance figures
and buyrates, but whether or not a match was
16:00 or 18:00 can’t possibly have a bearing
on the money it draws.
Luke drops an elbow on the back for two.
Heel miscommunication follows, but they
ignore Tommy’s comeback and keep
double-teaming.
What the hell is going on here?
Butch gets a running knee and Luke hits
the chinlock.
Rogers FINALLY gets a bit of offense,
tags Fulton, and he rolls up Luke for the pin at
17:03 out of nowhere.
That was long and disjointed and just
WEIRD at times.
Fantastics bumped their asses off, as
usual, but they’re no Rock N Roll Express
without the Midnights to carry them.
***
Ronnie
& Jimmy Garvin v. Rick Steiner & Mike
Rotundo.
Big brawl to start, with the Garvins
getting stereo sleepers.
Kevin Sullivan is locked in a cage at
ringside, by the way, and spends much of the
match involved in a bizarre subplot with
Precious whereby they make googly eyes at each
other and hatch an unspoken plot that was
supposed to result in Precious turning on Jimmy
but never ended up going anywhere.
The line was crossed when Sullivan
started making allusions to coat hangers in her
past and they pulled the plug on the whole deal.
Ron & Rick start proper, and Ron KO’s
him for two very quickly.
Jimmy works a hammerlock.
The Varsity Club regroups and Rotundo
goes. They
trade amateur stuff, and Ron comes in.
Lots of stalling here.
The VC switches off in the heel corner,
behind the ref’s back, but sadly they’re not
doing anything more vile and heelish than an
armbar. Now
the timekeeper has gotten SLOW, waiting until
6:00 to announce five minutes gone by.
The Club keeps on that armbar.
Rotundo gets a clothesline for two, and
rick keeps on that arm.
Jimmy finally gets tagged and elbows Rick
for two. He
works a facelock to slow it down ever more.
Ron rolls up Rick for two, but Rotundo
comes in. Ron
sunset flips him for two, but Mike gets a
backdrop and legdrop to take over.
They choke him out with the tag rope and
toss him like TNN dumped ECW.
Back in, Ron makes the hot tag to Jimmy,
and it’s a pier-six.
Jimmy pins Rick with a brainbuster out of
nowhere at 13:11, but the camera was busy with
Sullivan & Precious’s brawl on the
outside. Match started slow, built slow, and just didn’t go
anywhere. **
They
announce a scaffold match for the Bash PPV
between the Powers of Pain and the Road
Warriors. I’ve
heard various (and occasionally conflicting)
stories on this one, but the basic gist of most
of them seems to be that the Powers felt that
the scaffold would make for an unsafe working
environment, and they did an end-run around Jim
Crockett one week and showed up on WWF TV the
next, necessitating the total rebooking of the
midcard in the NWA as a result.
Al
Perez v. Nikita Koloff.
Hey, it’s Nikita without steroids.
Or a razor for his head.
His anti-drug is Jesus.
By 1991, those large muscles had
mysteriously returned in time for a renewed
push, probably because he looks like friggin’
X-PAC without all the chemical enhancement.
Ooo, a 200 pound Russian babyface, get me
a ticket RIGHT NOW.
Tony tries to sell this as a serious
rivalry, but then he was trying to sell the
Tower of Doom as a serious match stipulation one
segment ago, so take his word with a grain of
salt. Shoving
to start, and Koloff overpowers him.
Through the wonder of wrestling, 200
pound Koloff was portrayed as bigger and badder
than 240 pound Al Perez at this point.
Speaking of Perez, picture Vince Russo
with longer hair and an actual physique, and you’ve
got it.
Koloff grabs an armbar and works on that
for a bit.
Hunk sighting:
Another sign in the crowd, another girl
in the front row, more glitter paint. We have a conspiracy. Perez
nails him in the corner, and Koloff misses a
blind charge, giving Al the advantage.
Out they go, where Perez works on the
back. Slam
on the floor, and back in Koloff steals a
near-fall before Perez hits the chinlock.
Perez had a good look, which probably
explains why Fritz Von Erich gave him the WCCW
title for the better part of a year before
jobbing him to his kid.
But the wrestling skill…ugh.
Koloff powers out thanks to the power of
Christ, and they mess up a rollup spot thanks to
the power of Satan.
Perez dumps him, but Nikita sunset flips
in. Koloff with a suplex to make the comeback.
Shoulder tackle and elbow puts Perez on
the floor, but Larry Zbyszko runs in for the DQ
at 12:04. Twelve minutes for THAT ending?
*
NWA
World title:
Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard v.
Dusty Rhodes & Sting.
Not quite Sting-Flair, is it?
Anderson tosses Sting early on, but
punches the post by mistake and Sting works the
arm. Tully
comes in and gets dominated, and Dusty adds his
usual. Tully
gets pinballed and Dusty uses a figure-four,
leaving him open to a cheapshot, and indeed that’s
what happens.
Ah, heel psychology is chicken soup for
the cheater’s soul. They pound Dusty on the floor, but he gets a lariat on Tully
back in the ring.
Dropkick and Sting comes in to clean
house. Stinger
splash on Tully, but the Horsemen sucker him in
and punk him out.
Arn gets an elbow for two.
Pump splash misses, but Tully holds Sting
in enemy territory.
Arn DDTs him on the floor, but Sting
shakes it off and comes back.
Backslide gets two, and he hotshots Tully
and tags Dusty.
DDT Arn, big elbow gets two, and the
whole thing breaks down into a no-contest at
10:45. Barry
Windham attacks the Dream while Tully & Arn
lay the beats on Sting.
**
The
Bottom Line:
Fairly solid first half, but the goofy
finishes dropped the quality dramatically by the
end. Nothing to recommend here.