WCW Clash of the Champions XVIII

RATING LEVELS:

Curt Hennig Level Perfection – A “GOAT” show, from top to bottom

Watch It – A consistently good show worth watching in its entirety

Watch It…With Remote in Hand – 2-3 great matches, but lots of filler

1 Match Show – All filler, one thriller

Dudleyville – Zero redeeming qualities

CLASH OF THE CHAMPIONS XVIII: January 92’

Kansas Expo Center, Topeka, Kansas

CHAMPIONSHIP BACKGROUNDS: “The Total Package” Lex Luger is the reigning WCW World Champion at this time, “Stunning” Steve Austin is the TV Champion, “Ravishing” Rick Rude holds the United States Championship, and Jushin Thunder Liger is the current Light-Heavyweight Champion. The WCW World Tag Team Champions going into this show are Bobby Eaton and Arn Anderson, while the odd couple of Big Josh and Ron Simmons hold the US Tag Team Championships. This last fact is never mentioned.

COMMENTATORS: Jim Ross and Tony Schiavone

Our opening contest is The Steiners taking on Big Van Vader and Curtis Hughes. Some nice suplexes from the Steiners as the commentary team really plays up the idea that the brothers are on the hunt for the World Tag Team Championships. This one is nice and short and furthers the idea that the Steiners are determined to climb the ranks, but is essentially a filler that is outperformed by the next match. (2.5/5)

The second bout of the evening is another tag match, this time with the Taylor Made Man and Tracy Smothers taking on Flyin’ Brian Pillman and Marcus Alexander Bagwell. Again, the commentary team does a good job – arguably even better than the competitors involved – in getting over the basic story that Pillman and Bagwell are the younger, less experienced talents taking on two respected veterans in Taylor and Smothers. Still, they note, as these teams have never competed before, experience is not necessarily a huge advantage. This match draws much better reactions than the previous one and modern viewers may even enjoy watching Smothers work heel, which I’m not sure he had been for very long at the time. In fact, I believe Taylor was somewhat a face after leaving the York Federation. Towards the middle of the match, Taylor suplexes Pillman to the arena floor, the kind of spot that worked then and would still work now in coming off as a game-changer when sold right. While I’d have preferred Pillman sell the move longer, he is certainly the all-star for his team. All in all, this might’ve been a smarter opener for the show, as it certainly got much bigger reactions than the Steiners somewhat lazy outing. (3/5)

Richard Morton vs. Johnny B. Badd is next and this match is being billed as a showcase for light-heavyweights. Unbeknownst to most fans that know him best from his work in the Rock n’ Roll Express, Morton was a villain at this point, not that he was an exceptional one. This match is pretty lackluster but is thankfully kept short.  Bonus half-point for both men's ridiculous ring attire. (2/5)

When we cut back from a commercial, Eric Bischoff is standing with Pillman and Badd, both of whom are eager for a shot at Jushin Thunder Liger’s Light-Heavyweight Championship. Pillman makes things political with a promo about Japanese automakers taking jobs from good ol’ fashioned American workers. Badd, meanwhile, smiles into the camera like a mental patient. One would think this segment was meant to lead to a feud between them, I don’t believe it really did, at least not on PPV. (2.5/5)

Diamond Dallas Page vs. PN News gets the crowd going next, with PN News delivering one of his classically lame raps. JR notes that News was the company’s Rookie of the Year in 91’ and considering his size, he does move pretty well. Still, for modern viewers, the draw to watching this match is to see Page years before he was ever getting anything resembling a push. While much has been written about how much he improved throughout the 90s, a match like this shows that, even then, he was decent at his interactions with the crowd and his execution. Fun for the nostalgia of it. (2/5)

Following this segment, we get Tony Schiavone standing with K. Allen Frey, WCW’s new Executive Vice President. Frey announces that he is holding the contract for Lex Luger’s World Championship defense at SuperBrawl II against Sting, but the BIG story is the debut of Jesse “The Body” Ventura. Luger cuts a promo via tape and Sting arrives to sign the contract before Ventura continues shilling WCW as “the wrestling of the future.” Not necessarily a “must see” wrestling moment, but you could do a lot worse in terms of debuts in WCW history (see: The Shockmaster, Glacier, KISS Demon). (3/5)

The next match is a Falls Count Anywhere match between Cactus Jack and Van Hammer. Van Hammer is an interesting worker to think about – a guy with an undeniably great look and, based on this match, at least a little bit of potential of playing a passable babyface if he could learn to work. Wikipedia reveals a four-year span where he fell off the face of the Earth before coming back to WCW with little noticeable improvement in 1997. Based on appearance alone, you’d have to believe Vince McMahon would’ve tried to push him to the moon. As for this match, there’s not much to talk about aside from the fact that Abdullah The Butcher makes an appearance in the end, continuing his love/hate relationship with Cactus. Overall, one of the most unremarkable Falls Count Anywhere matches I’ve ever seen. (2.5/5)

The Fabulous Freebirds make their entrance next to their new theme song. Their lip-syncing and strutting is just awful to watch, but not SO awful that it veers back into that “So Bad – It’s Good” territory that made the Shockmaster or the Robocop angle actually fun to revisit. To make matters worse, Garvin and Hayes look like they hate it too, not smiling during a second of this. The lack of enthusiasm only makes this worse. (1/5)

Big Josh and Brad Armstrong arrive second to take on the Freebirds in an actual match. Again, Hayes and Garvin look bored here, which is far from the usual for them. Typically, you can count on them bringing a lot of fire to their matches, bumping like hell, playing to the audience, and really sticking with the fun-loving, party characters that they had developed. Here, though, they wrestle “scientifically” (wrestling code for straight-up, babyface, no frills), but to be me a better adjective might be “unmotivated.” Even after their win, they just walk out of the ring and hit the showers, seemingly nonplussed about the whole affair. (2/5)

The next segment we get is a video package promoting The Steiner Brothers, as well as a promo from Rick and Scott. The video package goes over the impressive 1991 they had, showcasing their victories over a variety of opponents, including The Nasty Boys and the Road Warriors. This sort of package is something the WWE could do more often as it provides good background to a wrestler or team’s previous year, giving the audience context as to why they should care about them. For example, Cesaro had a tremendous 2013 and showcasing how impressive he was for that 12-month span after his big victory at WrestleMania 30 would’ve probably helped sell some fans to why Heyman was so eager to sign him away from Zeb Coulter. Just a thought. (3.5/5)

Former NWA World Champion Thomas Rich (aka “Wildfire” Tommy Rich) does the job for Vinnie Vegas in our next contest. Rich was a World Champion in 1981, which has led him to be routinely categorized alongside David Arquette as one of the worst World Champions to ever hold the title. Vegas, played by Kevin Nash, is meant to look good here but his execution of even the most simple moves looks shoddy. Again, the ridiculous ring attire scores a half point. (1.5/5)

Thank god Paul E. Dangerously arrives on the scene next. He cuts a promo guaranteeing that one of the top 5 babyfaces of WCW will be leaving tonight on a stretcher. This may sound simple, but Dangerously throws in some really great and even controversial lines about the good guys that gets the entire segment over. Anyone who thinks Dangerously/Heyman only recently became a top 5 best manager of all-time needs to go back and watch his work during the Dangerous Alliance because it really shows that, even in 92’, he was a boundary-pushing heat magnet on the mic. (4/5)

Larry Zybykso, Bobby Eaton, and Arn Anderson of the Dangerous Alliance take on Ron Simmons, Dustin Rhodes, and Barry Windham next. After several stinkers, this match really connects with the crowd as all 6 men show some very good work. Rhodes plays the face-in-peril perfectly and, as per usual, it is always a thing of beauty to watch Eaton and Anderson sell for the good guys. While I didn’t like the “out of nowhere” finish and felt the match could easily go an extra 4-5 minutes, this was easily the best match we got on the show so far. (3.5/5)

Our main event is next, pitting Sting and Ricky Steamboat vs. Rick Rude and “Stunning” Steve Austin. Talk about a dream match here. Trivia note – this is Jesse Ventura’s first go-round as a commentator for WCW. The match starts out with Steamboat and Austin in the ring as Ventura notes that these 4 are the top 4 contenders for Lex Luger’s World Championship. When Sting and Rude get in there, the crowd gets even hotter, especially as Sting parodies Rude’s hip gyrations and the babyfaces pull off some trickery that serves as a nice comeuppance to the heels. Austin, the least experienced of the bunch, is able to hold his own, but he would noticeably improve as the year went on, no doubt learning quite a lot by spending time in-ring with these three. The finish is a bit disappointing and even the crowd seems to agree. Fortunately, the post-match shenanigans make it clear that this feud is far from over, especially between Rude and Steamboat. I’d put this just one notch below the 6-man tag, only because I believe a better finishing sequence would’ve really catapulted this one into higher ground. (3/5)

Overall, this show is hard to recommend. With an average match/segment score of 2.57-out-of-5, nothing here was really worth seeing, save for maybe Paul Heyman’s 2-minute promo towards the end of the night. In terms of matches, the 6-man was the best of the bunch, but even that bout ended with a bit of a thud. The opening contest is a let down, while the closer is well-worked until the final minute when even the crowd seems unhappy about how the winning side prevailed. With such a low average and very little to recommend aside from a segment (not even a match), this show earns a….

FINAL RATING - DUDLeyville.