WCW Clash of the Champions XII: Mountain Madness: Fall Brawl 90'

WCW Clash of the Champions XII: Mountain Madness: Fall Brawl 90'

Asheville, North Carolina - September 1990

CHAMPIONSHIP RUNDOWN: Coming into the show, the WCW World Champion is Sting, the United States Champion is held by his best bud Lex Luger, the World Tag Team Champions are Doom, the US Tag Team Champions are the Steiner Brothers, and Arn Anderson holds the TV Title. 

COMMENTATORS: Bob Caudle and Jim Ross

Yes, you read that correct, the title of this show was WCW Clash of the Champions XII: Mountain Madness: Fall Brawl 90'. 

The first third of the music video for "Baddstreet USA" by the Fabulous Freebirds starts the show signaling the arrival of Michael "P.S" Hayes, Jimmy "Jam" Garvin, and the injured Buddy Roberts. Their opponents tonight are The Southern Boys accompanied by "Bullet" Bob Armstrong. The match was going to be a 6-man originally, but turned into a regular ol' tag match before the show. The Southern Boys are super over with their crowd and Armstrong's high-flying gets a tremendous pop. Armstrong and Smothers don't always get the recognition they deserve as they do so many little things right and actually have some pretty clever, fun spots that bring to mind The Rock n' Roll Express and their contemporaries, The Rockers. Its worth mentioning that both teams are sporting Confederate gear just because it is a bit glaring, but then again, pro-wrestling wasn't about subtlety in the early 90s any more than it is now. Really strong finishing stretch with great involvement from "Bullet" Bob and Roberts in quick enough succession that the pinfall feels like it is happening at the highest moment of crowd frenzy. Strong opener that didn't overstay its welcome like some Freebirds matches from this era could. (3/5)

The United States Tag Team Champion Steiners are backstage. Scott's command of the mic is not yet there, but Rick takes over and does a touch better. Not the best promo these guys ever cut.

Buddy Landell is up next, sporting a Skid Row tattoo. That's a bonus point. Then its the winner of the Burger King Ringmaster Contest Cindy Anderson accompanying "Captain" Mike Rotunda. That's another point. The contest was won by writing poetry according to Jim Ross. Holy christ. This match could be the shittiest of shitty matches and I'd still probably recommend watching the first minute. The match itself is unremarkable, but inoffensive. Rotunda has never been my favorite in-ring talent, though I'll admit I haven't revisited much of his IRS run when maybe he was a far better heel than face? Landell has some good matches under his belt, but this one doesn't go anywhere special enough for us to see his classic heel mannerisms on full display. I'm still calling this above average for the Nuggets of Awesomeness embedded into the start of the contest. (3/5)

The Freebirds cut a promo and then air a video of themselves in Hollywood. I'm not sure what the purpose of the video was aside from just showing that they like hot dogs.

Tim Horner and Brad "The Candy Man" Armstrong are in the ring to take on a brand new team of monsters - The Master Blasters - Steel (Kevin Nash) and Iron (Cory Pendarvis). Nash, who looks to be in the best shape of his entire career, starts things off against Horner and dominates him with ease. Iron comes in soon after and continues the onslaught with some basic offense of his own. Interesting fact - this is Pendarvis' only match as he would be replaced by Al Green and, according to the internet, never wrestled another match for WCW or any other company. When you're the lesser worker between yourself and a rookie Kevin Nash, though, maybe calling it quits is the right idea. I was expecting this to be a total squash, but the babyfaces actually get some offense before getting taken out. Nothing special here aside from getting to see a very young and green Nash. (1.5/5)

Brian Pillman is backstage with Tony Schiavone. They discuss a new WCW gimmick - "The Gauntlet" - whereby a wrestler has to fight three nights in a row against three different opponents and, if they win, they can take home an extra $15,000. I miss gimmicks like these.

Missy Hyatt introduces her guest - "The Nature Boy" Ric Flair. Flair cuts a classic, albeit brief promo. Good stuff that always earns an extra point in my book. (+1)

The Nasty Boys vs. Jackie Fulton and Terry Taylor is next. Something tells me that Fulton and Taylor are about to eat some serious punishment from the unruly Nasties. Minutes into the action, though, and its actually the babyfaces who are kicking ass, especially the ever-proficient Terry Taylor. Taylor is really impressive, his strikes sharp and his fire easy to rally behind. Each time the Nasties do seem to get the upperhand, his hope spots come off as natural and get a great reactions from the crowd. Fulton is less smooth, but he's got a ton of energy and some surprising strength (at one point he hits a perfect german suplex on Sags). Knobbs hits a huge elbow drop from the top rope to get the clean win. Better than average tag outing. (3/5)

Sid Vicious stands with Tony Schiavone. Vicious was awesome at this point. 

Back in the ring, "Wild" Bill Irwin stands awaiting his opponent, Atlanta's own Tommy Rich. Irwin catches Rich was a super slick big knee to start the match, but Rich comes back strong, hiptossing Irwin over the top rope and onto the arena floor (which was illegal, but is allowed by Randy Anderson). The workrate for the start of this match is pretty incredible as Rich and Irwin wrestle with speed and precision until Rich slows things down with a well-worked headlock. I was not expecting to enjoy this one, but Rich and Irwin work pretty hard and it pays off in creating a match that feels much more personal and heated than it seemed it would be initially. A few minutes in, Rich takes an absolutely great bump into the guardrail neck-first that I'm not sure I've seen done in this exact way as before. Unfortunately, its not treated as a big deal when I think you could've built the rest of the match around the spot. Back in the ring they go and Rich doesn't sell any damage at all, eventually catching Irwin with a Lou Thesz Press for the win. (2/5)

The WCW Top Ten is posted next. I forgot that not only did they do a Top Ten for singles, but they also did one for tag teams. 

 Stan Hansen, dripping with tobacco juice, calls out Sting and Luger next. 

The WCW Womens' World Championship (did you know there was one?) is on the line next with Bambi taking on Susan Sexton from Australia. Bambi gets face pops and Sexton is booed, but I'm not necessarily sure Sexton was a heel based on her outfit and general demeanor. No disrespect to the combatants, both of whom are technically proficient, but this match was heatless and needed a clear face/heel dynamic to get over with the crowd. As these two are very generic in their outfits and offense, there was pretty much no way that this match was going to get over as anything other than a bathroom break. (1.5/5)

Maximum Overdrive are in the ring when we come back from commercial, gearing up to take on the uber-popular Steiner Brothers. This might be the first Maximum Overdrive match I've reviewed, so I had to look them up - the team was comprised of J.W Storm and Tim Hunt ("The Silencer" and "The Hunter"). Storm, in particular, looked to have been a prospect for a brief time, even working for the WWE in 92', but never did amount to anything beyond a lower, lower card guy. Anyway, the match these two teams have is nothing special save for the Steiners' choice of finisher, which looks it was just waiting to break somebody's neck one day. I wasn't expecting much out of this, so its not like it was a huge disappointment, just nothing more than sub-average. (1.5/5)

Stan Hansen makes his way down the aisle for his match against Tom "The Z-Man" Zenk. Zenk gets quite an ovation from the females in the audience but has little time to enjoy it before Hansen goes right after him. Z-Man gets a little bit of offense in, but Hansen keeps up with Zenk's pace and effectively shuts him down with his trademark lariat in under 5 minutes. Nothing match. (1/5)

After a recap of one of their previous bouts, Lex Luger cuts a somewhat rushed promo about his challenger tonight, Ric Flair. As an understated, cool face, Luger could deliver a solid promo, but whenever he'd get super-excited, it always seemed like he'd lose his train of thought after a minute or so. 

The United States Championship is on the line next when Lex Luger defends against Ric Flair. As I haven't actually seen many (or any?) of the Luger/Flair matches considered truly great, I wasn't surprised to read that this match is considered one of the lesser-but-still-very-good matches from their rivalry. As one might expected, this match is fought at a brisk pace and the traditional "heat" and "shine" segments are thus shorter than you would probably get if they were working a full 20+ minute affair. That being said, as far as TV matches go, it is near flawless in its effectiveness (though, the psychology may be just a touch off as Flair, the challenger, doesn't necessarily wrestle any different than he would as the champion). A red hot crowd really helps things too, as this match gets a bigger reaction than almost anything the WWE offers these days (Lesnar appearances included). Even the screwy finish is shot wonderfully, keeps everyone involved looking strong, and effectively transitions Luger into his next major feud right on time for Halloween Havoc. (3/5)

Main event time - The Black Scoprion making his debut against WCW World Champion Sting. I unapologetically like The Black Scorpion angle for its all corniness and this match, while not the peak of it (that may be the Halloween Havoc 90' segment or the following Clash), is still an integral part of the angle. Here, we have Al Perez, a jobber in his brief WWE run (and nothing more than that in WCW for that matter), decked out in the Black Scorpion gear and holding his own against the Stinger but definitely nothing more than that. At least he's in impressive shape. As the match wears on, the Champ takes control and works to remove the mystery man's mask. Having eventually pinned him, the Stinger is shocked to see that under his mask is...another mask! Then, the "real" Black Scorpion shows up on the entrance way and continues to taunt the champ! I wouldn't call this an all-time great swerve or anything, but its at least somewhat of a cliffhanger. As a match, this isn't much more than a decent TV main event. (2/5)

After a quick commercial break, Sting cuts a promo admitting that he failed himself by not discovering the true identity of the Black Scorpion. He is interrupted by Sid Vicious, though, who demands a title shot (he'd get one at Halloween Havoc) and eventually attacks the Stinger on the entranceway when he's told to "take it up with the Championship Committee." A better post-match angle would've seen Sid actually level him with his mega-over powerbomb finish as Sting and Sid were over enough to get tremendous heat for their feud but probably needed something more than just your typical beatdown to really cement their title match as a must-see David vs. Goliath story. 


Clash of the Champions XII isn't through-and-through enjoyable (or even watchable thanks to some of the "talents" who get screen time), but it isn't without its moments. The opening contest, hilarious Landell/Rotundo match, Nasty Boys bout, and Luger/Flair are all better-than-average segments. Unfortunately, the rest of the card is pretty boring, even the peak-era Steiners match not delivering enough stiffness to make it quality "car crash" wrestling like some of their other squash matches from the time. With a Kwang score of 2.25-out-of-5, Clash XII is impossible to recommend as a whole, but there are certainly worse two-hour blocks on the Network and if you enjoy your "wrestlecrap" just as much as your 5-star match quality, there's plenty here to satiate your hunger for the cheesy stuff.

FINAL RATING - High Risk Maneuver


Oh, and just in case you were wondering whether a show like this actually garnered many viewers - it drew a 5.0 rating according to Wikipedia, which would be something 5-7 MILLION VIEWERS. Granted, the landscape was less competitive, but still, it just goes to show how even the non-mainstream wrestling product of the time had some serious eyes on it.