Mike Reviews WCW Clash of the Champions #27

Happy Clashing Saturday Everyone!

Back to 1994 for our WCW fix this weekend, as we officially enter the Hogan Era with Clash #27.

Ric Flair is a Heel again and set to unify the World Titles; with The Hulkster getting the winner at BATB 94.

Elsewhere; Cactus and Kev defend the tag belts and Larry Z duels with His Lordship. You can check the full card for Clash 27 at the link below.

https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=4049&page=3

Clash #27 is emanating from Charleston, South Carolina on the 23rd of June 1994

Calling the action are Tony Schiavone and Bobby Heenan, with Jesse Ventura popping in at points as well

As it’s a WCW show, the announce team yaks on for a bit to start rather than them just getting a match into the ring.

Opening Match
WCW World Tag Team Titles
Champs: Cactus Jack and Kevin Sullivan w/ Evad Sullivan Vs The Nasty Boys (Knobbs and Sags)

Cactus and Sullivan won the belts back at Slamboree in a wild No DQ match, so we’ve got a rematch here with two referees. Evad is already being presented as a Hulkamaniac, although he’s spelt “Hulk Rules” incorrectly on his shirt because he’s dyslexic. It will likely shock none of you to learn that this one is a brawl right from the off, with all four brawlers going at it. There’s not much in the way of technical wrestling going on here, but there’s good energy to the brawling and Cactus even gets flung off the top rope onto the challengers at one stage in an impressive spot.

Eventually Sullivan gets cut off and worked over in the challenger’s corner, with the offence having enough potatoes in it that you could make a Shepherd’s Pie. Sullivan sells it all well, probably because he doesn’t have much of a choice! Sags misses a knee drop though and it’s hot tag Cactus, with Cactus running wild on The Nasty’s and getting a good reaction for it. Cactus of course ends up taking an insane bump, as he tries to dive out onto The Nasty’s at ringside, and ends up landing back of the head first onto the metal railings. Sags adds a back suplex to Cactus out there, which brings Cactus up selling his shoulder, giving us our second heat segment.

As a I type that though, Cactus quickly clotheslines both Nasty’s and Sullivan gets the second hot tag, leading to things breaking down further. Evad ends up getting clobbered by both challengers at different points, which causes Evad to clock Sags with a crutch whilst Cactus catches Knobbs with a Double Arm DDT inside the ring to get the three count.

WINNERS AND STILL CHAMPIONS: CACTUS & KEVIN
RATING: **1/2

Thoughts: That was a fun brawl with some tag team formula worked in for good measure. I’m not sure everyone is going to love it as much as me, but burly blokes beating the chihuahua out of one another is something I’m a big fan of

Sting joins us for some promo time with Mean Gene Okerlund, where he says that he’s a big shark whose going to chew Ric Flair up and spit him out. This was a brief promo segment, but Sting had good energy.

We get footage of Ray Traylor joining up with The Guardian Angels’.

Match Two
Tex Slazenger Vs The Guardian Angel

Slazenger would go on to become Mideon in the WWF. Angel is Ray Traylor under a new gimmick because the WWF threatened legal action on WCW due to Traylor’s previous “Boss” gimmick treading too closely to WWF’s Big Boss Man character. WCW actually got official permission from The Guardian Angel’s in order to do this gimmick, although I wonder if Aaron personally signed off on it? Angel gets a good reception for his entrance and the crowd generally digs the match when Angel is on offence. They’re less interested in seeing Slazenger do anything, but then again he doesn’t really get much opportunity as Angel puts him away reasonably easily with the Boss Man Slam.

WINNER: GUARDIAN ANGEL
RATING: SQUASH

Thoughts: This was a reasonably effective way of debuting the new character and the crowd dug the Angel for the most part, so it achieved what it set out to do

Hulk Hogan arrives at the venue, with Heenan making OJ Simpson references on commentary due to the motorcade surrounding Hogan’s limo. Some of the live crowd are audibly booing Hogan as he arrives, which makes sense as this show is taking place in a WCW stronghold and Hogan is Mr. WWF.

Match Three
WCW World Television Title
Champ: Larry Zbyszko Vs Lord Steven Regal w/ Sir William Dundee

Larry Z came out of retirement for a feud with Regal and even managed to win the TV Title in the process. Now His Lordship is getting a chance to win it back. Regal is wearing a wig to the ring here, just for that extra cheap heat. After some stalling, Regal decides to just head straight to strikes in the early going to get across the idea that he’s especially grumpy over this whole Larry Z situation. Larry sells that well, which gets the crowd to cheer for him to fight back, which he duly does with strikes of his own. Regal of course sells all of that well, as this has been an enjoyable slugfest thus far, with the fight even heading out onto the ramp way at one stage, as Larry continues to bring the fight to Regal.

Larry gets some high impact moves back inside the ring such as suplexes and piledrivers in a quest to pick up the win, with Regal being able to just barely keep kicking out. Regal manages to weather the Larry Z storm and eventually cuts Larry off before going to some hard hitting holds. Larry manages to catch Regal in a body scissors whilst Regal has mount position at one stage, as this match is now starting to have MMA elements to it on top of the two wrestlers trying to clobber one another. Sir William eventually interferes to break up a Boston Crab attempt from Larry, with the referee missing it, and that leads to Regal getting a rope assisted pin for the three count.

WINNER AND NEW CHAMPION: HIS LORDSHIP
RATING: **1/2

Thoughts: That was far more of a fight than I was expecting, and it made sense for it to be like that seeing as the two had been feuding for a while by the time this match came along, so it’s only natural that by this point they’d just want to throw down in order to take the other out. It was a decent match, with good intensity and some solid wrestling

Mean Gene hocks the WCW hotline. Make sure you get your parent’s permission kids, Mean Gene’s moustache wax don’t come cheap. When we come back to Gene after the ad break, he’s joined by Arn Anderson and Dustin Rhodes. Dustin has asked Arn to be his tag partner at the Bash at the Beach pay per view, and Arn says he’ll do it, but only if he gets to be the old Arn Anderson. Dustin stupidly agrees, clearly forgetting what the old Arn Anderson does to members of the Rhodes family.

Match Four
WCW United States Title
Champ: Stunning Steve Austin Vs Johnny B. Badd

Austin got a dodgy win over Badd back at Slamboree, so Badd gets another crack here. Austin just exudes star presence during his entrance, as WCW was actually doing a great job getting him over during this period until they frittered it away later in the year. These two generally worked well together, and this match is no different, with Badd getting to shine on Austin to start. Austin even takes a spill over the top rope from a Badd dropkick at one stage, but it’s not a DQ because reasons. Austin ends up cheating to cut Badd off by going to the dreaded hair pull, which gives us our heat segment, sold well by Badd. Austin shows off some good Heel antics whilst working Badd over and it’s a good heat segment overall.

Badd eventually manages to catch Austin with a dropkick and it’s time for the comeback, with Austin taking some nice bumps for the challenger as the crowd cheers Badd on. Badd heads up for something, but he takes too long playing to the crowd and that leads to Austin cutting Badd off and trying a Superplex. Badd manages to fight off the Superplex, but he misses a sunset flip from the top rope, which leads to Austin getting a two count. Badd gets a near fall of his own from a clothesline, but Austin ends up managing to clock Badd with a previously concealed international object, with the referee (Nick Patrick) of course missing it, and that leads to a three count. However, a second referee (Randy Anderson) runs down and points out the weapon before counting a Badd three count on Austin from a roll-up, which seemingly makes Badd the US Champ.

WINNER AND NEW CHAMPION?: JOHNNY B BADD
RATING: **3/4

Thoughts: Wacky finish, but the match itself was decent up to that point. I’m pretty certain that result isn’t going to stand, but we’ll see

Hulk Hogan and Jimmy Hart join Mean Gene for some promo time on the ramp. Hogan cuts the usual promo, and you can clearly hear some folks in the crowd booing him. Hogan’s promo itself is decent actually, and he does at least put Flair and Sting over on the mic ahead of the next match. Ric Flair interrupts on the video wall, playing crazy Heel Ric Flair, and we get a promo exchange between the two. That kind of telegraphs the finish of the next bout, but Flair Vs Hogan was the money match so they were probably right to tease it.

We get comments from Shaquille O’Neal, who puts Hulk Hogan over.

Main Event
WCW World and International Unification Bout
WCW Champ: “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair Vs International Champ: The Man Called Sting

This one is going to require a bit of an explanation; so buckle up buckaroo! So, WCW was part of the National Wrestling Alliance, and that meant that the NWA World Title appeared on their events. WCW also had their own World Title, which had essentially been created in 1991 when Ric Flair jumped to the WWF and took the NWA belt with him. Eventually WCW regained control of the NWA World Title when Barry Windham defeated Great Muta for it in a match at SuperBrawl III that was so unimaginably dull it allegedly led to sales of paint skyrocketing because people were desperate to have anything else to watch instead of the bout in question.

With the belt now back in WCW; the company decided to run with two World Titles, with I guess the idea being to build to big Champ Vs Champ match down the line so as the reunify the two belts and move on. However, WCW started to change the NWA Title without first getting permission from the NWA, which WCW had to do seeing as the NWA belt didn’t technically belong to them. The breaking point was supposedly WCW having Rick Rude win the belt without clearing things, which led to the NWA pulling away and WCW now left with a physical belt but no organisation for it to belong to. Thus WCW created the fictional WCW International board of directors, with the idea being that the belt would fall under their jurisdiction.

Thus WCW wobbled along with an extra World Title that they didn’t need, with this match being set up to FINALLY unify the belts once and for all so that WCW could have just the one World Champ, just in time for Hulk Hogan to win it. It wouldn’t shock me if Hogan’s imminent arrival didn’t speed up WCW in their unification process to be honest, as I can’t picture The Hulkster being thrilled at having to share the spotlight with another World Champ. Seeing as Hogan was coming in, WCW decided to just turn Ric Flair Heel, although possibly having Flair stay babyface for a bit so that they could build up to a big betrayal might have been a more effective approach to things. Flair hated working as a Face though, so he was happy to fast-track his Heel turn, and thus now we get classic cowardly Heel Flair again after him being a brave babyface for the past year, in a case of tonal whiplash so severe I’m surprised everyone in the front row didn’t end up with sciatica.

Before the match can start; Sensuous Sherri enters to Eddy Guerrero’s eventual theme, complete with Sting face-paint, which suggests that she’s chosen Sting to be her new client going forwards. I’m sure Sting can TOTALLY trust her and he won’t need to worry about being betrayed by someone purporting to be his friend/ally. Nope, I can’t see how that would EVER happen to Sting. Sting gets the better of Flair in the early going, with Flair taking his usual pratfalls for it all. These two usually had good matches together, although I’ve never really felt that this one belongs as high up in the pantheon as some of their other matches do. It just feels like Flair is too focused on being a crazed villain yelling at the fans than he is on having his usual good match, which hurts the bout quality somewhat, even though it helps the storytelling aspect.

Flair struggles to really get anything going with Sting, as The Stinger no sells most of Flair’s offence and has a counter for most of what Flair throws at him. Flair is eventually able to dodge a Stinger Splash, and that leads to Flair soup canning Sting over the top rope to the floor when the referee isn’t looking for the official cut off. Sting sells well during the heat, with Flair running through his usual offence of things like knee drop, back suplex etc, with the execution being on point as you’d expect. The crowd reactions have been great here, as both of these two wrestlers are super over, so even if some of the wrestling hasn’t been top notch the crowd has still dug it. This is a rare occasion where Flair and Sting don’t seem to be fully on the same page, with some timing issues at points where they lose sight of one another, although they are always able to cover for it and get back on track.

Sting eventually fights back with a sloppy catapult into the corner on Flair, and that’s our double down. Sting makes the comeback following that, with Flair begging off in his usual cowardly Heel manner. Sting accidentally ends up taking out Sherri when Flair moves her in the way of a dive, with Sting being so worried about her condition that it allows Flair to get a tights assisted roll-up for the three count to unify the belts.

WINNER AND UNIFIED CHAMP: RIC FLAIR
RATING: ***

Thoughts: Not their best match together, but Ric Flair Vs Sting has a baseline level of good and has a ceiling all the way up to the Full Monty depending on how things fit together on the night, so this was still enjoyable for the most part. Their timing didn’t seem to be right here, and Flair almost seemed too focused on getting his new Heel persona over than he was on having a good match, but overall it was a good effort and the live crowd was really into it

Sherri of course turns on Sting post-match because;

Thankfully for Sting though, Hulk Hogan shows up for the save before Flair and Sherri can put a serious beat down on The Stinger. Thus Flair is now a Heel and the unified World Champ, setting things up nicely for Flair Vs Hogan at Bash at the Beach, which ended up being one of WCW’s best ever pay per view buy rates up to that point. Based on that, this angle here at the Clash was a good piece of business.

In Conclusion

This was a solid enough use of 90 minutes, as we got some decent wrestling and the closing angle was a strong way to end things and lay the table for the eventual Flair Vs Hogan match. Clash 27 isn’t a show you need to desperately go out of your way to watch, but if you do then it’s an easy watch for the most part, although if you’re not a fan of Hulk Hogan then you might not enjoy it as much.

Mildly recommended show