Mike Reviews WCW Clash Of The Champions #28

Happy Clashin’ Saturday Everyone!

We pick up with 1994 WCW today by taking a look at Clash 28, the event that followed up Bash at the Beach 1994. We’ve got a rematch from that show, as Hulk Hogan takes on Ric Flair, whilst Antonio Inoki has come in for our Co-Main to take on His Lordship.

You can view the full card by clicking below;

WCW Clash Of The Champions #28

Clash 28 is emanating from Cedar Rapids, Iowa on the 24th of August 1994

Calling the action are Tony Schiavone and Bobby Heenan

WWE Network/Peacock doesn’t have the full version so we skip the intro and go straight to the opener.

Opening Match
WCW Tag Champs Pretty Wonderful (“Pretty” Paul Roma and “Mr. Wonderful” Paul Orndorff) Vs The Nasty Boys (Knobbs and Sags)

This is non-Title. Barry Darsow (Smash/Repo Man) is yelling at the babyfaces from the crowd, which was the beginning of him debuting as an anti-social trucker called Blacktop Bully. I don’t think The Nasty’s were full-on babyface yet, but they were getting there, with this match taking place because Pretty Wonderful accidentally attacked them, according to Tony on commentary. The Nasty’s are defacto Faces here anyway due to PW being so unlikable, and the opening exchanges see The Nasty’s dominating. Sags gets lured to the floor and doubled up on by PW though, and that leads to the cut off, with Orndorff even choking Sags with a camera cable at one stage whilst the referee is distracted.

Sags does a decent job selling whilst getting worked over by PW, with the Tag Champs looking good on offence, with Roma of course using the opportunity to show off his excellent Elbow Drop from the ropes. The crowd does get behind Sags whilst he sells, which shows that WCW was doing an effective job at getting fans to start supporting the previously Heel tandem. The hot tag feels pretty flat though, as Sags back body drops his way out of an Orndorff piledriver and then just calmly walks across the ring to tag Knobbs. I wonder if Roma was supposed to cut Sags off there, but when he didn’t Sags kind of just had to walk over and make the tag otherwise he’d look silly?

Knobbs gets a reasonable response for his offence, but it’s kind of a sloppy hot tag segment because he’s running all over the place trying to chase PW down, rather than sticking to the middle and letting PW come to him. Things break down following that and PW manage to hit Knobbs with a Suplex/Top Rope Splash combo. However, Sags comes off the top with an elbow to Orndorff, and the ref forgets that it is Knobbs who actually legal and counts the pin to give The Nasty’s the win. Normally I wouldn’t like a finish like that, but they did at least try to get the idea across that there was so much chaos going on that nobody knew who was legal, the commentators included, so I’ll let it slide.

WINNERS: THE NASTY BOYS
RATING: *3/4

Thoughts: This wasn’t too bad, although I felt the heat segment perhaps went on for a bit too long and the hot tag was executed pretty sloppily. The match was quite sloppy in general to be honest, but the crowd mostly liked it

Call the Hulk Hogan Hotline, with 8 incredible options! I hope one gives good advice on to how to avoid losing to a smaller opponent by insisting that you lose a huge sumo guy instead.

Speaking of The Hulkster; Hulk Hogan and Jimmy Hart join us for some promo time with Mean Gene Okerlund in the entrance way. However, a mysterious masked assailant clonks Hogan in the knee with a weapon, which was WCW’s way of referencing ice skater Nancy Kerrigan getting attacked in the same way prior to the winter Olympics. Hogan shows off the acting skills that got him the Mr. Nanny gig, by rolling around on the floor and groaning “oww my knee”. Thank heaven’s he said that, otherwise I might have got confused and thought that it was actually his spleen that was injured. I actually have very vague memories of this angle as WCW was on ITV here in the UK during this time and I’m pretty certain they referenced this attack at some stage. It’s probably one of my earliest wrestling memories. As an angle, it was a bit melodramatic, as you’d expect for something involving Hogan, but it set the table for the show long storyline and it did succeed in getting Hogan some sympathy from some parts of the crowd, so it worked well enough.

Match Two
DQ Rules Waived bout for the WCW United States Title
Champ: “Stunning” Steve Austin Vs Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat

Austin contrived a way to steal a win over Steamer back at BATB, so we’ve got a rematch here. If Austin gets DQ’ed here then he loses the belt, which has been done to ensure that Austin fights fairly, although I’m sure he’ll find a way around it somehow. Sadly the commentary team and the crowd are seemingly more interested in what happened to Hogan, with Ron the doctor coming over to say that Hogan’s career could be over, although we could barely hear any of it. The wrestling going on in the ring is good at least, with Steamer finally getting the crowd into things with some dropkicks and a Powerslam. They do the extended babyface shine for Steamboat following that, with Austin being unable to get a foothold in the bout no matter what he tries, whilst the commentary team notifies us that Sting is on his way to the venue in case Hogan can’t come out to wrestle later.

Austin eventually goes to the eyes, and that’s enough to set up the cut off, leading to Steamboat doing some selling. In what I’m sure will be a shock to all of you reading this; Steamboat sells the heat well. Yes, Ricky Steamboat selling well, I’m as shocked as all of you are. Steamboat does his usual technique of making sure to attempt and fight back every few moves or so in order to let the fans know that he’s still in the bout, with Austin finding ways to regain control whilst being an arrogant jerk as he does so. It’s a very well worked heat segment, with both wrestlers playing their respective roles well, with the crowd gradually getting more into it as the match progresses. There’s a great little sequence where both Austin and Steamboat keep countering one another during a near 2 minute stretch of action, and it does an excellent job of making this feel like an actual contest that is ebbing and flowing.

Austin makes the mistake of getting cocky again whilst having Steamboat on the ropes, which finally leads to Steamboat getting fired up and making a comeback with some uncustomary punches. The crowd loves seeing Steamer get fired up on the cocky Champion, and Steamboat fires off a Spine Buster for two in a good near fall. More near falls follow, with Austin managing to survive all of Steamboat’s pinning attempts, but only just. Now that the commentators are actually paying attention to the match and not the Hogan drama, they’ve actually done a good job of calling it. Austin accidentally back body drops Steamer over the top rope at one stage, which would be a DQ if Steamboat hit the floor. However, Steamboat is a gallant babyface, so he skins the cat back into the ring and catches Austin with a pinning hold for three.

WINNER AND NEW CHAMPION: RICKY STEAMBOAT
RATING: ****

Thoughts: This was a cracking match, with both wrestlers knowing exactly what to in order to tell the story they were telling and the crowd getting into the bout more as it went on. Austin had a great run with the belt, but it was probably time to move him up into the World Title picture, so dropping the belt to Steamboat made sense until they could find the next up and coming Heel to give the belt to. Sadly for Austin his WCW run was all downhill from here, and this would be Steamboat’s last official big event match for nearly 15 years

Steamboat celebrates with the belt post-match, but he’s holding his back and I believe he injured it whilst skinning the cat. This would eventually lead to Steamboat not really doing anything physical in the ring again until he did some stuff with CM Punk in ROH in 2004 before doing some matches for WWE in 2009.

The commentary crew plus Mean Gene discuss the Hulk Hogan injury. Eric Bischoff went to the hospital with The Hulkster, and says that Hogan is claiming that something snapped in the knee during the attack. Bobby is very happy that Hogan is injured and hopes the bedpan isn’t cold. How kind of him; he’s not only a great commentator but also a humanitarian.

Honky TonkMan is coming to WCW, and we get a look at a music video for The Honkenator, with a song that has obviously taken some inspiration from his WWF theme, but with enough changes to avoid any legal wranglings. Honky didn’t end up being much of a success during this brief WCW stint and he was gone by the end of the year. They probably could have done more with him, but then again he could have done more from his end of things too.

Mean Gene is with WCW Commissioner Nick Bockwinkel, who says that if Hulk Hogan can’t defend the belt tonight then it will be awarded to Ric Flair. The fans don’t like that, but the commish’s hands are kind of tied here.

We get clips of Dusty Rhodes asking to be Dustin Rhodes’ tag partner. Dusty does a very impassioned promo about how he neglected Dustin all his life, but now he has his back. Sadly Dusty and Dustin did end up falling out in real life for a bit when Dustin jumped to the WWF, but they mended fences later on. This was an excellent promo from Dusty and the crowd loved it. In other news, mixing blue and yellow together gets you green.

Match Three
The Stud Stable (Bunkhouse Buck & Terry Funk) w Col. Robert Parker and THE MONSTER MENG Vs The Rhodes’ (Dustin and Dusty)

The Stud Stable have been harassing and attacking Dustin for months, so he’s brought in the big guns to help him out here at Clash 28 by recruiting his dad into battle. The crowd is way into Dusty of course, especially when he and Dustin clear the ring to start. Once things settle down into a regular match, we get Dustin shining on both Heels and looking good whilst doing so. There had been some resentment towards Dustin early on due to folks thinking he was over-pushed due to his family connections, but I think even his most staunch of detractors would have to admit that Dustin was a very good worker by this stage in his career. Funk and Buck are both highly entertaining as bumping buffoons for the babyfaces, with Dusty eventually getting in there as well to throw some elbows and display his charisma.

Eventually the Heels use the power of cheating to cut Dustin off, which leads to our heat segment. Dustin does a grand job of selling that, although it doesn’t go on for long as Heel miscommunication leads to Dusty getting the hot tag and running wild, even busting out the dreaded double noggin knocker at one stage. Sadly for The Rhodes’, Arn Anderson (another member of the Stud Stable) comes out to cheap shot Dusty and that means Dustin has to make a one man comeback of his own. Dustin is succesful with that, and the Rhodes’ start teeing off on Buck. This leads to Anderson coming into the ring and that’s our expected DQ finish.

WINNERS BY DQ: THE RHODES’
RATING: **1/2

Thoughts: The crowd was HOSS for this and it was a decent TV match to set up bigger things for later. I’m not a massive fan of the DQ finish, especially as Buck was low enough down on the totem pole that he could have been pinned via roll-up or something after botched interference without it doing any damage to his or the Heels’ standing. However, we’ve got War Games still to come in this feud, so a DQ here to set up the big gimmick match is acceptable storytelling

Dustin gets laid out by the Heels following that, whilst Meng no sells a Dusty chair shot, in a call back to a previous Dusty angle when he did similar to Big Bubba back in the JCP days. Dusty is laid out following that too, which leads to Frankie Lancaster trying, and failing, to rescue The Rhodes boys. Groovy Greg Gagne even tries to help out, amongst other agents and security. This was a strong angle to put heat on the feud and build to the eventual pay off.

The Nasty Boys will be getting a Title shot on TV this week, so that win in the opener means something, which is good to know.

Eric Bischoff is still at the hospital, and he doesn’t have an update, but it doesn’t look good. Henry Holmes (Hogan’s lawyer) says that the doctor’s are really worried about the knee and Holmes has advised Hogan to give up the belt tonight in exchange for getting the first Title shot. Ed Leslie and Jimmy Hart look very worried, as Holmes says that Hogan will wrestle tonight. That was a decent segment, as everyone did an okay job at making it look like this might actually be real.

Ric Flair and Sensuous Sherri join Mean Gene for some promo time in the entrance way. Flair is of course extremely sympathetic to Hogan’s plight and even kindly offers to let Hogan personally surrender the Title to him later on without having to get hurt. What a great guy, how can you argue with such a polite and reasonable request?!

After the advert break, Mean Gene announces that Hogan is on his way back to the arena.

Match Four
Non-Title
World Television Champ Lord Steven Regal w/ Sir William of Dundee Vs Antonio Inoki

WCW and New Japan’s relationship was supposedly a bit strained at the time if Regal’s book is anything to go by, so they brought Inoki in here so that he could be treated as a big deal and get a win in order to smooth things over between the two companies. Inoki has the music that Akira Hokuto (try to contain yourselves Joshi Boyz) would eventually end up using, as for some reason WCW never bothered actually using the real entrance themes of the New Japan guys they booked. I’m guessing it was a rights issue? Apparently Regal catches Inoki with a live round early on, which leads to Inoki either bruising or outright breaking a rib, which limits what he can do for the majority of the bout.

In some ways it’s your standard Inoki match besides that, as they focus more on making it look like an actual fight, with lots of grabbing for holds and tussling on the mat. It’s the sort of match that I could very easily see some finding boring as it very much goes against what you expect to see from a North American Wrestling match. However, if hyper-realism is your thing then you might appreciate it more, although I wouldn’t say it was the best example of the genre just due to Inoki struggling to get through it at points due to his injury. It really is mostly Regal just swarming Inoki, with Inoki just trying to hang in there, which doesn’t give the crowd a tonne of chances to get behind the Japanese legend.

We see Hogan arrive as the bout rages on, which doesn’t really help out with getting an already less than enthused crowd in regards to this match. Honestly Inoki has done basically NOTHING here, as Regal has just thrown stiff strikes and applied holds. Regal’s strikes and holds have mostly looked fine, but the crowd has been given barely any reason to care here due to Inoki just laying around and getting beaten up and then they’ve added the Hogan storyline stuff to it in order to distract them further. A big fiery Inoki comeback could rescue this somewhat, as Inoki was always great at stuff like that, but we don’t get one, as Inoki just applies a choke and that’s the finish.

WINNER: INOKI
RATING: *

Thoughts: This was standard Inoki stuff to some degree, as a lot of his matches around this time would see him get battered for most of the match before catching the opponent in a hold of some kind for the win. Whereas that sort of stuff worked in Japan because Inoki was so over that the Japanese fans would be satisfied just to see him win, for a North American crowd they really needed more here. Inoki throwing punches, firing up and maybe busting out an Enziguri might have gotten the crowd to really react here and it would have at least given a pretty flat match an exciting conclusion that could have rescued it somewhat. As it was, it was just Regal working Inoki over until he slipped on a banana peel, which will work to some degree just because Regal is good at working that legitimate realistic style, but it was never going to be a match that the crowd was going to care about. I don’t know how much the Inoki injury changed the plan or if this was always what they wanted to go for here and Inoki just couldn’t do quite as much as he wanted due to his ribs being damaged. It really did feel like a textbook example of two wrestlers working for themselves as opposed to working for the audience though

Ric Flair comes out to taunt the crowd prior to the bout, with him of course telling an imaginary fan to “shut up” at one stage. Hulk Hogan eventually limps out and it appears as if he’s going to wrestle, so the match is on. WCW had actually done this whole thing with Rick Rude and Sting back in 1991, so it was probably too soon to do it again, but Hogan does at least get a good reaction for his entrance, so the crowd seems to be into the drama of it all.

Main Event
WCW World Title
Champ: Hulk Hogan w/ Jimmy “Mouth of the South” Hart Vs “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair w/ “Sensuous” Sherri Martel

Hogan takes it to Flair in the early going with punches and the like, with Flair doing a good job of selling it all. The only downside to the early exchanges is that Flair doesn’t even attempt to go after the leg and except tries throwing punches and chops in reply, which Hogan of course no sells. You can maybe explain it away that Flair is an arrogant jerk who believes that he can actually out fight The Hulkster and that’s why he isn’t going straight for the leg, but it would help if the announce team was getting that across. If Hogan was just pummelling Flair without Flair getting an opening then fair enough, but Flair has had plenty of openings to attack Hogan and he keeps targeting areas that make no sense and the commentary team aren’t covering for it when they could be.

The action itself is entertaining, as Flair Vs Hogan matches usually are, as Hogan just clobbers Flair a lot and Flair takes numerous nice looking bumps in order to make the Champion look good. It doesn’t make sense from a psychology standpoint, but it’s got good energy and the crowd is digging it, so it is what it is. After getting battered from pillar to post, including outside the ring at points, Flair does finally attack the knee and that’s the cut off, with Hogan selling it well and Sherri even coming into the ring for a cheap shot whilst Flair distracts the referee. Now that the match is actually starting to make some sense from a psychology standpoint, the story is finally matching the action, and it becomes the usual good match you’d expect from these two. They really did have good chemistry as opponents, although their matches didn’t always make the most sense sometimes.

Hogan eventually manages to survive the Figure Four and mount the comeback, with the crowd going wild for it. However, Hogan hurts his leg further when he delivers the Leg Drop of DOOM, and that means that Hogan cannot make the cover and Flair is able to recover. The psychology is making sense at last! Flair goes to the Figure Four again following that, which would be the finish if Flair was winning the belt tonight, but it’s too soon to switch it back so Hogan instead crawls under the ropes to save himself. Sherri gets another cheap shot in on Hogan whilst the referee isn’t looking though, and that leads to Hogan tumbling to the floor and being counted out. However, the belt doesn’t change hands on a count out (although no one thought to clue in poor Michael Buffer) so Hogan retains and we can run this again at Halloween Havoc.

WINNER BY COUNT OUT: RIC FLAIR (HOGAN RETAINS)
RATING: **1/2

Thoughts: I know some complain that Flair didn’t win the belt here, but I think that would have been a very odd booking decision seeing as Hogan had only just won it and it was WAY to too soon to switch it back if you wanted the belt to have any real prestige/credibility. The finish they did may not have been ideal, but it gave Flair a win without switching the belt, and opened the door for a third clash between the two later on in the year. The psychology in the opening half was pretty whack, as Flair didn’t even try to attack Hogan’s leg until the cut off, even though Hogan had it bandaged. If the opening exchanges had just been Hogan destroying Flair without Flair getting an opening then that would be one thing. You could say that a one-legged Hogan shouldn’t have had such a long shine without reply, but if you told the story of Hogan shooting out of the blocks at 100mph because he knew that he was on borrowed time and Flair being surprised by it until he got an opening to attack the leg, then it could have worked. However, Flair had numerous opportunities during the shine to attack the leg, but he just didn’t, which made no sense. Once the match became what it needed to be (Flair attacks the leg, Hogan sells) it actually became a really good match that the crowd was into, so it was a tale out two bouts in the end. The rating hopefully reflects that accurately

Flair and the mysterious Masked Man from earlier attack Flair following the match, with Ed Leslie being conspicuous by his absence. Sting eventually makes the save, but Flair steals the belt in order to keep the feud cooking.

In Conclusion

The US Title match was excellent, and the crowd loved the Main Event, so I’d say that Clash 28 gets a mild thumbs up. Regal Vs Inoki didn’t really work, and there were clear issues with the psychology in the Main Event, but the show did a decent job of advancing storylines overall and WCW paid off both the Parker/Rhodes and Flair/Hogan angles satisfactorily at Fall Brawl and Halloween Havoc respectively, so we’ll get to those later in the year

Show mildly recommended