Ric Flair & Barry Windham vs. The Midnight Express (Clash of the Champions IV- All Dream Matches!)

Welcome back to more Dream Matches! This one is a match I’ve been meaning to get to since it was uploaded to the WCW YouTube channel, but I wanted to do the whole show and just never had the time until now- it’s Clash of the Champions IV: Season’s Beatings– headlined by Ric Flair & Barry Windham against the babyface Midnight Express! Plus Dusty Rhodes vs. Road Warrior Animal! Main event in any arena in the country as Ivan Koloff takes on Paul Jones, but with one hand tied behind his back! “Dr. Death” Steve Williams has an astonishingly long match against The Italian Stallion! And Ron Simmons & Eddie Gilbert take on The Fantastics for the vacant US Tag Team Titles!

And then some hideous garbage as my PWI 500 watchthrough leads to AK Willis, a barely-trained guy taking on even worse wrestlers! In TWO MATCHES because I wanted to give him a second chance! So watch him against Jason Andrews, then Dragonfly Kai! I dare you!

CLASH OF CHAMPIONS IV: SEASON’S BEATINGS:
(NWA, Dec. 7th 1988)
* I’ve been meaning to get to the Main Event for a WHILE- like a year or so at least- but just never got around to it, I think because the whole show kinda needs a look-over. I’m no NWA expert (my intro to non-WWF wrestling was some Power Hour stuff with Van Hammer, lol) but most of these are pretty big matches.

US TAG TEAM TITLE TOURNAMENT FINAL:
RON SIMMONS & “HOT STUFF” EDDIE GILBERT vs. THE FANTASTICS (Bobby Fulton & Tommy Rogers):
* Crockett’s territory at one point had such a hot tag title scene they had TWO tag belts! The Fantastics are a good second-tier babyface tag team- undersized by good workers. They’re in matching plain blue trunks & boots, Ron’s in pastel blue & Eddie’s in long white tights.

Fulton does a lot of “this guy’s too strong” spots with Simmons, which looks funny cuz he’s the babyface vs. Ron, and fans laugh as he sells agony when he does some shoulderblocks. He scores some NICE dropkicks but gets backbreakered, then press-slammed as we take a look at Jason Hervey of “The Wonder Years”, a big NWA fan and them attempting to match WWF’s popularity with celebrities. You can kinda see the Fantastics struggle a big with big rookie Simmons so in comes Gilbert for a super-fast routine with Rogers. Gilbert can’t keep a sunset flip but does a strut, but Fulton wiggles his butt after avoiding a hiptoss. Rogers scores a dropkick on Simmons but misses a flying elbow- Simmons immediately pounces with a three-point stance, but Rogers bumps way into the ropes, showing Ron’s lack of experience as he follows up immediately but doesn’t check his positioning. Nice flopping bump into the ropes by Rogers. Gilbert/Rogers have an ugly chain-wrestling exchange that actually looks GOOD because it feels real, nasty, and fought for. But Rogers quickly just hiptosses out and Fulton comes in to slow the pace. Yes this is hitting 20, isn’t it? Fulton gets hot with Gilbert and manages to dodge Ron’s flying shoulderblock- he collides with the corner and the Fantastics tee off on his arm for a while until Ron is finally able to escape with an elbow. Gilbert hits a neckbreaker & suplex for twos on Rogers, but puts his head down and is suplexed himself- both tag out and Simmons misses ANOTHER elbow and takes Fulton’s offense, and the Fantastics do a punch/kneelift (hey! Does Jim Powers know they’re splitting up his finishing sequence?!) for two, but Ron uses raw power to shove Fulton into the corner.

Gilbert works Fulton over, Fulton flopping around with Southern babyface fire, and Gilbert works the back and backdrop suplexes him. Ron works the arm for some reason, then charges into the post, but Fulton goes up and Ron hits a HUGE mid-air powerslam in a giant babyface moment that pops the crowd. haha, is he a babyface now? Gilbert’s in but goes into the post, then flies off into the guardrail, buggering his arm. He tries to fight one-armed as JR puts over his guts, and Rogers tears him apart for it. The Fantastics beat on the arm for like eight straight minutes, Gilbert selling pretty well but also being kind of a heel so the fans aren’t REALLY behind him, and he fights and fights, repeatedly getting countered back. Gilbert finally shoves Rogers into the corner out of a hammerlock, but Fulton immediately nails him. He rolls Gilbert back into the ring out of sportsmanship but gets hotshotted into the ropes. Gilbert mounts this one-armed comeback with his right fist, but charges into the corner and posts himself again, and THAT scores the pin for Fulton at (27:02). Okay I thought they were gonna go to the time limit, I’ll admit it. Everyone shows appreciation for one another, as I guess everyone is a good guy.

A very long, good match (though by 24 minutes in you’re like “GET TO THE FUCKIN’ POINT!”), though funny in that nobody plays heel for the most part- most of Ron’s stuff comes off as “Young Babyface”-coded, using raw power and exuberance. That powerslam was AWESOME. I liked the psychology of him being a super-athlete but inexperienced, throwing too many wild shots and getting easily dodged by his quicker opponents. But yeah, the Fantastics are in here working limbs and doing quick tags, Gilbert is bravely fighting through injury, Simmons is doing all these big, hot moves. They sorta run out of story 20 minutes in and it turns into Gilbert bravely fighting through an arm injury as they kill time and prevent tags, and that’s a little too long into a tag match to be killing ten extra minutes doing slow work. Gilbert appears to be a babyface by the end, but makes a tactical error of fighting on his own after making a comeback, and that costs his team the gold.

Rating: **1/2 (decent psychology with good wrestling, and was looking to be near *** until they just sat on their butts for the last 8 minutes)

Lex Luger does a sit-down interview with Tony Schiavone that largely goes nowhere. A natural mic worker, Lex was not.

“DR. DEATH” STEVE WILLIAMS (w/ Kevin Sullivan) vs. THE ITALIAN STALLION:
* And now a squash with a rookie Dr. Death against the Italian Stallion! (edit: omg APPARENTLY NOT) Williams is in a crimson singlet. Sullivan, the manager, does a boastful interview with Mike Rotunda, claiming that Rick Steiner is a moron (well… that’s just facts), then do an awful “HOW DUMB IS HE?” “Rick Stine-aww is so dumb, he tinks that stickin’ me forty feet in the air is gonna stop me from doin’ anything!” “Rick Stine-aww I’ve been incaw-cerated MANY TIMES, and I always ex-scaped!”.

Williams starts off with a fireman’s carry, but Stallion leads him through an International, winning with a shoulderblock/hiptoss/dropkick. Williams does some amateur-style limb manipulation to come back, but Stallion clotheslines him down and Williams kills time on the floor. Williams pulls off a Samoan drop (then called a “fallaway slam”) but misses an elbow and I think Stallion’s already a bit winded. Stallion humps the arm in a proto-jujjgatame but Williams gets to his feet and leverages him for pinning combos and uses the ropes, but the ref kicks his arm off them and Stallion goes for a pin. He repeatedly avoids shots and hits a crossbody for two, but goes to the floor on a kickout, then gets dumped again as they kill more time. I THOUGHT HE WAS A JOBBER WHAT IS THIS? Williams brings Stallion in the hard way for two, but the kid does a fired up WWF-style punching comeback, but they collide and I guess he takes the worst of it. Williams hits the sleeper (OH GOD NO), this goes on for ages, and the Stallion fires back and hits a big clothesline, but he tries another elbow and eats shit. Is that his only transition? Williams hits a bad dropkick and massages the Stallion’s calves as a submission (seriously he’s not even bending the legs out of position), then dumps him- Sullivan adds a shot and Williams hits an axehandle off the apron. Stallion mounts a short comeback but gets atomic dropped, reverses a sleeper, then dodges a Flying Splash (!) so the Stallion can fire off punches, a powerslam (no cover), and a corner splash, but Williams catches him and that’s all- Oklahoma Stampede (running powerslam) finishes at (15:18). THANK CHRIST.

Totally awful match, as neither guy had the offense to go this long, the Stallion seemed totally blown up and could ONLY do punches and jobber offense, Williams was green, and they had to build 15 minutes off of that. So you get tons of restholds, weird leverage bits, extended selling on the floor, cheating, etc. It’s funny that there was this “NWA wuz good wrasslin/WWF wuz slow slugs” mentality as these two guys had a more sluggish match that all but the worst WWF house shows on a big TV show.

Rating: DUD (it’d be a basic 1/2*-* nothing match but few sins are greater than going too long, and these guys couldn’t have had a good match in three minutes, let alone fifteen)

See, right away we get an issue with the NWA’s presentation- this is supposed to be a big show on free TV, putting their best foot forward, and the first two matches are a LONG 30-minute segment of a slow-paced match and then 15 minutes of a rookie taking on a jobber. WWF wasn’t always the most well-booked promotion but you know Vince would never start off a Saturday Night’s Main Event like that. While you’d get Jim Powers vs. Boris Zhukov for 15 minutes sometimes, that was only as time filler on house shows; not something he presented to the entire world on a big show.

Meanwhile, Magnum T.A. does an interview and brings in the Junkyard Dog! Who immediately starts stuttering and making weird faces and HOLY SHIT this man is on all the drugs right now, “Ya know, I was on my way from North Cackalacka- by way of South Cackalacka!”, jittering his head around and bugging his eyes out in different directions and making absolutely ZERO sense. I mean, I checked the Mayo Clinic’s website for signs of drug addiction and it’s just a link back to this promo. Jesus Christ.

KOLOFF HAS ONE HAND TIED BEHIND HIS BACK:
IVAN KOLOFF vs. PAUL JONES:
* AMAZING. Upstanding babyface Ivan Koloff of Ukraine must wrestle with one hand tied behind his back against manager (former wrestler) Paul Jones. Jones looks unimpressive but at least somewhat bulky- an aging jobber look. The ref is a very skinny Teddy Long.

Koloff has one had wrapped up with ropes all over, making it amusing that he still strangles Jones with one hand and sends him scurrying off like a coward. He keeps putting his dukes up (establishing how unready he is for an actual fight) while Ross buries him as “over the hill” as far as wrestler shape is considered. Koloff shrugs off some punches and still gets an ankle-pick, then Jones begs off from a single headbutt, then goes bolt-straight and faceplants off of another. Koloff one-hand chokes him and is decisively in the lead when Jones finally grabs a kick and boots him in the thigh area, then works him over with his fists. Jones now CHEATS using Koloff’s own rope, then dumps him and works him over on the floor, pushing him into the post and stomping on the free hand. He even sweeps out the hand repeatedly and dares Ivan to get up and fight like a man, haha. Koloff makes a comeback with punches and Jones GRABS A WEAPON (to even the odds in a one-hand-tied-behind-the-back match, lol). The dreaded tiny piece of metal the size of a pen naturally pierces Ivan’s throat and leaves him thrashing around on the mat, but he quickly recovers, pushes Jones out, then grabs the weapon himself and uses it for the pin (7:28). Plucky babyface Ivan Koloff wins against extreme odds! But those dastardly Russian Assassins come out and kick Ivan’s ass while he’s still got one hand tied behind his back! They hit a move off the top on him but the Junkyard Dog has finally had his fill of cocaines and has arrived to see them off!

Too long for what it was, but felt like an Attitude Era sprint compared to the other matches, and did what it came out to do. Though Koloff has to be the worst babyface I’ve ever seen, just looking like a generic grizzled NWA guy with a pot belly and ugly beard- no getting fired up, reacting to the fans, etc. Jones was a tolerable wuss, being overconfident and arrogant when he was cheating, being brave when his handicapped opponent was in trouble, then flailing around every time Koloff came back on him.

Rating: *1/2 (fine for what it was- it’ll win no awards but Jones came off like a bitch)

More scintillating rambling from a bored-sounding Lex Luger who has no point to make at all and nothing but cliches to say. Also Rick Steiner is here and doing a “mentally handicapped guy” gimmick, talking to a face drawn onto his hand named “Alex” and being confused by everything Magnum TA says. Then adds “Mike Rotunda I’m gonna beat you to DEATH!” to a guy they’ve been calling “Mike Rotundo” all show. Ted DiBiase told me personally it was “Rotunda” (“He’s Italian and I’m Italian, so I would know”)!

It’s been a while since we’ve had a good maiming angle, hasn’t it? Remember when Jericho’s stable stabbed Moxley in the eye, so he stabbed Santana’s? That shit MADE Santana. Guys should do more eye-stabbing!

WINNER CHOOSES PARTNERS TO BE SIX-MAN TAG CHAMPIONS:
DUSTY RHODES vs. ROAD WARRIOR ANIMAL (w/ Paul Ellering):
* So the Road Warriors have gone heel on Dusty, Dusty bravely assuming the Roadies wouldn’t just get cheered over him- they memorably dragged Dusty down and stabbed him in the eye. Dusty comes out with an eyepatch and white paint around it to taunt the Road Warriors.

Dusty comes in and immediately ducks Animal, who knows who the booker is judging by how he’s flailing his arms around off of every shot. Dusty misses an elbow (who agented this show? That’s the 9th case of that spot tonight?) and Animal gets one, but he collides with the post and Dusty wraps his leg around the steel post while the fans go BANANA. Dusty elbows the referee out of the ring for getting too close to him, so the dumbass gets his eye smashed by Ellering when he tries to Figure-Four Animal. Animal tries to gouge the eye and pull the patch off, but you can’t get heat on DUSTY for more than 10 seconds because sure enough, he Flair Uppercuts Animal in the nuts and he gouges ANIMAL’s eye. Hawk comes in and they beat Dusty’s ass, which draws out Sting after a double-team- he fights Hawk to the floor and Dusty grabs a big plastic chair to smash Animals’ knee and go to town on him, and that’s the Double Disqualification at (2:59).

Dusty matches are sooooooooo funny, hahaha. Like he won’t sell ANYTHING for more than 10 seconds, so he immediately makes his own comeback and humiliates the heel. It’s just so outrageously selfish. Even ’80s Hogan knew the value of selling for 5-8 minutes in a row to set up the comeback, because it’d get the fans even more into it, but Dusty is in full “90s Hogan” mode where he doesn’t wanna look weak against a ROAD WARRIOR so he just has to come back and look like a huge badass. But I mean, he was over.

Rating: ** (fun brawl, if short- about as good as Dusty/Animal was gonna be in 1988 anyways with all the clusterfuckery)

RIC FLAIR & BARRY WINDHAM (w/ J.J. Dillon) vs. THE MIDNIGHT EXPRESS (Beautiful Bobby Eaton & Sweet Stan Lane, w/ Jim Cornette):
* A pretty legitimate Dream Match, as Flair typically didn’t deal with the tag ranks that much. The Midnights are in lavender gear (Stan trunks and Bobby tights), while Barry’s in black trunks and Flair dark purple. Flair is the current NWA World Champion, while WIndham is the US Champion.

Flair & Eaton start us off, Ric doing a “WOOOOOO-” and immediately getting slapped onto his ass for it. Eaton won’t back down from Barry and Flair sells the shit out of the shock of being slapped, and comes back with chops only to eat Eaton’s laser-like punches and get backdropped for his mandatory Sieg Hiel sell. Wait, is anyone here a heel? Flair Flip in the corner and he stumbles right into Stan’s fist. Stan does HONKY MARTIAL ARTS with his ridiculous side kick- Flair catches the next one and tags out, but Stan hits the Owen enzuigiri and intimidates Barry with his karate pose. 6’5″ Barry just SAILS off a dropkick, but manages to pummel Stan in the corner with right hands, but goes up and OF COURSE misses an elbowdrop. Good thing Randy Savage isn’t wrestling this show! Barry takes a huge over-the-top bump off a wimpy thrust kick and MAN he is moving insanely well in this era. Windham goes sailing back into the ring on a slingshot and tags out, then Flair loses a lightning-fast International with Eaton. Eaton slams everyone and then stops a double-team with dual clotheslines! They’re doing a really good job of showing how the Midnights’ teamwork/experience is letting them mess with the better singles stars. Flair & Windham are either doing things solo or getting in each other’s way. The heels bail and talk it out, but Lane promptly hits the Figure-Four on Flair, leading Eaton to drag Barry into one, too! Lane slingshots in and pops an elbow to get two on Flair, who backflips off KARATE and bets off Eaton, but manages his slick knee to the gut. Flair pops him in the mouth and Bobby checks his teeth on the sell (NOBODY does this anymore!), and a big slugfest goes Bobby’s way!

When did Flair get that lump on his back removed? I swear he didn’t have it after 2000. It was definitely there during the Nitro era.

Flair finally elbows Stan down and tags out, and Barry hits a powerslam for two while Paul E. Dangerously talks shit about the Midnight Express and how his original Midnights are better. Ah, this is during THAT angle. Flair goes up and of course gets slammed off, then Bobby gets 5 punches in the corner before Flair Flips over the other side and goes up, landing into Bobby’s fist and taking a neckbreaker. Flair takes a double-facebuster- Dillon puts Flair’s foot on the rope. Flair kicks out of an O’Connor Roll and Windham smokes Bobby from behind- he tags in and slugs Eaton to the floor and a biiiiiiiiiiiig delayed suplex back in drops him. Powerslam sets up that classic Flair kneedrop and Flair, pissy over Eaton humiliating him during the match, starts slapping his downed opponent in the face, bootraking him and more. DICK. Eaton shitcans off a big punch and Windham drops him on the guardrail, sending Lane to get at him and Flair adds an axehandle & chop while the ref gets rid of Stan. Flair chops & whips Bobby off the ropes for a big diagonal lariat from Windham, but Eaton kicks out at one. Saito suplex, kneedrop & sleeperhold and Bobby’s in TROUBLE, and when he hiptosses out, long-limbed Barry just tags in Flair and they kick his ass again, but Eaton’s punches are so frequent that Flair starts to feel them, and a shot right to the beak has him like “OWWWWWWW!” and motioning for a tag, only to Flair Flop in the middle of the ring! Lane with the hot tag! Karate and backdrops for everyone! Double noggin knocker! And Barry is staggered and they hit him high & low at once to drop him! Flair backflips over the top on a savate kick and it’s the ALABAMA JAM to Windham! Dillon hits the apron and BABYFACE JIM CORNETTE gets a hero’s response for racketing the shit out of him and throttling his ass, but this is the distraction the heels need- Flair uses the NWA’s most lethal weapon- A SHOE WITHOUT A FOOT IN IT- and clobbers Eaton so Barry can lean over and get the pin (17:41). HEEL CHICANERY!

Man, this is so tremendous. Good old NWA putting on 4 of their best workers in a match that’s pretty much designed to be awesome. Windham in particular was a VISION- there’s this magical period in the late 1980s where Barry Windham just moves better than any wrestler in history and it’s amazing to watch- just leaping up to the top rope like a gazelle, sailing around off of simple strikes, wildly overselling and launching himself over the top, etc. It’s astonishing. He was too tall and lanky to ever be that good for long and he got lazy FAST but there’s this magical point in time we can look back on fondly! And everyone else here was on point, too- you can’t ask for better execution in 1988 than Eaton & Flair. Stan was fine, too- his karate looks goofy as shit once you see like… any Japanese wrestlers at all, but it serves its purpose, as much as this match establishes why Eaton is the better of the two by far. Once you have Flair and Eaton just unloading on each other with punches, elbows and chops you’re getting the good shit, then everyone is bumping and selling their asses off.

Rating: ****1/4 (now THIS is how you stick it to the WWF- do the kind of match they almost never put on TV)

So it’s a pretty weak TV show to start, but the final two matches deliver- a short brawl to set up future stuff with the top acts, then a great Midnights vs. Flair/Windham match. That one is all-out awesome and has tons of great stuff you rarely saw (the Midnights didn’t do a lot of work with the big singles names, and most promotions with wrestlers this good tended to split them up and use them to carry other guys), was a legitimate dream match, and had tons of effort from some of the best.

THIS WEEK’S PWI 500 GUY: AK WILLIS:
Appearances: #498 in 2023

-AK Willis is a sorta flabby, out of shape-looking black dude working mostly out of Maryland and Delaware. Nearly every clip I can find looks poor even by the standards of the indies- some of it’s flat-out “wrestling in front of 15 people in a tiny back warehouse”-level stuff or “wrestling outside in front of 30 people”. He can almost KINDA work, but probably isn’t even good enough to be a jobber on TV, and generally looks like he’s sorta trained and is forced to carry guys in their first matches on a podunk indie like Dynamite Championship Wrestling. And… the Eastern Wrestling Association? The SUSQUEHANNA Wrestling Organization?? Looks like he wrestles from 2018 to 2023 before giving it up (just in time for his $35 to PWI to clear and get him on the PWI 500). Checking his Facebook, looks like he got a BAD knee injury in 2024 and spent a year on the shelf getting fairly swole.

“THE ARSENAL” AK WILLIS vs. JASON ANDREWS:
(Dynamite Championship Wrestling)
* Jason is very “modern indie nobody”, being a scrawny white guy with a formless, skinny body and modern detailed tights. This is some field somewhere, with a line of ten fans on one side of the ring and people sorta standing wherever on the other corners. Man, why even film this at this point?

Willis slaps Andrews during a break in the corner and falls on his ass from Jason’s own, then some “body shots” put him down as the camera is once again WAY TOO CLOSE to be recording such loosey-goosey offense. He’s whiffing by a FOOT on some of these knees! Then Andrews “floats around” him and catches him with an armbar, but Willis just slides out like it wasn’t even applied. I think Willis gives Andrews a charlie horse and uses it to hit a thrust kick-esque thing to the back of the head. Ass avalanche in the corner gets two after some chops. Took me a minute or so to figure out but Willis can KINDA work and Andrews has no idea what he’s doing. Too flaily and scrambly. Willis hits a “haymaker”, snapmare, chinlock and spinebuster for two, but they do-si-do and Andrews hits an Erik Watts-level dropkick to the ass to take over. Three back elbows and two knees hit, but Willis leapfrogs and goes down with a knee injury, getting the official to fend off Andrews while he’s looked at. He then springs to life with a double-knee in the corner (Hey! His leg is just fine! LIAR!) and a Ripcord Clothesline finishes at (6:44). Simply terrible- Andrews was flaily and incompetent, stumbling around, hitting loose offense and selling poorly (the double-knee in the corner leads to the finish and he just kinda takes the move and slowly walks out like an old man holding his back).

Rating: DUD (another disaster)

“THE ARSENAL” AK WILLIS vs. DRAGONFLY KAI (w/ Some Skinnier Guy in the Same Mask):
(Dynamite Championship Wrestling, Feb. 19th 2019)
* One more shot for Willis! Kai is an obesitron in an ill-fitting lucha mask and… normal clothing. He forget his gear? Why is he BAREFOOT? There’s like 40 people here maybe.

Commentator asks his co-host if he knows anything about Kai and there’s nothing but silence as Kai hits “knee thrusts” and does the worst Standing Shooting Star Press I’ve ever seen, kinda just fatly turning in mid-air. Kai with a “leg-lace” (sorta) but Willis bumps him into the ropes and hits a neckbreaker from behind. He hits a bodyslam and Kai is so hurt he can barely resist Willis trying to unmask him, but he fights out of a chinlock so loose it exposes the business, only to run into a leg lariat for two. Ass avalanche from Willis hits, but he misses another and gets a “slap-punch” before falling down. Kai uses “martial arts” to fight back, doing hilariously bad fat-guy theatrics before throwing chops (Willis generously choosing the “backwards rolling flip” sell off the second). He’s so out of breath he can’t even fight up right, and tries a fireman’s something- Willis escapes, avoids a ripcord clothesline and hits his own for the pin (6:29). Again terrible- Willis comes off like he trained a bunch of goobers who paid him $30 bucks and gets to beat them in terrible matches because they wrestle more or less like all they know how to do is not be stiff. Everything they do looks like if a normal person with no training tried it. I was almost like “the fat guy can do a standing shooting star?” before realizing he didn’t actually flip but just spun, lol.

Rating: DUD (is this Kai dude just some guy off the street or what?)