Clash of the Champions XXIV

December 10, 2014

Clash XXIV took place August 18, 1993 from Daytona Beach, Florida. It drew 8903 people, the largest WCW crowd of 1993 to that point. Unfortunately only 2400 of those were paid, the other 6500 were comps. The event also pulled a 3.8 rating on TBS the highest Clash rating in almost 2 years. This Clash was shorter than previous Clashes having been cut to 2 hrs, which did lead to shorter matches. Once again we had Tony Schiavone and Jesse Ventura on commentary, and like the previous Clash Michael Buffer doing ring introductions for Title matches. Buffer probably added a little bit of atmosphere to the title matches but I can't imagine it added enough to justify his pay cheque.

Steve Austin & Steven Regal vs. Arn Anderson & Paul Roma (World Tag Titles): The Hollywood Blondes were the tag champs but Pillman was injured and since he had a history of bogus injuries WCW forced them to defend the tag titles anyway, so Lord Steven Regal replaced him in this match to defend the titles. Anderson and Roma were fellow Horsemen at this time as well. This match was a lot of fun, and in my opinion the best match on the card. Some great tag work and when Arm picked up the win to capture the titles the crowd went absolutely nuts.

Bobby Eaton vs. 2 Cold Scorpio: This match was only 5 mins and wasn't very good. These guys just didn't gel together so the match didn't work that well. Scorpio won with a 450 and it looked like Bobby might have caught a knee to the face on it. They just didn't have enough time to make this a good match and with a couple clumsy spots it was okay at best. I usually use Wikipedia for match times when typing these but the times on this Clash just seemed way off so I double checked in the Observer Newsletter and sure enough the Wikipedia times are WAY off.

Max Payne vs. Johnny B. Badd: This seemed like the blow off match to the feud that was started on the last Clash when Payne shot Badd in the face with his confetti gun. Badd was wearing a mask because he was supposedly scarred from the confetti gun shot to the face. This match was Badd's mask vs. Payne's guitar. The highlight of this match was Payne being introduced as hailing from the state of euphoria. This match was no good. Payne's ring attire looked like the cheapest low end Indy guy today. He wore a baggy black T-shirt and what looked like a pair of Wal-Mart black spandex cycling shorts. Match was less than 3 minutes and that's about the most I can say about it. There was no comeback, no near falls; Payne missed a splash off the second rope and Badd covered him for the pin. Holy Crap this was bad, no pun intended.

Up next we got one of the most infamous segments in WCW history. It was the Flair for the Gold segment featuring the debut of the ShockMaster. It started as an interview with Sting and Davey to hype up I believe an upcoming War Games match. Sid Vicious and Harlem Heat crashed the party, leading to Sting and Davey introducing their new partner the ShockMaster. We then get a flash of light and a minor explosion blowing out a wall and then Fred Ottman (Tug Boat) burst through the wall wearing a big furry/velvety vest and a silver sparkly Stormtrooper helmet. If this ridiculous outfit wasn't bad enough as he steps through the wall he trips and falls flat on his face. Flair must have known how bad this was going to be because right before the introduction he hightails it out the back door and gets out of this segment. We hear everyone's reactions to this disaster as Ottman puts his helmet back on and stand up attempting unsuccessfully to look menacing. We then get a bad voice over promo, which everyone can tell is piped in and not really this guy talking. It is one of the worst segments of all time, and the funny part is that even if the dude hadn't fallen down and made this a complete joke it still would have sucked because at the end of the day it was Tug Boat in a Bedazzled Stormtrooper helmet.

Paul Orndorff vs. Ricky Steamboat (TV Title): Jesse Ventura was still laughing over the ShockMaster segment during these guy's ring introductions. This match started off really slow and since it only went 8:31 I have no idea why. Maybe they realized the crowd was still laughing at the ShockMaster and they didn't want to take bumps when the crowd wasn't paying attention. Thankfully it picked up really well at the end with a lot of good pinning combinations for near falls. Steamboat ended up winning the title, the same way he won the Intercontinental Title from Randy Savage and Mania III, with a small packages out of a body slam attempt. Crowd reacted strong on the finish, and Orndorff attacked Steamboat after the match and pile drove him on the title belt, so I guess this feud was just getting started.

Ric Flair & Sting vs. The Awesome Kongs: The Kongs were two 500 lbs fat guys under masks managed by Harley Race. I don't remember these guys having a run in WCW, I think they were just brought in for this match as a bridge to the PPV where Sting and Flair were facing Sid and Vader who were also managed by Race. At the start of the match Tony was putting over how no one has ever taken these big guys off their feet and then in the opening spot Sting bumps and slams them both. This was a 2 minutes squash match where Flair never even tagged into the match. Sting won with a Splash off the top on one of the Kongs while Flair was on the floor chopping the other.

Rick Rude & The Equalizer vs. Dustin Rhodes and Hawk: Hawk was a mystery partner. It was originally teased to be Animal but Hawk also showed up and he was the one in the match. This was the return and reuniting of the Road Warriors which got a great reaction but the match wasn't that great. The Equalizer would later become Evad Sullivan who basically did the Eugene mentally challenged gimmick (Evad was Dave spelled backwards) without Nick Dinsmores wrestling ability. Rude did not look happy tagging with this guy and I don't blame him. Match wasn't that good primarily due to the Equalizer, but the crowd popped when Dustin got the win.

Vader vs. Davey Boy (WCW Title): This match likely would have been much better back in 1993. They relied heavily on big moves and big bumps that would have been very impressive and rare back then but are a bit more run of the mill today. It also suffered from what I call the Flair curse in that after years of long classic Flair World Title matches any Title match that goes less than 25-30 minutes just doesn't feel significant enough. This match went 11. In the Observer from back then this match got most votes for best match on the show but for me watching in 2014 the opener was a far better match. After a ref bump and a visual pin for Davey, Race chop blocked Davey while he had Vader up for a Suplex. Vader landed on Davey for the pin to retain his title. Cactus Jack ran in after the match to attack Vader as the show went off the air.

A decent but not a great show; a great opener, a solid main event, with some short okay matches in the middle, and of course one of the worst segments of all time: The ShockMaster debut.

Lance Storm


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