NWA Clash of the Champions 7 – Guts and Glory (6.14.89) review 

 

June 14,1989 

 

Flag Day.  

 

We’re Fort Bragg, North Carolina. If that sounds like a military base, rather than an actual venue…you’d be correct. It’s a big old military base, just outside Fayetteville, NC. I went to have a poke around it on street view and you can’t! It’s off the grid. This aired live on TBS and is hosted by Jim Ross and Bob Caudle. This is the show after the famous Flair-Steamboat III/Terry Funk heel turn angle so now Steamboat faces Funk in singles. To allow Funk to get ranked as a contender and for Steamboat to defend Flair’s honour after Flair put him over when he won the title. It’s a good excuse to slap together a Steamboat-Funk match in a year famous for their matches against Flair.  

We have a raucous (/drunk) crowd full of army types. HOO-RAH! Jim Ross is all “yeah, spend your summer training and you too could have career in the army instead of lounging around on the beach. Get shot at by brown people. Come home in a body part or in parts. Yes, it’s a man’s life in the army”. He also implies Missy Hyatt fucked a few of the soldiers. What a treat for the troops! Ranger Ross is an obvious poster boy for this whole thing. Every day is Flag Day when you’re Ranger Ross.  

 

Dynamic Dudes vs. Fabulous Freebirds 

The latest idea for the Dudes is FRISBEES because they can chuck them into the crowd and don’t have to ride skateboards. This is the new and improved Freebirds with Jimmy Garvin having signed up. Garvin hadn’t been seen since the Tower of Doom match last summer. The Dudes are actually over, despite Shane fucking up a clothesline in the early going. 

 

This crowd rules. Maybe Jimmy Herd was onto something here. Hayes struts once and they’re pelting the crowd with garbage. It’s a dream! It’s a shame they get this match with this heat. It’s all backwards. I don’t know what you’ve heard about the Dynamic Dudes but they fucking suck. Hand-slapping babyface Shane Douglas doesn’t compute and Johnny Ace is so bad he had to make a career in Japan where personality wasn’t required.  

 

Ok, wait, wait, wait, I can hear the complaints already. But Arn, you say, Johnny Ace was in loads of great matches. Johnny Ace has had X amount of ****+ matches to his name. Yeah, because Johnny Ace wrestled for All Japan in the mid 90s. Johnny Ace was in matches with some of the best wrestlers the world has ever seen. If I was tagging with 1995 Doc Death against Jun Akiyama and Mitsuharu Misawa, I’d have a load of ****+ matches too.  

 

The finish is molten as Shane has it won with a roll up but Hayes sneaks in and drills him with the DDT. The heat on this was off the hook. You’d think they were watching the greatest match of all time. That alone makes this worth checking out. **½ 

 

This was how wrestling promotions used to fleece kids out of money in the 80s. Ring up the hotline and listen to Jim Ross speculate about who might be leaving the WWF. Only $2 a minute!  

 

The Terrorist vs. Ranger Ross 

THE TERRORIST! Obviously, it’s just Jack Victory in a mask but what the fuck lads? How dare you bring a Terrorist to an army base. On Flag Day, of all days.  

“This is real America here. I’d like to be drinking a Coors Lite and eating a slice of Domino’s pizza” says Jim Ross, which is a totally normal thing to say, and not a required sponsorship ad read. Ross (Ranger, not Jim) looks dreadful here doing patriotic karate and he finishes with the Combat Kick in about a minute. This was like watching Goldberg if Goldberg was 78% more clumsy.  

 

Music Video: Roadwarriors, set to a knock off version of “Iron Man”. “We are Iron Maaaan”. Sure. Sure. It’s like the DDP Nirvana knock off where all the notes are just slightly off key.  

 

Great Muta Demonstration 

Eddie Gilbert has challenged Muta and if Muta wins a coin toss the match will be “dragon shy” and no one knows what that is. Gary Hart calls a couple of jobbers “gaijin”. Gilbert rushes the ring and tries to fireball Muta, but he misses and kills one of the jobbers. Poor Trent Knight, we hardly knew ye.  

We get a slo-mo replay, exposing how the fireball works. Trent Knight (19xx-1989 RIP). A horrible tragedy, made worse by it happening on Flag Day. The Knight family will never look at the stars and bars the same way again.  

 

George South & Cougar Jay vs. The Ding Dongs 

Jim Herd’s latest idea is a doozer. So, he created a concept where there was a tag team of hunchbacks, who could never lose because you couldn’t pin them. I’m sure this sounded great in his head. Where would you even find two hunchbacks? Anyway, Ole Anderson talked him out of it, and we were left with this dazzling concept. Two masked guys who like bells. 

 

Ross and Caudle try to get it over, but the constant ringing of bells gets so annoying even the troops fucking HATE them. Keeping in mind, this crowd has been molten for everything so far and they’re actively shitting on this. Herd’s concept was dead in the water and the Ding Dongs got buried and were gone within a month. A proper Hall of Fame Wrestlecrap entry. “Oh, that was horrible” – JR. He couldn’t help himself could he. The worst thing that’s ever happened on Flag Day.  

 

Midnight Express vs. Samoan Swat Team 

This is the other semi-final in the tag tournament. The winners face the Freebirds. Knowing a heel team is already in the final makes an SST win unlikely. Some drunk soldier tries to bum rush the ring and is removed by military police. Fatu and Lane fuck up a backdrop so badly in the opening exchanges I laugh out loud. Like a loud high-pitched whoop of amusement.  

 

The one positive about this mess is that at least they get the crowd back with a good old-fashioned heel/face structure. I’m shocked that Paul Heyman, a New York lawyer type, isn’t popular with the troops. The match is only five minutes, and they fly through it. Fatu heads up top but the Roadwarriors run in, to A HUGE pop, and they take out Fatu leaving the MXP to win. The pop was so loud you couldn’t hear the pinfall, the bell or anything. A pop deserving of Flag Day.  

 

Video Control gives us footage of Terry Funk assaulting Ric Flair after his title victory at Wrestlewar. A very sweaty Jim Ross talks a bit about it. If he whips that jacket off, you’re going to see some big old sweat patches.  

We also learn about this Triple Crown King of the Hill concept. Which is a bit like World War III in an early form. Basically, if you get chucked out of ring one you go into ring two. The last guy in ring one then wrestles the last guy in ring two. The World War III concept was this ramped up with 60 guys in two rings, until that number dwindled down and they all piled into a third ring. Both concepts are needlessly complicated and clearly everyone at Turner was upset the WWF lads thought of the Royal Rumble first.  

 

Terry Gordy vs. Steve Williams 

I wonder if, when they were planning this match out, they thought “hey, we’d make a pretty good tag team”. I have three years of Miracle Violence Connection to look forward to. They beat the shit out of each other here. Gordy’s big strikes are wonderful. What a wrestler he was. It’s such a shame he let drugs rule his life and his 1993 overdose effectively ended what was a brilliant career that was just peaking. He’s only 28 here and starting to get good. His bumping has both snap and meaning to it.  

This is just two big lads roughing each other up. Big slams. Big clotheslines. They’re both ideally suited to Japan. They spill outside and brawl until a DCO ends this. This was five minutes of a ****½ match but sadly missing the concluding 25:00 of it. I’m really stoked for some Miracle Violence Connection now.  

 

Mike Justice vs. Norman the Lunatic 

Norman the Lunatic was an interesting gimmick. He’s a mental patient. However, the execution is ‘off’. He has a strap around his head. What’s being strapped in there? Those familiar with grappling in the 90s may recognise Norman as Bastion Booger. This is, at least, a better gimmick than that. As with the Ding Dongs, the crowd don’t care for silly gimmicks. This is just a squash, with Norman crushing Mike in the corner. Norman gets strapped to a gurney to leave the ring area and the crowd chant “goodbye” at him. Herd is 0-2 tonight. He’ll not have pleasant memories of Flag Day, unlike the rest of us.  

 

Promo Time: Freebirds. Jimmy Garvin, rather than Michael Hayes, draws the heat. We go right from that to clips of “Flyin’ Brian”, who’s on his way to the NWA. It’s a weird video, mostly of Pillman lifting weights.  

 

Varsity Club (Kevin Sullivan & Mike Rotunda) vs Steiner Brothers 

This is basically the debut of the Steiner Brothers as a tag team. They’d had a few matches on house shows and a TV squash. Scott is very raw and excitable. You can see the talent there though. He’s only been wrestling for about a year. We get a crowd shot and like 50% of the crowd have whipped their shirts off. It looks like the temperature here is unbearable. That’s what you get for running on Flag Day.   

 

JR compares Rick to Charles Bronson, which may, or may not, relate to Death Wish II*, which follows this show on TBS. Should have had him on the show. Synergy. Although if he’d worn a trademark leather jacket in this building he’d probably pass out. It’s weird seeing Scotty getting beaten up. The Varsity boys even take some liberties. Scott gets his back worked over and he’s suplexed on a chair for the loss. This was super energetic although I’d question the wisdom of having the newcomer Steiners losing here. **¾ 

 

*Death Wish was a franchise born from the 1974 film, an adaptation of Brian Garfield’s novel about a vigilante. In the sequel Bronson’s maid and daughter are raped and killed by a gang and he goes about murderous revenge. It’s directed by Michael Winner and is grade A trash. One of the gang members is played by Larry Fishburne. All the Death Wish films are bad and so is the remake starring Bruce Willis. I’ve saved you some time there. Would I have stayed on TBS to watch Death Wish II on the back of Clash 7? Hell, yeah. What else would I be doing?  

 

NWA TV Championship 

Sting (c) vs. Bill Irwin 

This should not last more than a few seconds. Irwin, the future Goon, is a jobber. Instead, they draw out a little story where Irwin wants to get his bull whip, which he gets, and then Stinger Splashed because he’s not paying attention.  

 

Video Control gives us some footage of Scott “Gator” Hall, soon to be debuting. It’s him poking alligators with sticks mixed in with clips from his matches. This run was a disaster, as poking alligators with sticks wasn’t considered ‘fun’ or ‘good’. He’d go back to Japan and return later as the Diamond Studd. Another gimmick that didn’t go anywhere. WWF took a shot at him instead and Hall pitched his own gimmick, which became Razor Ramon, and the rest is history.  

 

From there we go to have a chat with Ric Flair at his home in North Cackalacki. Flair is recuperating from the Terry Funk assault at Wrestlewar. Ross suggests the injuries are so severe he may never wrestle again! Horrible news to receive on Flag Day, of all days.  

It’s a wild look from Naitch. A Lakers jacket, shades and a neck brace. Flair claims this is a worse injury than the airplane crash where he broke his back. Ross addresses the NWA not enforcing the standard 30-day title defence stipulation due to it being the NWA’s judge who caused the injury. They do a good job here of building the idea that Flair might retire, may give up his belt and may fight Terry Funk. He ended up sitting out for two months before having a barnstorming series against Funk culminating in the “I Quit” match at Clash 9. I still, to this day, think they fucked up and should have had Funk win the belt and lose it back at Starrcade. Or have Flair give up the title and Funk win it in the interim.  

 

NWA World Tag Team Championship 

Fabulous Freebirds vs. Midnight Express 

The belts are vacant, so the winner here gets them. The Freebirds have never won these belts. MXP did in 1988. Given the history of Midnight Express, it’s shocking they only won one NWA tag title. Paul E waffles Cornette with a loaded tennis racket, eliminating him from this contest.  

 

MXP go about their business, isolating Jimmy Garvin, while JR continues to plug the forthcoming showing of Death Wish II. The heat continues as Ross plugs the WCW Hotline. Ted Turner was a real piece of work. The Freebirds give Jim plenty of time to plug stuff by stalling…a lot. They stall so much JR reels off the whole Great American Bash tour dates.  

 

The Freebirds certainly draw a lot of heat with their antics. PS Hayes, in particular, is capable of winding up drunk soldiers. The match has a lot of segments where guys get isolated before MXP break out the double teams. Gordy sneaks in, powerbombs Eaton, and Garvin gets the pin for the belts. Nice to see a powerbomb. 1989 is when big power moves started involving lifts. Hopefully the United States renames today’s holiday Fabulous Freebirds Flag Day in their honour.  

 

Terry Funk vs. Ricky Steamboat 

Funk is ranked #10 and Steamboat is ranked #1, so Funk feels he has to beat the Steamer to get a title shot at Flair. This is some hot shit. A plucky, underdog babyface former world champion against an unhinged heel son of a bitch. Both guys can sell, bump and deliver. Both guys are at their absolute peaks. They’re both better known for their matches against Ric Flair, so it’s nice to see them together. 

 

The strikes and selling in the opening minutes are brilliant. Funk lifting Flair’s chops, Steamboat responding in kind. Funk, having damaged Flair’s neck, goes after that same body part on Steamboat. Including stealing the Rude Awakening. Funk’s punches are great here and Steamboat is magic in selling them. Comms draw in Lex Luger, who is upset he’s not involved in this conversation. FORESHADOWING. WCW were not the most subtle of promotions.  

Somehow the chops in this are even harder than Flair-Steamboat. Funk is such a good character. The way he meanders between cocky and coward, making himself believable the whole time. Tough and unpredictable. Speaking of which, Funk grabs a microphone from ringside and smacks Ricky in the eye with it for the DQ. ***¾. A cracking little match up. One of the finest Flag Day has ever seen.  

Post Match: Funk continues the beating, but Lex Luger makes the save. To the shock of absolutely no one, Luger then turns on Steamboat. This would lead to Steamboat vs. Luger at the Great American Bash tour until Steamboat left the company. Steamboat’s six month run here is one of the great runs in wrestling. Came in, won the belt, had a trilogy of matches with Flair, this match, Luger feud, and out.  

 

The 411: 

You cannot accuse 1989 WCW of not trying new things and trying to shake things up. The assortment of new characters that were introduced, just on this show alone, show WCW’s ambition to drive change. That said the Ding Dongs were a disaster. Brian Pillman got over in spite of WCW changing his name to “Flyin’ Brian” and Scott Hall did not get over as a guy who pokes alligators with sticks.  

 

The promotion was red hot in spite of these things and even without Ric Flair on it, this is a really fun show. Steamboat-Funk is a little hidden gem, this is the start of the Steiners (who would be a huge player in tag wrestling the following decade) and there’s a great throwaway scrap with Gordy and Doc. I think it helped my enjoyment of the show that I don’t think I’d seen it before. It’s an underseen show. There’s plenty here to enjoy. Also, it’s Flag Day. How can you be unhappy on Flag Day?