NWA Clash of the Champions #9 – New York Knock Out (11.15.89) review 

 

November 15, 1989 

 

We’re in New York at the RPI Field House. Built in 1949, legend has it on the grounds of an airplane hangar from World War II. The Field House is part of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York (Albany, basically). Their NCAA hockey team has played there since it opened. Given that it only seats around 4,000, it’s rarely been used for wrestling events. Hosts are Jim Ross and Gordon Solie. I have to assume JR has asked if Solie can do this with him. Ross has always spoken highly of Solie, and his voice is like velvet. 

 

Fabulous Freebirds vs. Roadwarriors 

Ok, so time to address the belt situation. The Freebirds are on the graphics as “NWA World Tag Team Champions”, but they don’t have the belts.  

The reason they don’t have the belts is they’ve lost them to the Steiners in a match due to air on Championship Wrestling in three day’s time. Why would you do that? Just have the Steiners beat them here, surely? The trouble with the taping schedule is now they’ve got both teams in separate matches and neither of them are for the belts. Get used to this level of WCW stupidity, it will continue!  

 

This match is the Freebirds getting the shit kicked out of them for five minutes. Animal gets picked off for about three moves and Hawk is so frustrated by it that he shoves Tommy Young over and gets disqualified.  

 

Promo Time: Terry Funk 

Terry rants about how he’s a common man and Flair is a rich boy. Gary Hart reminds him that Texas is watching, and he doesn’t want to let Texas down. We go from there to an advert for Starrcade ‘89, one of the most bone-headed PPV’s ever presented. We’ll get around to that in due course. Next is Bill Apter, who gives Sting an award for the fluffiest of all categories “most popular wrestler in the NWA”. PWI Wrestler of the Decade goes to Ric Flair, which is a significantly more important award, but this is just an excuse to get them both on stage.  

Of course, it’s hard to trust PWI when they gave Hogan wrestler of the year in 1991 and 1994. Lex Luger won it in 1997. The Giant won it in 1996! I hate Shawn Michaels as much as the next guy but come on.  

 

Tommy Rich & Eddie Gilbert vs. “Woman Presents” Doom  

Gilbert does a surprising amount of strutting for a man of his in-ring abilities. Meanwhile, Tommy Rich’s ‘year of the comeback’ continues its downward trajectory. The team of Gilbert & Rich are only here as enhancement for the Doom team. Doom double team Rich behind the ref’s back for what was, basically, a clean win.  

 

Sadly, this is likely to be the last time I watch Eddie Gilbert work as he faded away after this. Working for GWF, which he part owned, and ECW where he was booker in the early 90s. He died of a heart attack in 1995, aged just 33.  

 

Promo Time: Jim Cornette 

This is technically a chat show, hosted by Cornette, called the “Louisville Slugger”. His guests are the Steiners, the new tag champs, who they can’t acknowledge as such. Jim asks Scott Steiner what his backflip takeover move is called, and Rick tells us it’s called the Frankensteiner. Cornette asks if Sid will take it. Hahaha. No way man. Not a chance in hell he can take that move. Scott isn’t much of a promo at this point whereas Rick’s rambling babyface nonsense is great.  

 

Dynamic Dudes vs. Midnight Express 

Cornette had been managing the Dudes and therefore has mixed allegiances here. MXP are supposed to be on a ‘bad run’ here, but I’ve looked at results and MXP are 11-0 on TV matches since War Games. This is technically a babyface match, but the crowd cheer MXP and MXP work heel. If you were booking properly, the Dudes would turn heel here. Nobody liked them. They would have made for obnoxious heels. Look at what Shane Douglas did later in his career. 

 

Eaton, stud that he is, even makes Johnny Ace look decent here. It’s arguably the best match the Dudes ever had. Most of that is on MXP and when Eaton cheats and Lane starts unleashing his karate on Ace, the crowd go nuts. Cornette jumps in to stop Eaton from using a chain and naturally Corny turns on Shane Douglas with a racket shot and the crowd goes wild! Fuck those Dudes, man. Great little match with a cunning finish when this sort of thing was unexpected. He’s supposed to be a babyface! *** 

 

Super Destroyer vs. Steve Williams 

No prizes for guessing what jabronie is under a mask as Super Destroyer. If you need some hints; he’s from New Zealand, has worked every mask gimmick in the promotion for the past three years and his name is Jack Victory. Norman the Lunatic comes out to play Santa Claus at ringside. He’s a month early. The Oklahoma Stampede finishes in about 90 seconds.  

 

Skyscrapers vs. Steiner Brothers 

If they wanted to add some sauce to this, they could have just acknowledged the tag title switch. I guess we can’t ruin the main event of this week’s Championship Wrestling on TBS. Although anyone who was paying attention would have noticed the Freebirds didn’t have the belts earlier. 

Rick enters through the crowd, for reasons best known to himself. Scott looks confused, like he wasn’t aware this was happening. This is the last match the Skyscrapers wrestled together until being reunited for a one-off match at Starrcade 1990. No house shows. Nothing. Why? Well, stay tuned for that one gentle reader.  

 

Sid runs in and eats a fallaway slam from Scott a few minutes into the match and lands awkwardly. He seems fine afterwards but he’s not. It’s a clunky match but everyone seems game for having a proper old-fashioned scrap. The untidiness just adds to the feel of the match. As do the hard Steinerlines. Sid is now clearly hurt, holding his side on the floor and Doom runs in for the DQ. This was a great time at the wrestling for all the five minutes it lasted. Woman clocks Rick with a high heel.  

Tyler Mane makes the save, coming out to remove Woman. You may know him as Sabretooth in the Bryan Singer X-Men movie or, if you’re just a wrestle-head, Big Sky in a later WCW run. He’s certainly tall. You can say that about him. Under this current gimmick he was called “Nitron” for reasons. The post-match interviews suggest the original Starrcade plan was for Steiners & Roadwarriors to wrestle Doom & Skyscrapers. Sid’s punctured lung rather put the kibosh on that idea. His next match won’t be until June 1990. 

 

NWA United States Championship 

Lex Luger (c) vs. Flyin’ Brian  

Ross and Solie debate who wins the Iron Man tournament at Starrcade. JR picks Luger to win it and Solie picks Muta. Those are certainly picks intended to deflect from the obvious head-to-head of Flair and Sting. These two had a decent match at Halloween Havoc, so we’re going for round two. Luger won cleanly, all things considered, so it’s surprising to see a re-match.  

The crowd loudly chant for Luger, and he tells them to shut up. Haha. The trouble with being a powerhouse heel is that people will dig you. They do a great rehash of a spot from Havoc, where Pillman (rather than Luger) misses a big clothesline and flies over the top, but Pillman grabs the ropes, skins the cat and jumps Luger from behind. Showcasing Pillman’s athletic ability. It’s clever stuff.  

 

Pillman channels Ricky Steamboat all match with chops and limb work reminiscent of the former champ. Pillman also does a good job of playing the plucky babyface. He takes a beating here but keeps trying for cheeky roll ups when Luger stops off to jaw with the crowd. Just as I’m getting properly into it, Nick Patrick gets bumped. Pillman gets two visual pins before Luger whacks him with a chair for the cheap win. That should have been the finish on the first match! This ruled and might be Luger’s best singles match outside of the Flair and Steamboat ones. ***¾.  

 

Post match Luger continues to beat up Pillman and gives him the Torture Rack, but Sting runs in for the save. They get into it on the microphone and Sting slaps Luger, trying to provoke him into a brawl. Lex chickens out and finally draws the heat he’s been after all night. Save that one for Starrcade.  

 

Luger has been so good in 1989, he’s in the running for Wrestler of the Year, in my book. He has no shot at winning it because Ric Flair had one of the best years of his entire career and Ricky Steamboat wasn’t far behind but it’s arguably Luger’s best year in the business. Look at his matches in ‘89; Windham (Chi-Town Rumble, ***½), Steamboat (GAB, ****¼), Tommy fuckin’ Rich (Clash 8, ***½), Pillman (Halloween Havoc, ***¼ and here ***¾). He still has Starrcade to go and he has five cracking matches in the same calendar year without wrestling Ric Flair. Considering his reputation, 1989 is a great year for Luger. I don’t think there’s another year where he has this many great singles matches.  

 

I Quit Match 

Ric Flair vs. Terry Funk 

This is not for the title, which is not how I remember it. Flair has promised to give up the title if he quits here though, as PRIDE is at stake. They’ve got a microphone on Flair during his entrance so you can hear him call a kid “big man” before high fiving him. That’s cool. He says “baby” a lot.  

 

Funk’s elite tier selling extends to him swinging wildly at fans and falling over the rail into the front row. GOAT. Flair absolutely tattoos him with chops in this. His chop game improved during 1989, and he’ll soon be known for them. The feeling of intensity here is just great. The way Flair grabs at Funk after being knocked over makes it feel more real. Terry’s overblown selling takes the match the other way, but it all clicks together nicely. 

 

This is the first match where a chop makes me wince. Before this run of Flair’s, in 1989, chops weren’t this intense. He took them up a level. “Say it Flair, you pig, you egg sucking dog” – Funk trying for the submission. I love how little they bother with wrestling here and just beat the shit out of each other instead. It’s a full-on brawl. Which makes it so different to Flair’s catalogue beforehand. Funk knew how to take him out of his comfort zone and Flair was always at his best when someone did that to him. 

 

This isn’t the plug and play Flair match you’ve seen a million times. Funk starts ranting about Flair’s neck. “You remember your neck Flair? You want to quit before I hurt you”. The only real flaw in this match is Flair’s reluctance to take a proper piledriver. He always did a handstand in them, and it looked stupid, but I can understand his reluctance due to his back problems. They throw in a spot involving the ringside table as a throwback to Funk’s initial turn on Flair. This time with Flair getting the better of it.  

 

JR makes a funny reference to Mike Tyson getting his “last two parking tickets” in this building, which is the last time Tyson went the distance. Tyson is still only in his early 20s and has been the undisputed world champion since 1987. You had to be there to see Mike Tyson in action. He was a phenom. 1990 is when Tyson went to pieces and lost to Buster Douglas. I still remember people talking about that in school. It was such a shock that Tyson would lose to anyone.  

 

Back in the ring the fatigue selling is starting to kick in and Flair starts to go after the leg. Funk oversells the leg like crazy and tries to hop away from the ring. Flair won’t let him escape through and we now enter the end game. Funk does a grand job of trying to fight off the Figure Four, knowing if he gets hooked in it, then its curtains.  

“My leg, my leg, it’s breaking. Yes. Yes, I quit”. This is an all-time classic, but I can’t get past those Flair piledrivers. They just take a bit off the score. ****¾. 

 

Terry calls Flair a “hell of a guy” and shakes his hand. Gary Hart, enraged, jumps Terry from behind and Muta and “The Dragon Master” (Kendo Nagasaki) run in for the beat down and Sting makes the save. Luger then attacks Sting from behind and the heels beat down Sting and Flair. It’s a little sad they felt the need to shill Starrcade and that tournament rather than linger on what happened here. Terry Funk’s next WCW match was in 1994 at Slamboree. This really was the end of an era for WCW. Both of Flair’s major 1989 rivals left immediately after the feud concluded. What was left was Flair, Luger and Sting, the basis for WCW’s main events for years to come. Even though two of them left and came back.  

 

The 411: 

The format for this show is a bit weird because it’s mostly tag matches with no belts on the line. That taped tag title switch kinda fucked with the format here. That said, this is an important show. The Flair-Funk feud (second half of 1989) was a key one for people remembering this year. It really should have concluded at Starrcade and not here but hey, this is where it happened. Luger continues his good run of matches, which would eventually lead to him facing Flair in early 1990. The Steiners were on fire here and it’s a shame Sid got hurt because the Skyscrapers finally looked useful on this show.  

 

NEXT: NWA’s next show is Starrcade, famous for all the wrong reasons, as it features two Iron Man tournaments, alternating between singles and tags. There are no other matches on the card. My next show will be Survivor Series, which is another show that all gimmicked matches. I can’t catch a break.