Dark Pegasus Video Review: Clash of the Champions XXIII

Clash of the Champions XXIII by J.D. Dunn Twitter.com/jddunn411 Facebook.com/jddunn411 June 16, 1993 Live from Norfolk, Va. Your hosts are Tony Schiavone and Jesse Ventura. Opening Match: Dick Slater (w/Paul Orndorff) vs. Ron Simmons. This was supposed to be Simmons challenging for Orndorff’s TV Title after a long chase in which Orndorff kept using the time limit and disqualification rules to retain the title. Orndorff was injured in a car accident, though, so Simmons gets his lackey. Simmons slaps Slater around quite a bit before Orndroff trips him from the outside. Slater gets an apparent pin, and the heels celebrate, but Simmon’s foot was on the rope. Simmons finishes with the powerslam at 7:35. This was thrown together at the last minute, and it shows. 1/2* We get meaningless predictions on tonight’s matches. Lord Steven Regal (w/Sir William) vs. Marcus Alexander Bagwell. Bagwell in 1993 was not unlike John Cena today. All the women love him, but the men are gruffly silent (at best) when he wrestles. This is not such a bad match, thanks to Regal being in control. Tony and Jesse think their roving reporter might find Cactus Jack in Cleveland on WCW Saturday Night. ::sigh:: Yeah. Regal totally flusters Bagwell with his European counters and legwork. Bagwell, of course, shrugs it off during his comeback. Regal reverses an O’Connor Roll, though, and gets a sloppy pin at 6:05. ** Speaking of Steven Regal, I heard a cool story about how he got hired at WCW despite not having a North American style of wrestling. He walks into Eric Bischoff’ office and says, “Eric, I need a job,” and Bischoff says, “Well, are you any good?” Regal responds, “Am I any good? I wrestled a bloody bear, sunshine.” Bischoff shook his head and replied, “Steve, I’ve seen guys wrestle bears since the 1950s.” Regal thinks about it and says, “But they can’t put on a match like me and my tag team partner Nigel can.” Bischoff shrugs and says, “Okay, let’s hear it. What can you do in the ring?” Regal sits down because this is going to be a long one and says, “Okay, Nigel and I do a handicap match with this bloody bear, right? I start out with the bear and grab a side headlock while Nigel starts rubbing his crotch along the middle rope to get himself nice and hard for when he tags in. Now the bear shoots me in the ropes, and while Nigel has the referee distracted with his giant erection, I kick the bear right in the nuts. Now, this just pisses the bear off, right, so he starts swiping at me. That’s when Nigel comes in behind him and sticks his dick right in the bear’s fucking ass. Our valet Miss Clarice and her little boy Clive hop up on the apron, and she takes off her knickers to flash the bear her vagina. Now the bear is confused because it has Nigel’s dick up its ass and it’s attracted to the smell of Clarice’s cunt. All of a sudden, Clive smashes Clarice’s kneecaps off with a fucking cricket bat. Then, he pours honey in her asshole as Nigel disengages. The bear starts eating the honey out of her arse, but the honey’s running down into the hole and up her anal tract. So, the bear uses its enormous strength to pull her bumcheeks apart, which causes her anus to prolapse. So now she has this enormous pink bubble sticking out of her rear end, and the bear is licking honey off of it. Nigel climbs to the top rope with a bloody bow-and-arrow and shoots an arrow right into her prolapsed anus. It POPS; shit flies everywhere, on me, on Nigel, on Clive, all over Clarice’s back, and of course the bear. Now, by this time, the front row has puked all over the ringside area, so I pick a fight with a plant in the audience who throws a drink at me. I drag the plant over the railing and rub him facefirst through the vomit all over ringside, and there’s full chunks of carrots and corn and somebody’s bloody chicken skin in the vomit. So I drag him all along the ringside area, and he’s getting the puke in his hair and ears and some of it goes in his mouth, and then *he* starts to throw up. Well, unbeknownst to the audience, the plant has actually drank a full bottle of castor oil and eaten a bag of cashews just before the show. He stands up with the puke dripping off his face, finds the littlest, sweetest old granny in the audience that he can find, drops his knickers, turns around, and shoves her face into his arse. Then, he let’s loose, shooting the shit right into the little, old lady’s mouth. She fills up, but she can’t puke because the plant has her mouth shoved tight up against his ass, so the puke and the shit starts spilling out her nose with little chunks of boogers and snot in it. Meanwhile, back in the ring, the bear has mauled Clarice’s jugular, and she’s staggering around the ring with a popped anus spewing shit everywhere and her neck is like a fucking garden sprinkler just spraying out blood. So me, Nigel and Clive all take turns kicking her in the cunt as she spins around. Clive’s six year-old sister does a run in, so I turn her upside-down, tie her in the tree-of-woe, shove one boot up her vadge and another in her arse and bounce her around on her head like a fucking pogo stick screaming in a falsetto voice, “Oh my, what a lovely tea party!” The bear is now staggering around and attacking the crowd because Clive laced the honey with LSD. I pick little Clive up, strip him down, and toss him out into the crowd with the bear, and the bear starts to fuck him up the ass because it doesn’t know what’s going on. Little Clive is screaming, “Help me! I’ve got a bloody bear in my bum,” but the crowd is too busy puking and trying to avoid the bear that they can’t help him. That’s when Nigel grabs his erection, climbs to the top rope and starts jerking off to see if he can splooge onto the front row of the crowd. I find a bird with bloody huge tits and rip off her shirt and brawl, then I get behind her and start plowing her from behind while pulling her head up by her hair so that Nigel can squirt it in her eye when he comes. Once we’re both done, I kick her right in the shin, and while she’s hopping around on one leg holding her hand over her eye I say, “My, what a pretty pirate you ARRRRRRGGH!” And then we take the pieces of Clive that are left after the bear has ripped him apart and we shove them into the big-tittied broad’s pussy. Then, as the bear settles down for a nap, Nigel and I roll him onto his back for a double pin.” Silence. Eric Bischoff thinks about it for a while. “Jesus H. Christ, Steve,” Bischoff laughs. “What the hell do you call your team?” Regal smiles, “The Aristocrats!” True story. Maxx Payne says he just tried to teach Johnny B. Badd some manners when he stole Badd’s Baddblaster. Badd comes out to accept the Baddblaster back, but Payne shoots him in the face with it. That actually looked painful as silly as the idea is. Payne wins the scheduled match with bad by forfeit, so Z-Man comes in and brawls with him. Bad move as Payne catches him in the Paynekiller (reverse armbar). As evil rock ‘n’ rollers go, Payne is probably the scariest. NWA Heavyweight Title: Barry Windham vs. 2 Cold Scorpio. This is Michael Buffer’s debut as ring announcer for the big matches. The Norfolk crowd is split but leans Windham as evidenced by the pop for his flying lariat. Windham takes over and drops a knee between the eyes. He tosses Scorpio, but Scorpio comes back in with a slingshot vertical bodypress. Windham dropkicks him, though, and starts picking over the bones with right jabs. Scorpio fights off the superplex, though, and hits a flying splash! ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Crowd is now on Scorpio’s side. Scorpio hits a huracanrana, but he doesn’t cover. A flying leg clutch gets two. Slingshot splash! ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! Missile dropkick! ONE, TWO, THRE-NO! The crowd is exhausted after that. Scorpio tries to slingshot in but gets pasted with a right hand on his way down. That sets up the leaping DDT at 12:43. This is quite the unsung match. This is how you put over a champion. Windham was clearly in control throughout the early part of the match. Scorpio, despite being overmatched, used his innovative offense to score nearfalls the way an underdog football team might use a gimmicky flea-flicker. Windham, the veteran, stayed calm, though, and reasserted his dominance. ***1/2 Big Van Vader, Sid Vicious & Rick Rude (w/Col. Rob Parker & Harley Race) vs. Sting, Davey Boy Smith & Dustin Rhodes. Sid and Vader got together and laid out an ultimatum to Sting and the Bulldog: retire or we’ll retire you by force. I’m not sure that has ever worked in the history of wrestling. Hot start as Sting takes it to the heels, and then it’s a series of segments where the babyfaces kick the heel’s asses. Vader accidentally splashes Rude. Race screams that “It ain’t supposed to be happening this way!” The heels finally isolate Dustin, who is probably the best guy for the face-in-peril role. Dustin powerslams Vader and reverses Rude’s Tombstone to his own. The ref is too busy putting Vicious out to catch the tag. Sting and Bulldog storm the ring anyway. Sting and Vader spill to the floor where Sting misses a splash against the barricade. That allows Vader to grab Harley Race’s briefcase and waffle Dustin. Rude falls on top and gets the pin at 11:01. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a match with a false tag but no real tag afterward. There probably should be more just to shake up the formula. The match was a lot of fun and had a huge amount of heat. Felt a little short, though, like maybe they rushed the ending for TV time. ***1/4 NWA World Tag Team Titles & WCW Tag Team Titles, 2/3 Falls: The Hollywood Blondes vs. Arn Anderson & Ric Flair. First Fall: Pillman starts out with Arn, but mocks Flair instead of tying up. Arn keeps avoiding a headlock, so Pillman smacks in the face. Pillman gets caught trying to slip over Arn and Arn delivers a Snake Eyes. Austin tags in and mocks Arn’s belly, which is funny considering the condition of Austin’s gut these days. Anderson tags Flair to a HUGE pop and the old guys clean house. Flair tries to rip Austin’s jaw off. Finally, Austin goes to the eyes to counter and rolls outside. Flair drags him back in and Arn stomps a mudhole. Arn works the arm and gets the hammerlock slam. Flair comes in, drops the knee on Austin, and cheapshots Pillman on the apron. Arn tags back in and goes to work on the arm again. Pillman starts an argument with Flair long enough to distract the ref. Austin shoots Arn into Pillman who strangles him with one of the Blondes’ towel. Austin stomps away and distracts the ref long enough for Pillman to do some more choking. Pillman tags in and blatantly chokes him up until a four count. The Blondes double team Arn for a long time as he plays Ricky Morton. Austin misses his splash on the ropes, but lands on his feet and starts mocking Flair with the “roll camera” taunt. Arn jumps him and nails the DDT. Crowd is ON FIRE for all of this. Pillman takes Arn’s legs out from under him, but not before Arn can make the hot tag to Flair. Flair comes off the top and hits Pillman with an elbow. The Blondes jump him and try to double team him, but Arn grabs Austin’s leg from the outside and Flair hits Pillman with a flying forearm to win the first fall around 10 minutes in. Second Fall: Arn is injured on the outside, so Flair has to go it alone for a while. That is so All Japan. Pillman gets some nasty chops on Flair and then they trade them back and forth. Flair flip in the corner, and he takes out both men. Pillman knocks him off the apron, however, and the Blondes take control on Flair. Austin and Pillman take turns distracting the ref and ramming Flair into the railing until Arn comes around with a chair to clear them out. Austin sets Flair up on top and delivers a superplex. Nicely done, too. It gets two. Crowd tries to get Flair back in it, but Austin whips him into the turnbuckle and hits some football sled shoulderblocks. Flair and Pillman exchange some NASTY chops. That’s just sickening. Pillman shoves Flair off and they hit heads, leading to a double KO. Both sides tag and Arn hits Austin with the spine buster. Pillman breaks up the count, though, before the ref can count. Pillman takes out Arn’s bad knee and puts Austin on top. ONE, TWO, TH—NOOOO!! Pillman then goes apeshit on Arn’s knee like he was…well, Ric Flair. Tony tries to capitalize on Jurassic Park by saying Pillman is like a Tyrannosaurus Rex who goes wild when he smells blood. I believe that the T-Rex hunted mostly through sight, though, because he couldn’t smell Sam Neill even though he was close enough to blow his hat off when he exhaled. Then again, he couldn’t see him either. Oh well, I guess WCW would know more about dinosaurs than I would. Anderson tries to spin out of a stepover toehold, but Austin holds on long enough to tag to Pillman so they can keep Arn in the corner. This is awesome with a lowercase “a”, but that doesn’t mean it should feel bad because size isn’t that important. Pillman with the Austin-assisted half-crab puts even more pressure on Anderson. Flair goes nuts on the apron and the crowd is BEGGING Nick Patrick to look up. Anderson staggers to one foot, but Pillman has the other. Arn Anderson hits an enzuigiri!!! WTF?!!! Pillman is able to reach Austin first, though, so they cut off the tag again. Stunning Steve gets a few shots in and tags back out to Pillman who goes up for a double ax-handle off the top rope. Anderson lifts his boot and catches Pillman on the chin. HOT TAG TO FLAIR!! Actually, that’s pretty poor psychology, especially coming from Arn. The sequence should have seen Arn’s leg injured even further. Flair goes psycho on Austin in the corner and tosses Pillman over the top. That would normally be a DQ, but the ref didn’t see it. Flair puts Austin in the figure-four, but down comes Barry Windham to jump Flair and ruin a perfectly good match. The ref throws the whole match out at 21:06. That was 20 minutes of great match ruined by one bad point of psychology and a horrible screw job finish. ****1/2

The 411: Rockin' show from an era that was known for sucking an eternity of testicles. In fact, it's eons better than the Beach Blast show it set up. The tag team main event is available on Steve Austin's DVD, but try to find the six-man and NWA Title matches too. Good stuff. Recommended.
Final Score:  8.5   [ Very Good ]