Results/Ratings 

Cactus Jack def. Johnny B. Badd in 2:49 */4 

2 Cold Scorpio def. Scotty Flamingo in 5:58 **1/4

Chris Benoit def. Brad Armstrong in 9:13 ***1/4

Wrecking Crew def. Tom Zenk & Johnny Gunn in 6:06 *1/2

World Tag Team Title Match: Ricky Steamboat & Shane Douglas (C) def. Hollywood Blondes by DQ in 13:39 ***1/2 

Thunderdome Match: Sting, Dustin Rhodes & Cactus Jack def. Vader, Barry Windham & Paul Orndorff in 11:22 **3/4

The Business:

The show scored a 2.9 cable rating, down from November’s Clash (headlined by Sting vs. Rude, Windham & Dustin vs. Steamboat & Douglas), drawing a 3.2. Not only that, but outside of June ‘92’s NWA tag title tourney Clash, this was also the second-lowest rated Clash in the series’ history. Usually, the cage gimmick could be a draw for WCW, but not here. One thing worth mentioning is that the January Clash had become an annual event, but never this close to Starrcade (only sixteen days later), so there was very little time to build this up. Still, there wasn’t any match where someone or a team was working a program, other than the main event, but that featured different individual programs mashed together. 

Pro wrestlinghistory.com has the attendance for this show in Milwaukee listed as 4,000, but with a $14,000 gate. Since there’s no chance they averaged $3 a ticket sale, they must have heavily papered this show. It would also stand to reason since their last show in the building, a 10/30/92 house show headlined by Sting vs. Jake Roberts, drew FOUR HUNDRED fans. Oof. 

Snap Bumps

-The participants in the main event kept changing. First, Van Hammer was scheduled for the main event, but was thankfully pulled due to injury. Then, Vader, Rude, and Orndorff attacked Barbarian in an interview segment, and he was removed from that team. Finally, Simmons was also pulled from the babyface side when his shoulder was injured in a good interview segment with Vader earlier in the show. Cactus didn’t join the match until it was well into the bout. Jesus, I guess it’s good no one watched this thing anyway since it changed that much. 

This was the first televised Blondes/Steamboat/Douglas match. It was so early, in fact, that Pillman and Austin weren’t even going by the Blondes yet. The DQ finish wet the whistle well for more matches. 

-The Simmons and Vader angle was really good. The crowd went wild for Simmons, seemingly laying out Vader, including a nice sidewalk slam. Vader attacked him in the aisle and laid Simmons out with a shoulderbreaker on the floor. They should have done a detailed video explanation of how the move hurt extra on the floor. This was never paid off in any way. 

The crowd cheered Benoit, in part because they were bored by Brad. 

-Scorpio and Flamingo missed a few moves, but the match was still okay. Honestly, you can see with Scorpio, Benoit, the Wrecking Crew, and the future Blondes, they were trying to change directions and bring in and push some new talent. Most of that talent was awesome. You know I’m talking about the Wrexking Crew. 

-They did the infamous White Castle of Fear video on this show, and Sting accepted in an interview. 

-They were doing the Jesse Bentura invitational arm wrestling tournament, and we got Vinnie Vegas vs. Tony Atlas here in a heel vs. heel battle for the ages that Vegas eventually won. It could have been worse – they could have worked a match. 

-Cactus cutting the big babyface promo to end the show after pinning Orndorff was weird. 

-I wouldn’t have beaten Orndorff this soon into his tenure. They never even tried to make him a top guy there. 

To kickstart the program in WCW, they aired highlights of a Rock n Roll vs. Heavenly Bodies match from SMW here. It was good and certainly improved the quality of the show. 

Rating: Thumbs Up 

This was a very marginal thumbs up, but I’ll give it one anyway, particularly with the show-long story of guys getting hurt for the main, then Cactus coming out to save the babyfaces and evening the odds and letting him get the show-closing promo, which was a massive step for him in the pecking order. It’s too bad Orndorff had to be beaten so quickly into his WCW return because it was worth kicking the tires to see if he could draw money still at that point, but at least the Cactus vs. Orndorff feud was fun. 

This was kind of a reset show with Scorpio, Benoit, and the Wrecking Crew all getting wins as new acts. Benoit got over with his style and moves alone. Scorpio was a little sloppy early against Flamingo, but rebounded nicely, and they did give him the (somewhat corny) music video introducing his song. You could see the chemistry with Austin, Pillman, Douglas, and Steamboat. You could argue that a belt shot DQ finish was lame, but it was still very good, and they had a strong angle with Vader and Ron Simmons. This was a breeze to get through.