WCW Clash of the Champions XXII

Date: 01/13/1993

Location: Milwaukee, WI

Announcers: Jim Ross & Jesse Ventura

The Setup

When in doubt, drag out the cage, so we have a multiman main event that’s basically a combination of singles feuds. Vader vs. Sting and Dustin vs. Windham were represented. Van Hammer was supposed to be in the main event, but he was “injured” and was also going to miss his epic arm wrestling contest. Ron Simmons was also supposed to be on the babyface side because he recently lost the world title to Vader, but Vader took him out on the show. Barbarian was scheduled to be on the heel side, but his teammates attacked him for being associated with Cactus Jack. So yeah, the match doesn’t matter much by the time it’s in the ring, other than being a cage match on free television.

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. Why even run here?

The Results

Cactus Jack def. Johnny B. Badd in 2:49. Badd won with a rollup quickly because they were trying to get to Cactus’s babyface turn later in the show. */4 

2 Cold Scorpio def. Scotty Flamingo in 5:58. They 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. Scorpio won with the 450. **1/4

Chris Benoit def. Brad Armstrong in 9:13. These two had the solid technical match you would expect. Benoit’s moves and intensity started getting him cheered. He won with the dragon suplex. ***1/4

Wrecking Crew def. Tom Zenk & Johnny Gunn in 6:06. The Johnny Gunn pairing was probably the rock bottom of the Tom Zenk tag team pantheon. The Crew were Al Greene and Road Warrior Animal’s brother, Marc. The Crew won the simple match with the Wrecking Ball. *1/2

World Tag Team Title Match: Ricky Steamboat & Shane Douglas (C) def. Hollywood Blondes by DQ in 13:39. 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 when Austin blasted Douglas with the belt. He bled, but they didn’t make a big deal out of that fact at all. ***1/2 

Thunderdome Match: Sting, Dustin Rhodes & Cactus Jack def. Vader, Barry Windham & Paul Orndorff in 11:22. Cactus didn’t come out until very late in the match, effectively turning babyface for the first time in WCW. The match was solid until then, but Cactus evened the sides, and getting his shit in got the fans going. Cactus pinned Ormdorff after the double-arm DDT. Orndorff just got here. I don’t like his jobbing in this spot. **3/4

Additional Gaga

-Vader was interviewed, and Simmons interrupted, and the 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 hurts extra on the floor, since it defies logic. Sadly, this angle was never paid off in any way. 

-They aired the infamous White Castle of Fear video on this show for the first time, and Sting accepted the challenge in an interview. 

-They were doing the Jesse Ventura invitational arm wrestling tournament at this time, and we got a battle of heels, as it was Vinnie Vegas vs. Tony Atlas. As mentioned, Hammer was scheduled, but he was pulled. Vegas eventually won the contest after a long, unrealistic battle. It could have been worse – they could have worked a match. 

-Cactus cut a big babyface promo to end the show. It was weird, considering he wasn’t in a big match at Superbrawl, and this did a lot to build that show.

-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 show’s quality. 

-This show also featured the debut of Scorpio’s WCW theme and the accompanying video, where he was trying to show kids on the street how to do it. At least it was an attempt with a talented guy.

The Verdict

Thumbs Up 

This was a very marginal thumbs up, but I’ll give it one anyway. 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. One 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.