Clash of the Champions 23 

Date: 06/16/1993

Location: Norfolk, Virginia

Announcers: Tony Schaivone & Jesse Ventura 

The Setup 

After almost two full years, Ric Flair was making his in-ring return to WCW in a tag team title main event that was set up on a Flair for the Gold when the Hollywood Blondes continually disrespected Flair and Arn Anderson. 

The six-man semi main featured all participants in the upcoming PPV tag main event and US title match, respectively. The company’s most prominent stars worked this show, which was not always consistent with the free Clashes. 

The Business

The show scored what would remain a record-low Clash rating of 2.6. There’s absolutely no spinning that this was an atrocious television rating. Historically, the June Clashes always did the worst, but no one could believe Flair’s return got so little interest. As a result, the Hollywood Blondes were quickly blamed, and instead of not putting them in any more main events, the team was quickly disbanded. 

Prowrestlinghistory estimated the attendance at 6,000 fans, but only about 2,000 were paid for a $30,000 gate at the Scope in Norfolk. Even an old JCP/Flair stronghold couldn’t sell tickets. 

Results 

Ron Simmons def. Dick Slater – 3:56 *3/4

Lord Steven Regal def. Marcus Alexander Bagwell – 6:18 *1/2 

Maxx Payne def. Johnny B. Badd – via forfeit

NWA World Title Match: Barry Windham (c) def. 2 Cold Scorpio – 12:53 ***1/2 

Big Van Vader, Rick Rude & Sid Vicious def. Sting, Dustin Rhodes & Davey Boy Smith – 10:59 ***1/4 

World Tag Team Title Match: The Four Horsemen (Ric Flair & Arn Anderson) def. The Hollywood Blonds (c) – 2-0 in a 2-out-of-3 falls match in 20:45; Blonds retained the titles via DQ  ***3/4

Snap Bumps 

-The main was a great match brought down by the fact that it was a long 2/3 falls match that ended with a lazy run-in finish by Barry Windham, and the fact that the Blondes couldn’t get one fall also killed the drama. Arn couldn’t do one pinfall loss to build some tension? The guy was coming fresh off jobs for Erik Watts.

-Flair beat Pillman in the first fall with a flying forearm because God knows when you think of Ric Flair, you think of his flying forearms. The debuting Michael Buffer announced the Horsemen as winners and new champions in a major fuckup. I guess he didn’t fully understand the words written for him because boxing doesn’t have two-of-three fall matches. It’s still not as bad as calling Bret Hart “Bret Clark” for what seemed like forever.

-Windham and the Blondes beat up Flair and Arm after the match until fellow Horseman Paul Roma jumped the rail and helped the babyfaces clean house. Roma couldn’t get a ticket for the show? Maybe they saw the reaction to him being introduced as a Horseman at Slamboree and tried to charge him to get in the building. 

-The six-man was so fucking intense. The crowd went wild for Sting and was hot for the match throughout. Rude winning the match by pinning Dustin with the briefcase that held his old US title was good booking for the PPV. Vader’s powerbombing Davey after the match also helped set up the tag team main event. 

-WCW not playing Flair’s 2001 Space Odyssey theme and having him enter with Arn to his generic honky tonk theme (the worst of Arn’s many WCW themes) was a classic WCW fuckup. How hard is THAT to get right? 

-There was a great exchange between Vader and Dustin Rhodes in the six-man. It’s too bad they never had a long-term program because they were always phenomenal in the ring whenever they worked together. With Dusty being available to counteract Harley, it seemed like a no-brainer. Q

-Windham and Scorpio had a very good match, but they could have used more time and had a longer Scorpio comeback. Scorpio was already firmly entrenched in the Bagwell tag team, which feels like a misfire given the work we’ve seen from him thus far in 1993. 

-The first two matches weren’t much and short. Bagwell didn’t work stylistically with Regal, and Simmons and Slater would have been good with a few more minutes. 

-Dick Slater was replacing TV champion, Paul Orndorff, who was injured. In the storyline, I don’t think Simmons ever cares about the TV title enough to demand his match for the belt. At least Orndorff was out there to celebrate his fellow Tampa export, Slater.

-The Max Payne angle where he shot the Baddblaster in Johnny B. Badd’s face doesn’t read well on paper, but looked fucking incredible. 

-Speaking of Payne, Tom Zenk ran out to fight Payne after the forfeit was announced. Since his Johnny Gunn tag team just ended around this time, in storyline, it’s possible this was done to get TV time, instead of defending Badd. He got his ass kicked anyway. I want to think this was Ole Anderson being a cock. 

-Eric Bischoff was promoted to being in charge of TV production months before this, and the positive changes were noticeable. The difference was as stark as doing a show with all the lights on versus the shows with Watts that looked like they were run by someone’s mother being concerned about her home’s electric bill. 

The Verdict

This is an easy thumbs-up show despite the ridiculously low viewership. The last three matches made it one of the better Clashes since the first one in 1988. Also, as far as selling their PPV, we had a good build for the three top title matches and tag match main event, all far more effective than a midget and an exploding boat (still to come).