NWA Clash of the Champions IV: Season’s Greetings

December 7, 1988

Chattanooga, Tennessee

Announcers: Jim Ross and Bob Caudle

The Setup

This show was the first Clash under the Turner banner, headlined by Ric Flair (wrestling in his first Clash since the inaugural event) and Barry Windham teaming to face the Midnight Express in a sort of dream workrate match for the era. After the angle where the Road Warriors blinded Dusty with a spike on TBS, not two full weeks earlier, Animal was facing Dusty, where the winner would get control of the six-man titles held by the Roadies and Dusty. 

The Business

Prowrestlinghistory has 8,000 in the building at the UTC Arena, a venue that would later host Halloween Havoc ‘91. The show did a 4.5 cable rating, the lowest of any Clash to date. While Flair was at least wrestling again, this was the first Clash without a title match in the main event and the only one to feature the Italian Stallion. 

The Results

Vacant NWA United States Tag Team Championship Tournament Final: The Fantastics (Bobby Fulton & Tommy Rogers) def. Eddie Gilbert & Ron Simmons in 27:04 **3/4

Steve Williams def. The Italian Stallion in 15:35 *1/4

One Arm Tied Behind Koloff’s Back Match: Ivan Koloff def. Paul Jones in 8:21 *

Control of NWA World Six-Man Tag Team Championship: Road Warrior Animal def. Dusty Rhodes (C) by DQ in 2:54 NR

Ric Flair (C) & Barry Windham (C) def. The Midnight Express (Bobby Eaton & Stan Lane) in 17:41 ****

Notable Happenings

Lex Luger, who was challenging Flair for the NWA title at Starrcade three weeks later, was in the host role that Flair was at Clash III. It wasn’t a good format for showing any of Lex’s charisma or personality, and it did nothing to sell the PPV whatsoever. 

Junkyard Dog debuted on this show, less than a month off WWF television. He came in and helped Ivan Koloff clear the ring of the Russian Assassins, replacing Nikita Koloff in the tag program and Starrcade match. 

Animal won the match with Dusty by DQ to win control of the six-man tag titles when Dusty shoved the referee. The Road Warriors ended up picking Tenryu as their partner for the titles, and the belts didn’t stick around for too much longer. 

The Fantastics won the vacant US Tag Team Championship against Eddie Gilbert and Ron Simmons. They were originally supposed to face the Sheepherders and lose the match, to set up a flag match rematch at Starrcade, but Vince hired Luke and Butch in the middle of the tournament, and the Bushwhackers were born. That factor also changed the Doctor Death match, since he was scheduled to face Simmons in a singles match on this show, but we got a match with Italian Stalion instead, which was way too long. 

Best, Worst, and Most Underrated of the Night

Best: The main event. You can argue it might not have been quite as good as you’d think with Flair, Windham, and Eaton possibly being the three best in-ring performers in the company, but it was still an excellent match. 

Worst: The Paul Jones/Ivan match was fairly useless. I understand the psychology of the manager working a match, but Ivan wasn’t the right babyface, and the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze to set up a lower-midcard PPV match. But the build for the Starrcade world title match was probably the worst, because they did really nothing on this show to build a program for their biggest PPV, which had already been on PPV and had done 2-3 rematches around the loop. In front of an audience far bigger than weekly television, to boot. We discussed Luger’s hosting duties, but Flair was in something completely separate as well. 

Most Underrated: Eddie Gilbert. While I thought the opener was a little long and worked a little slow for a straight babyface vs. babyface match, Eddie’s selling of the shoulder was very strong and made the match compelling. 

Backstage Notes

Jim Crockett was the interim booker between Dusty Rhodes and George Scott, and he held that role at this show. Most of the card had already been set up by Dusty, but Crockett was officially in the role for this show. 

There were many production mistakes on this show, with director Tommy Edwards receiving most of the internal blame. He didn’t hold the position too much longer, but production mistakes? Welcome to WCW, everyone. 

Rating: 6/10

The main event and the opener got the most time, and both were good-to-great matches. The Dusty-Animal match was more of an angle than a match, and really, everything it should have been. I know it’s been sort of retconned that no one wanted to boo the Road Warriors, but this crowd was rabid for Dusty and probably even more so for Sting. Overall, I liked this better than III. 

The Video