NWA/WCW Clash of the Champions XII: Fall Brawl ’90 – Mountain Madness
September 5, 1990
Asheville Civic Center – Asheville, North Carolina
Announcers: Jim Ross & Bob Caudle
The Setup
After teasing Sting on TV for about six weeks with mysterious Tony the Tiger videos featuring a shadowy figure and Ole Anderson with a voice box, the Black Scorpion promised to not only wrestle Sting in the main event, but unmask if he lost. We were also getting the first major Lex Luger vs. Ric Flair match on free television; this time for Lex’s US title.
The Business
The show did a massive 5.0 cable rating, the highest Clash rating since the first Clash, headlined by Sting vs. Flair. The show peaked with fucking insane 6.8 quarter-hour ratings for Luger vs. Flair and Sting vs. Scorpion, translating to over 8 million viewers and making them the two most-watched wrestling matches in the history of cable television up to that point. As much as we all collectively mock the Scorpion idea, the concept itself did draw interest. The Observer reported that the snow drew 4,000 fans, and many empty seats were visible on camera.
The Results
The Southern Boys (Steve Armstrong & Tracy Smothers) def. The Fabulous Freebirds (Michael Hayes & Jimmy Garvin) in 8:34 *3/4
Mike Rotunda def. Buddy Landel in 5:39 *
The Master Blasters (Iron & Steel) def. The Lightning Express (Brad Armstrong & Tim Horner) in 4:52 1/2*
The Nasty Boys (Brian Knobbs & Jerry Sags) def. Terry Taylor & Jackie Fulton in 7:11 **
Tommy Rich def. Bill Irwin in 3:59 *1/2
LPWA World Championship: Susan Sexton (C) def. Bambi in 4:11 *
The Steiner Brothers (Rick Steiner & Scott Steiner) def. Maximum Overdrive (Tim Hunt & Jeff Warner) in 6:23 *1/2
Stan Hansen def. The Z-Man in 3:19 *1/2.
NWA United States Heavyweight Championship: Lex Luger (C) def. Ric Flair via DQ in 15:28 ***3/4
NWA World Heavyweight Championship: Sting (C) def. The Black Scorpion in 8:13 *1/4
Notable Happenings
After Scorpion (Al Perez) lost, he was unmasked and revealed to be wearing a second mask. The “real Scorpion” (Angel of Death) was then shown on the ramp. Sid Vicious came out and beat up Sting, setting up their match at Halloween Havoc. But yes, they bait-and-switched their most-watched match ever and tried to take your mind off it with the Sid angle, but I thought that was the shits in 1990 and 2026.
Stan Hansen interfered in the US title match and destroyed Luger, resulting in a DQ. Hansen’s wildness made the angle strong.
The LPWA got a match on the show with Bambi and Susan Sexton, and it didn’t work much at all for the live crowd, even as an attraction.
The Master Blasters made their debut, one of which was Kevin Nash, dressed as Steel, in something that felt much more like a Mad Max rip-off than the Road Warriors. Al Green wouldn’t join until later, but Iron (Cory Pendarvis) was much worse than even the supergreen Kevin Nash and looked like the worst guy on the show by a significant margin. I liked the look of the gimmick and what they were going for, but neither was good enough to be working on national television.
The Nasty Boys made their big show debut as a former AWA and indy tag team, brought in to feud with the Steiners for the US tag titles. Fulton and Taylor were just a solid, random babyface team to get them going.
This was the second consecutive Clash opened by the Southern Boys and Freebirds, only this time Bob Armstrong and Buddy Roberts were in the respective corners. The crowd was hot, but Michael Hayes had a tough night, and I thought this was one of their worst of many big-show matches.
Jeff Warner of Maximum Overdrive would later become JW Storm, but they were a pretty shitty team brought in from the indys to be fodder for the Steiners.
Brian Pillman did an interview, talking about doing the Inaugural “Running the Gauntlet” on the following weekend’s PPV, but that was his only involvement in this show. The Midnight Express weren’t featured either, so we had some great in-ring talent not working on a show that didn’t have much good wrestling.
Rating: 3.0/10.0
The Flair vs. Luger match was very good, but there wasn’t a lot else from a wrestling standpoint. Other than Stan Hansen looking strong by destroying Zenk and beating up Luger, we got a lot of bullshit, and the match didn’t accomplish much. The Black Scorpion bait-and-switch was bullshit. Wasting an incredible heel like Buddy Landel against babyface Mike Rotunda was bullshit. Maximum Overdrive was bullshit on a major event. The pre-Al Green Master Blasters were bullshit on a major event. There was too much filler, and the Scorpion angle sucked bad.
The Video
