Monday, September 12, 2011

WCW Clash of the Champions #16: Fall Brawl '91

Augusta, GA
9/5/91

1) 15-Man Georgia Brawl Battle Royal – 3
Your participants in this one are Z-Man, Tommy Rich, Bobby Eaton, Ranger Ross, Tracy Smothers, Oz, P.N. News, Sgt. Buddy Lee Parker, Steve Austin, Dustin Rhodes, Terry Taylor, Big Josh, Barry Windham, One Man Gang, and El Gigante. If you’ve seen any previous undercard battle royal on any major show before then you’ve seen this. Austin and Windham had a brawl on the outside after getting eliminated and Eaton and P.N. News took some pretty wild bumps when they got eliminated. Other than that, not much going on here.

2) Badstreet vs. Brian Pillman – 7
The first semi-final of the Light Heavyweight Title tournament. Good god, the suplex off the apron to the floor was insane. Pillman ate steel on a suicide dive. Non-stop action. Not sure who this Badstreet dude is but he’s pretty good. Nice DDT by Badstreet. Pillman here was post the goofy Yellow Dog angle and this was his first TV match back. This felt ahead of its time by about six years and would have fit in nicely with the peak cruiserweight years of 96-98.

3) Johnny B. Badd vs. Sting - 4
This was going along just fine until they screwed up a simple whip attempt and it completely went downhill from there. A big box got delivered at ringside and both guys stopped to stare at said box and a sloppy Sting roll-up finished it. This definitely would have gotten a better score if not for the terrible finish, although Cactus Jack dropping one of the most wild elbows I’ve ever seen was a really cool post-match highlight.

4) Mike Graham vs. Ricky Morton - 4
What looks as a squash on paper, turned out to be a rather decent mat based match, the complete opposite of the previous light heavyweight semi-final. Probably the best Mike Graham match that I’ve seen even though he was as bland as a piece of cardboard and couldn’t get the crowd behind him.

5) The Freebirds vs. Todd Champion & Firebreaker Chip - 3
Felt like a basic TV tag match as I didn’t see any body really going full bore here with anything. Todd Champion looked pretty good for his part. Freebirds were completely on autopilot. Not a lot of substance here.

6) Ron Simmons vs. The Diamond Studd - 3
Studd’s offense consisted of punching and even that was pretty awful. This morphed right into a complete squash to build up Simmons for his world title match at Halloween Havoc.

7) Terry Taylor vs. Van Hammer - 2
I can’t believe I just saw Van Hammer, Flying V guitar and all, completely squash Terry Taylor. I wonder if Hammer ever learned how to play that guitar?

8) Z-Man vs. Steve Austin - 4
Definitely the best match of the second half of the show. Both guys had some really good mat work which transitioned into Z-Man working the arm. Z-Man hit a superkick that wasn’t really all that super but followed that up with a wild dive over the top rope on Austin on the rampway. Z-Man showed some good fire. Austin looked pretty good as well and worked really smooth. Some interference from Austin’s valet handing him a foreign object which allowed him to KO Z-Man.

9) Arn Anderson & Larry Zbyszko vs. Rick Steiner & Bill Kazmaier - 3
Well, that was quick. The story here was that Kazmaier was injured earlier when Arn and Zbyszko smashed Kazmaier in the ribs with a 40-pound weight. Steiner worked it as a handicap match and got a couple nice shots in. Match only went about three minutes and ended when Kazmaier tagged himself in and then took a shot in the injured ribs. Pretty mundane way to close out the show.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Badstreet's Brad Armstrong.

Jessie said...

I believe Badstreet was Brad Armstrong but could be wrong...seemed like he played multiple masked characters over the years....in that main, does Billy boy come out to the ring carrying a gigantic rubber globe?