NWA (WCW) Clash of the Champions X: Texas Shootout (February 1990)

Original Airdate: February 6, 1990

From Corpus Christi, Texas; Your Hosts are Jim Ross and Jim Cornette.


Opening Match: Steve Williams v Samoan Savage: Williams barely lets Savage take off his entrance gear (see: skirt) before attacking him, and throwing him to the floor. Williams brings him back in by force for a bodyslam, and starts unloading shouldertackles - only for Savage to smarten up, and catch him with a clothesline on, like, the tenth one. Took him long enough. Savage tosses Williams to the floor himself, but his lack of footwear make his stomps less than brutal, so Woman heads to ringside (presumably to remind us of something much more suitably brutal). Back inside, Savage hooks a nervehold to eat up a few minutes, but Williams shakes his booty to escape - only to end up on the floor for more barefoot stomps again. Maybe his feet really stink, or something? Savage goes with a sidewalk slam instead of more of the barefoot deep tissue massaging technique, but misses a flying splash follow-up, and Williams press slams him before pinning him with a backslide at 7:54. Other than Savage's Samoan-standard nervehold bullshit, this was energetic, and got the crowd going. * ¼

Interviewer Terry Funk brings the Four Horsemen out for an interview, and Ole Anderson makes a big show of telling unlikely Horsemen Sting that he thinks he's a piece of shit, but now he thinks he's a piece of shit that needs flushing since he had the balls to ask Ric Flair for a shot at the NWA Title. The result? A three-on-one beat down for Sting - both kicking him out of the Horsemen, and setting up his title feud with Flair. Great, intense segment here - this played like a scene from the Sopranos, right down to the clothes.

The MOD Squad v Brian Pillman and Tom Zenk: Pillman and Zenk take turns working armbars and dropkicks, but Pillman gets caught with a vicious faceslam coming out of the corner, and the Squad work him over with double-teams - including a pretty awesomely brutal one that involves throwing Pillman through the air like a loaf of bread into a backbreaker. The Squad keep the ring cut in half well, but a missed flying elbowdrop allows the tag to Zenk, and he's a house of arson - finishing Basher with a 2^nd rope bodypress at 9:57. I guess the idea here was that the Squad would go out there and make up-and-coming Pillman/Zenk look good, but the booking didn't really reflect that. Not a bad match by any means (Brian Pillman getting the shit kicked out of him is always entertaining), just too long for what it was. *

Mil Mascaras v Cactus Jack: Mascaras dominates with armdrags and hiptosses in the early going, and wins a test-of-strength but twisting Jack around in a couple of headscissor takedowns. Mascaras with a diving forearm and a dropkick to put Jack on the floor, and Mil tries a full-nelson on the way back in, but Jack quickly breaks with a closed fist. He looks completely lost as he stumbles around hitting Mascaras before going to the apron to set up his brutal spot where Mascaras dropkicks him - sending Jack crashing backwards onto the concrete, completely unprotected. Back inside, Mascaras hits a flying bodypress on the dazed Cactus, and that's that at 5:00. Young Mick Foley was already a bump machine in 1990, but he was completely lost out there otherwise. ¾*

Falls Count Anywhere Match: Kevin Sullivan v Norman the Lunatic: Sullivan doesn't wait for the bell to attack Norman and take it to the outside, but Norman reverses a shot into the post, and adds a buttsplash for good measure (and fun!). Inside, Norman slams Sullivan off of the top rope, but misses a 2^nd rope splash (well, unless he was aiming for the mat - which is possible), and Kevin actually manages to bodyslam him on the outside for two. He follows with a side suplex on the floor for two, and Sullivan resorts to choking the Lunatic with his own hospital gown. Well, that's just mean. Norman responds by... well, crying basically, so Sullivan punches and kicks at him to give him something to cry about. Norman comes back with his own hospital gown chokehold, and they brawl up the aisle for a few shots into the rail. Sullivan manages a random backdrop in the aisle for two, before the brawl goes backstage - ending up in the women's bathroom. Hilariously, Norman thinks twice about entering, looking at the sign and going 'no, no, no!' like some sort of rapist Rain Man. The whole thing ends with Norman following Sullivan in, but since the camera team refuses to follow, Norman gets the pin off camera, and emerges from the bathroom with a toilet seat at 6:45. Not as good as Kevin Sullivan’s other toilet match, that’s for sure. ¼*

The Road Warriors v The Skyscrapers: Hawk starts with Dan Spivey, and we don't even have to wait a full minute for a power-stalemate. Tag to Animal after Hawk manages to knock Spivey out of the ring with a shoulderblock, and he gets to do his own power-stalemates with Mark Callous. Animal wins his by dodging a bodypress after a nice, fast paced criss cross, but things go sour for the Road Warriors when Hawk misses a charge into the corner. Spivey is quick to ram his shoulder into the ringpost, and the Scrapers work Hawk's arm/shoulder - including a ropewalk forearm from Callous.  Another try at it gets countered to allow the tag to Animal, and he's a house of arson - slamming everything in sight. A four-way brawl doesn't take long to break out from there, and the Skyscrapers get disqualified for bringing a chair into the mix at 7:15 - setting up a rematch for WrestleWar (that went down the toilet when Spivey left the promotion a week later). Everyone was motivated enough to keep this going, even if it wasn't going anywhere, exactly. ½*

NWA World Tag Team Title v Masks Match: The Steiner Brothers v Doom: Scott Steiner starts with Ron Simmons, and the masked Simmons actually complains of hair pulling - successfully. That's some Grade-A refereeing there. Scott responds by wrestling him to the mat (Ron, not the referee), and hits a German suplex to leave Simmons scrambling to tag Butch Reed. He and Scott have a power-showdown which ends with Scott dropkicking Butch to the outside, and he drags him in to try and unmask him - leaving Butch cowering in the corner as Scott passes to brother Rick Steiner. Rick dominates with a series of cross corner whips, and a backdrop allows him to make an attempt at the mask, but Reed hits the deck and tags Ron. Simmons tries some cross corner stuff of his own, but a charge misses, and Rick launches him with an overhead suplex before both guys tag again. Doom manage to cut the ring in half after some double-team stuff, but can't quite finish Scotty, and Reed gets caught with a Frankensteiner coming out of the ropes. That allows the tag to Rick to start a doghouse of fire, and he manages to tear Reed's mask off after a powerslam. That distracts Reed long enough for Rick to rollup, and Doom is unmasked at 13:13. Fairly long for the mostly boring match they were working here, but at least they paid off the unmasking instead of some bullshit copout, and there was some nice power stuff. The intrigue over who was under the masks wasn't exactly 'who killed Kennedy?' level stuff, but the live crowd was buying it, so works for me. ¾*

Main Event: Six-Man Tag Team Cage Match: Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, and Ole Anderson v Great Muta, Dragonmaster, and Buzz Sawyer: Ole is a replacement for Sting, after the Horsemen's earlier heel turn on him. This also features the WWF-style bar cage (in this case, thin black bars), which looks downright odd in WCW. The Horsemen waste no time attacking, and Anderson slugs it out with Sawyer to start us off proper. Both guys take a couple of rides into the cage before Flair comes in (drawing big heel heat from the pro-Sting crowd), and the Horsemen take over on Buzz - Flair chopping him like bait. The bait ends up drawing Dragonmaster in, however, but not even a dragon (from Asia!) can match chops with Ric Flair. Great Muta gives it a go, as the crowd turns him face by default, out of pure hate for those dastardly Horsemen. Meanwhile, Sting runs out and starts to climb the cage, but half the babyfaces in the locker room pry him off as Flair taunts him. The crowd is whipped into a proper frenzy at this point, and as Sting fights through the barrage of babyfaces to go for Flair again. He doesn't get far, however, as he legitimately blows his knee out while trying to climb the cage, and is left limping before even getting to Flair. Meanwhile, Sawyer misses a splash off the top of the cage, and Arn pins Dragonmaster with a DDT during the brawl that follows at 6:12. Afterwards, Flair attacks Sting in the aisle to set up their showdown at WrestleWar as the show goes off the air. The match was trivial, but the angle was hot – though unfortunately couldn’t be paid off until months and months later, when Sting recovered. ¾*

BUExperience: The overarching Sting/Horsemen angle was hot stuff, but the rest of the show was pretty dull – if inoffensive. Production values were improving (still goofy and not as good as the WWF’s, but improving), possibly after Tony Schiavone returned from his WWF stint with some new knowhow.

Nothing to go out of your way to see, but certainly not bad, and somewhat historically significant. *