I was sitting around and with some time to kill, I watched Clash of The Champions 20. The show has always been a favorite of mine and happened in September of 1992. It is a show that I remember watching live at the time and watching it now brings back a lot of memories of wrestling at the time.
Clash of Champions 20 was the celebration of 20 years on TBS and WCW’s way of looking back and giving kudos to a lot of the old stars that helped popularize WCW back during the Jim Crockett days and the NWA. They did short films of the big stars and the big-name tag teams of the past and those are both awesome bits to me. An added quirk of showing all the big names was the inclusion of Ric Flair who at this point in time was in the WWF and I think even their World champion. Even in 1992, I got a kick out of that.
The card itself isn’t much, even for that time. I had five matches on the show. I remember them announcing more than that but at one match with Johhny B Badd (Marc Mero) and Scotty Flamingo (Raven) didn’t take place as did the Lightheavyweight title match with Brad Armstrong and Briant Pillman was canceled because of Brad being injured. The Lightheavyweight title was said to be declared vacant and a tournament was later be held, but in reality, the title was gotten rid of and no tournament was held for the title after that.
The stuff that did take place and aired was really good though with Ricky Steamboat facing Steve Austin in a No DQ match for the TV Title. Austin’s then manager, Paul E (Heyman) Dangerously was in a little cage at ringside. I think Paul was supposed to be in the cage for a different match but Paul was winding down in WCW and his Dangerous Alliance was ending soon so a number of things were changed.
Building off that, the next match was Arn Anderson and Bobby Eaton going against Dick Slater and Greg Valentine. This match was a lot better than you would think. Before the match, it was announced the Michaels Hayes was now the new manager from Anderson and ‘Eaton and there was the thing with Larry Zbyszko but it was still a good match. I would have loved to see Arn Anderson against Greg Valentine! Oh well, The never really happened.
Ron Simmons defended his WCW title against Cactus Jack in a blah match that was hinting at the feud with Jake Roberts and Ron Simmons that never really paid off. Roberts would have been a good main eventer for Starrcade against Simmons but that never happened either.
Next up was Dustin Rhodes and Barry Windham against the Barbarian and what was supposed to be Dan Spivey but Cactus announced he told Spivey to stay home and the new Partner is Ron Simmons’s old tag partner Butch Reed. I always wondered what happened with Reed and years later I read in Mick Foley’s book about how Reed was fired after missing a flight after this match and my guess was it was supposed to be Reed against Simmons for the WCW Title at Halloween Havoc but with Reed getting fired, they just plugged in The Barbarian in a match that everyone just laughed at that and made fun of that idea. I think I can figure out why the Bill Watts run as booker of WCW flopped.
The main event was a match I still love and it was the 8 man elimination match with Sting teaming with the Steiner Brothers and Nikita Koloff against Rick Rude, Jake Roberts, Vader, and The Super Invader. The Super Invader wasn’t much, It was Hercules fresh from the WWF with a masked on and he wasn’t amounting to much but the match was really good. Watching Rick Steiner and Vader go at it made me wonder about another match that never really happened. Watching Scott Steiner at this point was good too. I’ve heard the stories of WCW wanting to put the title on him the year before but him not wanting to for fear of them firing Rick but I don’t know how true any of that is. The only negative from this match were those stupid “off the top rope” DQs on Scott Steiner and Vader. That whole thing was a disaster and a bad experiment that didn’t take.
The whole show kinda sticks with me though. Sure, it’s not a masterpiece but I still get into it as it is a look more into the past of wrestling on TBS than it was a look to the future.
I still remember that night in 1992 and staying up to watch the show before going to school the next day and watching it on VHS a number of times for years before the WWE Network made the digital version available without the commercials to fast forward through.
In all, it brings back memories of what was going on in my life at the time and of WCW and what was going on then too. Those were good times and if you ever want to watch Clash of Champions 20 it is available on the WWE Network to watch and hopefully you enjoy it as much as I do.
