Clash of the Champions VII: Guts and Glory — The Crowd Saves the Circus, Then Lex Luger Lights the Match

The first thing this match has going for it is hatred. Fort Bragg wants nothing to do with Michael Hayes and Jimmy Garvin, and that hostility gives the Dynamic Dudes more credibility than their matching surf-rock presentation usually supplies. Johnny Ace handles the long babyface-in-peril stretch, Shane Douglas brings the necessary hot tag, and the Freebirds understand exactly when to stall and when to cheat. The wrestling is competent rather than memorable, but seven minutes is the right length. Hayes' hidden DDT finishes the semifinal without exhausting the crowd before the tournament still has two rounds of business left.

This is booking by blunt instrument. Put Ranger Ross on an Army base, put Jack Victory under a mask as a villain literally named The Terrorist, and wait for the troops to react. They do. The crowd erupts for Ross, who wins with the Combat Kick in barely more than a minute. As a wrestling match there is almost nothing to evaluate; it is an entrance, a patriotic cue and a finish. The segment is historically revealing because it captures how shamelessly literal WCW's character development could become under Jim Herd, but modern viewers will get the entire idea long before the bell stops ringing.

The infamous part is not that two wrestlers wear bells. It is that the whole presentation seems convinced the bells are a breakthrough. They hang from the costumes, they fall into the ring, and the partner on the apron rings a larger bell throughout the match until even the commentary sounds exhausted by the noise. Cougar Jay and George South are capable enhancement wrestlers, but the gimmick swallows everything around them. The finishing double-team is perfectly acceptable. Nobody remembers it. What survives is three and a half minutes of proof that a bad idea can overpower competent execution faster than almost anything in wrestling.

This starts with enough urgency to become something good. Bobby Eaton sells with conviction, Stan Lane's eventual hot tag lands, and the military crowd treats the Midnight Express like conquering heroes. Then the referee goes down and the Road Warriors arrive to flatten the Samoans, handing the Midnights a tournament win through outside interference. The revenge logic makes sense because the Samoan Swat Team had cost Hawk and Animal earlier in the tournament, but the finish undercuts a match that was beginning to build its own momentum. Six minutes is brisk, yet the semifinal feels less like a victory than another stop in somebody else's feud.

The opening minute promises the match wrestling fans imagine when they see these two names together. Gordy and Williams collide like heavy machinery, throw ugly punches, attack the body and look genuinely irritated with each other. Then the pace stalls, they drift through power exchanges, and the finish sends both men wandering into the aisle for a double count-out just as the crowd is ready for escalation. Their later work together would make the pairing legendary, which makes this little six-minute preview more fascinating in hindsight than satisfying in the moment. The physicality is real; the ending feels like somebody pulled the plug.

Norman's debut is less a match than a character demonstration. Teddy Long arrives with a massive man in hospital clothes, a key supposedly controlling his behavior and attendants waiting to strap him to a stretcher afterward. Mike Shaw throws himself into the role and crushes Mike Justice in forty-seven seconds, so at least the wrestling does not overstay its welcome. The problem is everything surrounding it. The mental-institution imagery is broad even by 1989 standards, and the show spends more energy explaining the gimmick than the performer. Norman would eventually become a warmer character; this first version is mostly a bad idea presented with total commitment.

Here is the future arriving without an announcement. Rick Steiner already has the crowd barking for him, Scott Steiner looks alarmingly comfortable for someone this early in his career, and both brothers wrestle like impact matters more than elegance. Mike Rotunda and Kevin Sullivan are perfect opponents because they understand how to turn that recklessness into a story. Scott takes a frightening spill onto the ringside table, gets attacked with the steps, and keeps fighting until Rotunda finally suplexes him onto a chair for the pin. The result protects the feud more than the new team, but the important discovery is obvious: the Steiners already feel different.

Sting is over enough that three minutes can feel like an attraction, which is fortunate because the match itself never becomes much more than a compressed television defense. Bill Irwin gets a brief control stretch, catches Sting with a strong spinebuster and creates just enough resistance to avoid pure squash territory. Sting fires back, hits the Stinger Splash and wins with a roll-up after Irwin reaches for the whip. The ending is less decisive than a champion this popular deserves, but the segment accomplishes its obvious job: put Sting in front of a rabid crowd, let everyone yell for a few minutes and move on.

The title change matters more than the match earns. Paul E. Dangerously knocks Jim Cornette out before the bell, stripping the Midnight Express of their manager and creating a separate storyline before the tournament final even begins. The Freebirds stall, Bobby Eaton absorbs the punishment, Stan Lane provides the comeback, and Terry Gordy eventually powerbombs Eaton behind the referee's back so Jimmy Garvin can steal the vacant championships. The mechanics are fine, but ten minutes never develop into the dramatic tournament climax the lineup promises. Fort Bragg supplies heat that the wrestling cannot quite match, and the interference makes another major result feel borrowed.

Steamboat and Funk wrestle like two men whose personalities make technical compatibility almost irrelevant. Steamboat is precision and pride; Funk is grievance given human form. Their chops land with malice, Funk takes ridiculous spills to the floor, and Steamboat becomes more aggressive because a polite wrestling match would make no sense against this opponent. Funk's piledriver on the floor gives the match genuine danger before Steamboat rallies. The microphone disqualification is frustrating in isolation, but the aftermath transforms it: Lex Luger appears to save Steamboat, then annihilates him, turning heel in one clean, understandable burst of jealousy. The match builds the Bash; the angle detonates it.