Clash of the Champions X: Texas Shootout — The Wrestling Slips, Then One Bad Step Rewrites the Year

The match is better than the bizarre pre-match vignette, which is not a high bar. Steve Williams works like a heavyweight who expects resistance, and the Samoan Savage gives him enough of it through clubbing offense, floor interference and a long control stretch. The pace is steady rather than exciting, but Williams' explosive comeback finally gives the crowd something to grab. His walking press slam remains impressive and the backslide finish is clean. The problem is purpose: both men are nearly finished with the company, so eight minutes of competent power wrestling does not build much beyond the bell.

Brian Pillman and Tom Zenk are supposed to look young, fast and marketable. The MOD Squad somehow turns that assignment into ten minutes of chinlocks. Pillman supplies the athletic flashes, Zenk brings clean babyface offense, and the finish at least lands with a high crossbody, but the structure asks the wrong team to control too much of the match. Every time the babyfaces start moving, the pace gets dragged back toward the floor. There is a good tag team hiding in Pillman and Zenk, but this is not the showcase to prove it.

History remembers the bump, not the wrestling. Cactus Jack tries to create danger around a veteran opponent who is interested mainly in controlling the match and protecting his presentation. Mascaras takes him through holds, throws him to the floor and ultimately wins with a flying bodypress. In between, Jack launches himself from the apron toward concrete in the infamous fall later described in Mick Foley's writing. The stunt gives the match a grisly afterlife it never earns as competition. Mascaras barely acknowledges the punishment, the crowd stays muted, and five minutes feel like two wrestlers performing different ideas of what the match should be.

The match actually develops into a serviceable ringside fight before the booking decides viewers do not deserve to see the finish. Norman and Kevin Sullivan brawl through the aisle, trade ugly shots around the barricade and eventually disappear backstage. Sullivan hides in the women's bathroom, Norman follows, and the decisive pin happens behind a closed door. The audience receives a woman running out, some noise and Norman emerging with a toilet-seat lid like a trophy. Falls Count Anywhere should expand what a camera can show. This version uses the stipulation to hide the only fall that matters.

Mean Mark Callous is the curiosity, but the matchup itself has obvious appeal: four enormous men trying to prove which pair can move the other. Dan Spivey and Callous work Hawk's arm, the Road Warriors answer with the expected power rushes, and Mark's ropewalk gives a glimpse of the performer he will become. Then a chair enters, the Skyscrapers are disqualified and the post-match attack becomes the real segment. The collision is physical enough to be watchable, but another Clash disqualification keeps it from becoming the satisfying heavyweight brawl the bodies in the ring promise.

This is the one match on the card that feels complete. Doom's size allows Rick and Scott Steiner to throw dangerous-looking suplexes without making the champions seem invincible, while Ron Simmons and Butch Reed are happy to answer with clotheslines, spinebusters and heavy control work. Scott's extended selling creates a proper hot tag, and the Frankensteiner feels like a genuine momentum switch instead of a highlight inserted for applause. Rick finally tears away Reed's mask and rolls him up, forcing both members of Doom to reveal identities everybody already knows. The mystery is weak. The wrestling underneath it is strong.

The cage match stops mattering the moment Sting appears. Before that, Buzz Sawyer takes lunatic bumps, Muta receives the cheers WCW has spent months trying to suppress and the freshly heel Horsemen work with real aggression. Then Sting races out after being expelled from the group earlier in the night, repeatedly tries to climb into the cage and pulls every eye away from the legal wrestlers. Arn Anderson pins Dragonmaster, but almost nobody cares because Sting has injured his knee during the ringside chaos. As a match it is rushed and secondary. As live television, it accidentally changes the company.