Clash of the Champions XXVI — Bobby Heenan Walks In and WCW Suddenly Sounds Smarter

WCW opens 1994 with a tag match that feels healthier than the company surrounding it. Scorpio brings sudden acceleration, Bagwell supplies the straightforward babyface energy, and Paul Orndorff spends the entire match proving that small pieces of veteran technique can hold a television bout together. Paul Roma is less graceful, but the contrast helps the faces. Pretty Wonderful isolate Scorpio, Bagwell gets the hot tag, and a burst of miscommunication finally leaves Roma exposed for the pin. It runs longer than most Clash openers, yet the structure keeps moving. Nobody becomes a star here, but all four leave with a purpose.

Ron Simmons has reached the strange part of his WCW decline where a former World champion is asked to heelishly teach Ice Train a lesson in three and a half minutes. The power exchanges are credible because both men are enormous, but Ice Train still looks like he is thinking through each transition while Simmons is already waiting at the next one. Train misses the three-point stance, Simmons uses the tights on the roll-up and the teacher escapes with the win. There is not enough time for the match to become bad in an interesting way. It exists mostly as evidence of how rapidly Simmons has fallen down the card.

Regal spends fifteen minutes weaponizing the clock, and Dustin Rhodes spends fifteen minutes trying to convince Baton Rouge that patience can be dramatic. The champion repeatedly drags the match back to headlocks, wristlocks and crossfaces because a draw preserves his title. Dustin gradually stops accepting the pace, chases Regal to the floor and increases the urgency as the final minutes disappear. The crowd gets impatient before it gets invested, but the closing sprint pays off the design. Dustin finally hits the bulldog just as time expires. It is deliberately frustrating wrestling, yet the frustration belongs to the story rather than the performers losing control of it.

Cactus Jack and Maxx Payne jump the Nasty Boys from the crowd, spend the opening moments treating the ringside area as optional and then make the questionable decision to settle into a conventional tag match. Cactus is excellent whenever chaos resumes. Payne is noticeably less useful when asked to carry the middle. The Nasties work him over, a chair shot lands with uncomfortable force and Cactus eventually gets the hot tag that should have arrived sooner. The finish cleverly reverses the champions' usual cheating, with Payne dropping an elbow while the referee is distracted and Cactus getting the pin. The feud wants violence. Television keeps asking it for structure.

Brian Pillman versus Colonel Robert Parker works because everybody knows the wrestling is secondary to humiliation. Parker runs, begs and sells like a man auditioning for silent comedy. Steve Austin arrives dressed like Parker and contributes more to the match from ringside than most managers manage in an entire feud. Pillman repeatedly has Parker beaten until Austin interferes, The Boss blocks escape routes and the whole thing becomes a moving traffic jam around the ring. Pillman finally rolls Parker up after Austin is chased away. The promised chicken suit does not appear until Saturday Night, which weakens the immediate payoff, but the crowd enjoys the chase enough to forgive it.

Four of WCW's biggest stars turn the main event into a preview machine for SuperBrawl IV. Sting and Rude continue their International-title issue, Flair and Vader resume the violence from Starrcade, and every tag feels like a different main event beginning. Vader is the match's engine, crushing Sting and then reducing Flair to theatrical screaming with avalanches, bombs and superplexes. Nick Bockwinkel prevents the chair shot outside, and Flair and Vader are counted out together, leaving Sting and Rude to finish the story. That second phase slows, but Sting's borrowed Rude Awakening and final top-rope splash restore the crowd. It is not definitive. It is effective television architecture.