Clash of the Champions XXVIII — WCW Attacks Hogan's Knee and Ricky Steamboat Steals the Show Anyway

Pretty Wonderful are the tag champions, the Nasty Boys are not, and WCW opens the show by reminding everyone that championships are sometimes optional accessories. The match is better than the premise. Paul Orndorff controls the structure, Paul Roma supplies the posing, and the Nasties gradually turn a conventional heat segment into the sort of loose brawl they prefer. The crowd comes with them. Then the finish ignores the legal-man problem entirely: Roma splashes Knobbs, Sags drops the elbow on Orndorff and the referee counts three even though Sags is not legal. Good energy, respectable work, and one very WCW ending.

Ricky Steamboat and Steve Austin wrestle like two men who know the finish is not the interesting part. Austin keeps trying to slow the Dragon, mock him and force him into mistakes; Steamboat keeps turning every control segment into another escape route. The final stretch is superb because the near falls become the story rather than decoration. Backslide, sunset flip, small package, jackknife — Austin survives until he finally cannot. Steamboat reverses the bodyslam into the cradle and wins the United States title. Somewhere during the match his back is badly injured. One of WCW's best television matches of 1994 becomes the accidental final chapter of his full-time career.

The wrestling is almost beside the point because the emotional hook arrived before the bell. Dusty has asked his son to let him stand beside him, and Cedar Rapids treats the reunion like a family event. Funk and Buck respond by bumping, staggering and cheating with exactly the amount of theatrical misery the story needs. Dustin carries the cleaner wrestling, Dusty throws elbows and the crowd roars every time father and son briefly control the ring. Arn Anderson's interference creates the disqualification before the match peaks, but the post-match assault is the real destination. Meng no-sells Dusty's chair shot and turns the happy reunion into the road to WarGames.

Inoki and Regal decide that American television has enough American wrestling already. Regal crowds him with forearms, knees, palm strikes and grinding holds, while Inoki spends long stretches trying to find one clean opening rather than building a conventional comeback. The result looks more like a worked fight than the rest of the card, which makes it fascinating and also leaves much of Cedar Rapids unsure when to react. Hogan's return to the building steals attention at exactly the wrong time. Regal dominates most of the eight minutes, Inoki suddenly finds the choke and the match ends. Strange, stiff and compelling in ways the audience never fully accepts.

WCW spends the entire night telling viewers Hulk Hogan's knee may be destroyed, then lets Ric Flair spend the opening third of the title match attacking almost everything except the knee. Once Flair remembers the plot, the match improves immediately. Hogan sells, Sherri cheats, the figure-four matters and the legdrop hurts the champion as much as the challenger. Flair eventually wins by countout after Sherri clips the knee, which protects Hogan and keeps the championship in place for Halloween Havoc. Michael Buffer mistakenly announces Flair as champion, adding one last layer of confusion. The crowd is hot. Flair works hard. The psychology arrives late and never quite catches up.