Grilling JR - Clash of Champions I [Show Notes] (Patreon)

Clash of the Champions 1

Clash of the Champions 1 took place on March 27th, 1988 from the Greensboro Coliseum, in Greensboro, North Carolina. It drew 6,000 fans

Ironically, March 27th, 1988 was also the same day as WrestleMania 4, in the WWF, which was on pay per view, and the Clash was on free TV, on TBS.

Let's dive right into it, talk about when you first heard about the idea for Clash of the Champions and what did you think about it

It's been urban legend over the years that the Clash was created as revenge because of the WWF putting the first Survivor Series on pay per view in 1987 the same day as Starrcade 87, as well as the first Royal Rumble on the USA Network to go head up against the Bunkhouse Stampede. Is that true?

Whose brainchild was the Clash of the Champions?

Talk about the planning and everything that went into this production to make it become a reality

Let's get to some company news heading into the clash

Meltzer reported in early February - Actually the story I got in the case of Hayes is that he and Crockett had agreed to terms of the contract a long time ago (a two year deal for $150,000 per year) but that Crockett had never actually signed it.

Hayes put the pressure on for the contract to be signed, because he wasn’t making any money with JCP without the contract, and he wound up fired for missing Cincinnati on 1/23. Morton & Gibson apparently were asked to do an angle where the Sheepherders shave Ricky’s head bald but refused to go along with it which may have led to their ouster as well. Hayes also had his record album covered in the contract in that Crockett was to promote the album on TV in exchange for a cut of the sales. A Charlotte newspaper reported that Morton & Gibson had severed ties with the NWA during mid-week and the Charlotte offices received lots of calls about it.

It appears for now that Morton & Gibson will be working against the NWA for Jerry Blackwell’s group in Georgia, at least part-time until they land with a major group, which may not be that easy. I suppose Vince could always bring in Ricky to do lead vocals on Wrestling Album III for his classic “Boogie Woogie Dance Hall”.

On February 5th, the WWF held the Main Event on NBC which saw Hulk Hogan's 4 year title run end when he lost to Andre the Giant with the double ref finish. Did you watch that? Did you guys think the Clash could be your answer to the Saturday Night's Main Event and Main Event shows that the WWF was doing?

Meltzer reported - The biggest story is that Ted Turner is now in bed with these guys and trying to help them get back on the PPV track. As we’ve

mentioned before, JCP announced four PPV events originally for this year (Bunkhouse final, Crockett Cup, American Bash and Starcade). McMahon, now the undisputed king of wrestling and especially wrestling on PPV, then countered announcing his own show for Thanksgiving, plus a summer show and WM4 on PPV and with a 60 before and 21 day after exclusivity clause, basically canceled out any hope JCP had of getting on with the majority of systems in order to make the potential big PPV bucks. 

As we’ve noted, the future of this business on a major league level is definitely not in house shows, but in PPV and outside merchandising and with McMahon blocking Crockett from PPV, then no matter what else may happen or how much Crockett can turn things around, he won’t be able to compete on a major league basis. Anyway, Turner is trying to put his muscle in and help Crockett get an early July bash (probably a War Games) on PPV, although at this point plans for the Crockett Cup and Starcade on PPV have already been canned. After the Bash, they don’t plan for another PPV until January of ‘89 with the Bunkhouse final (I guess the big difference between these guys and McMahon is that at least McMahon learns from his mistakes).

Meltzer reported - The Sporting News a few weeks back ran a clip about Lyle Alzado’s sitcom “Learning the ropes” where Alzado plays a single parent

who supplements his job as a school teacher by being a masked wrestler called “The Maniac.” Steve Williams originally doubled for Alzado in the early pilots which were filmed just before Christmas. When Williams was wrestling Ric Flair, he injured his knee landing wrong on a leap from the top ropes. He came back, heavily bandaged and limping, for a match with Tully Blanchard. In that

one, Tully was supposed to crack him hard over the back with a chair, but instead hit him in the head and busted him open. Doc then had his head patched up for a match with Arn Anderson, but finally his knee blew out. Anderson then doubled for Alzado and teamed with Lex Luger against the Road Warriors. Anderson fell from the ring and jammed his shoulder on a TV camera.

What's your memories of the Learning the Ropes show? How did that come to be? The show is a comedy about a school teacher (Lyle Alzado) who doubles as a masked wrestler at night. The show features clips of NWA wrestlers, in character, and having speaking roles. Arn took over for Steve Williams as the bump taker for Lyle

Meltzer reported - Paul Boesch was elected to the NWA board of directors, or I guess appointed would be a more correct word to use which makes him

the only non-promoter ever on the board. In the past, the board was the group that would decide on the World champion, however I’m sure that decision is basically all in Jim Crockett’s hands so this may be more of a figurehead position that the NWA will use Boesch in for his name value in the Houston area.

I’m told that while Boesch will be involved with the NWA in Houston starting with the 3/4 card, he is not returning as a promoter as he has no financial interest in these shows

Any Paul Boesch stories and talk about what the board of directors was, for those who might not be familiar with it

Animal was injured the day before the bench press challenge that the Road Warriors did against the Powers of Pain.

Meltzer reported - A few notes on the condition of Road Warrior Animal. I want to get the story straight because there have been a few errors reporting it

over the past week or so. Animal was legitimately injured on 1/29 in Pittsburgh. Warlord, not Barbarian, gave Animal a Samoan drop and either he executed it wrong, or Animal took the bump wrong, or simply there was a freak injury accident, but it smashed the bone above Animal’s eye (similar to the injury Riki Choshu suffered when Akira Maeda kicked him in the face). 

The extent of the injury wasn’t known at the time and he went to Greensboro for the bench press contest the next day. Originally they were going to use heavier weights before shooting the angle, but apparently they were afraid of having Animal lift more than 500 (he reportedly can do in the 580 range, while Barbarian can do 570 and Warlord can do 600, although Hawk isn’t in that league when it comes to bench press max) because of the pressure on the eye. I’m told the weights in the bench press contest were legit, as opposed to Titan, which used fake weights for Dino Bravo’s “712 pound” press, however the amount of weight Paul Jones was calling out was often wrong. 

The original plan was for all three except Hawk to go to around 550, and then have Jones call for 600 before Hawk did his lift and apparently that’s when the angle would occur. Anyway, when Animal went to the hospital, with a detached retina, broken bone and his eye knocked h inch into his forehead, the initial word was the injury was “a thousand times worse than it appeared to be.” Animal had eye surgery and for a while there were fears that he could lose the eye but apparently those fears have been quelled.

What's your memories of that accident?

Meltzer reported - WTBS has extended its contract with JCP through 1994. The new format for TBS has changed once again. The Saturday morning

show, which lately was taped old studio matches plus one decent house show match will now become the NWA Pro show on a one week delay. The Saturday afternoon (night for you on the East) will be almost always done in studio, while the Sunday show will bedone at the arena every week starting in April, either on 4/3 or 4/10 and show quality main event calibre matches. 

The Sunday showwill air only three or four matches in the hour, giving them time to have decent-length matches and 20 minute main events. The Sunday show is being groomed specifically to get TV ratings, while the Saturday show is groomed mainly to build up the house shows. The syndicated ratings will now include the TBS package so The Wrestling Network, with the addition of TBS to its syndicated package, will move up to the 8.5 level--or actually just a point-and-a-half behind Titan which in theory should enable them to make substantial income through TV ad sales.

Around this time, Gary Hart came in as the manager of Al Perez. How did that come to be? Gary spent several years in WCCW as a manager and the booker during their super hot period in the early 80s

Meltzer reported - Wrestlers are pretty excited over the new TBS Sunday show which debuts on 4/3 because they will be getting bonuses for appearing.

The participants in the main event split a $7,500 bonus (in a singles bout that’s $3,750 each which is a huge payoff for a single match, tag would be $1,800 each which still is huge), those in the semi-main split $2,500. Each show, called “NWA Main Event,” will have three matches, few interviews, the bouts will have length to them, etc. and the show will become the new “C” show of the package

running a week later in syndication replacing the CWF and Power Pro shows which will be dropped in April. I guess the bonuses in theory will lessen complaints if the heels are asked to do jobs on television, if in fact, we’ll see jobs. I expect good action matches with mainly DQ finishes.

Meltzer reported- The story is that Crockett has been in heavy

negotiations over the past 10 days with Ken Mantell of World Class. I’ve heard several reports, some conflicting about it. I know Crockett was going in with the idea of taking over World Class (not buying it but a take-over similar to Florida and Central States) which would give him the valuable Ch. 11 time slot on Saturday nights in Dallas which is the highest rated pro wrestling show in any

of the top 20 markets in the United States. 

To complete the deal would require approval of Fritz Von Erich who still controls majority interest in the World Class promotion, so if the deal were completed, Kevin & Kerry would be guaranteed a job and a push with the NWA, although since Kevin & Kerry don’t want to travel, the deal would be that they would only work shows in the area, a few TV tapings and maybe St. Louis where both they and their father were good draws in the past. 

The bottom line here is that even though Michael Hayes and Ken Mantell are probably doing the most creative and best job of booking right now of anyone in the business, their business just isn’t turning around and perhaps the economic factor, which is out of their hands, may not allow the thing to turn around. 

I don’t expect a deal to be made now, not at least until May so Mantell and Hayes give themselves a chance to see if they can get the area going and promote a lucrative Texas Stadium show on their own.

That takes us to the Clash of the Champions 1 and keep in mind, it went head to head with WrestleMania 4, which featured the World Title tournament, where Randy Savage was crowned the new WWF World Champion

Meltzer wrote of it - Jim Crockett kicked Vince McMahon’s ass Sunday afternoon, and on the single least likely day of the year for that to happen. Of

course we won’t have anything resembling economic figures, and McMahon did make more money of course which some would say is the bottom line. But on January 24th, Crockett made more money, but Titan came out ahead in reality. I can’t believe anyone who watched both shows, and fewer did than I had imagined, could do anything but laugh at the comparison.

Overall, and these are preliminary figures but I’ve been making calls to cable companies and hearing from fans at arenas--WrestleMania was down about 40 to 45 percent in interest from last-year. The pay-per-view buy rate appears to be around six percent, or roughly half of the 12 percent than Titan had predicted and well off the 10.3 percent of last year’s show. Still, even at six percent, the PPV grossed $10.8 million, but in reality, of that the Titan bank account won’t see more than $3.5 million. Preliminary reports indicate a U.S. closed-circuit audience

of around 175,000 (last year was 375,000) which accounts for an estimated $2.3 million more. 

The live gate was around one million, and Donald Trump paid a nice-sized but undisclosed site fee to Titan for the show. The overall estimate, adding in Canadian markets, is that the show grossed just under $14 million--however because of pay-per-view splits and the like, maybe $6.5 million will

eventually find its way to Connecticut. Titan was predicting its take at $18 million just two weeks ago. That’s all money figures and of the 40 to 45 percent less interest, you’ll have to speculate for yourself as to what percentage was caused by this year’s promotion just not being as interesting to the general public as last year’s, and what percentage was because Crockett ran a free show head-to-head.

The truth is, Crockett hurt McMahon with his free show tons more than I had anticipated, and tons more than McMahon hurt Crockett on January 24th (although still probably less than McMahon hurt Crockett on Thanksgiving).

As for the shows themselves, it was like night-and-day. I suppose TBS deserves the credit, from the nice opening, their show was a 31⁄2 star production overall. There were flaws to be sure. There were far too many commercials early on. In fact, of the first 90 minutes of the special, just 30 minutes were wrestling. That was to make up for them going 45 straight minutes in the Ric Flair vs. Sting match

without any commercial interruptions, and in hindsight, I really appreciated it.

The announcing was great, in fact superlative during the main event.

We start with the incredibly cool old school NWA intro showing the various championship belts with lightning striking in the background 

Mike Rotunda retained the NWA TV title pinning Jimmy Garvin under amateur rules at 1:10 of the second round. The rules were three 5:00 rounds and a pin is a one count instead of a three count although they wrestled “pro-style” with just a small smattering of actual amateur wrestling. Finish saw Garvin hook Rotunda for the brainbuster, then Kevin Sullivan attacked Precious. Garvin went after Sullivan and Rotunda caught him from behind and got the one count pin. Rick Steiner then did a run-in and attacked Garvin but Precious hit Steiner with a 2x4 and then choked Sullivan with a coat hanger. **1⁄4

The Varsity Club stable just started right before the Clash. Talk about how that came to be and what'd you think of it? It really reinvigorated Mike Rotunda's career

After the match, future Varsity Club member and the newly returned Steve Williams did an interview 

During the commercial break, an ad aired for the “Four Horseman Top Performance System.” The commercial showed vintage Horseman footage with a bottle of “Four Horseman Energy Pills” superimposed over the top of the clips 

The Midnight Express retained the U.S. tag belts beating The Fantastics via DQ in 10:15 of what is known in the trade as a classic Memphis brawl. There was so much action that the cameras missed a lot of it. They used chairs, tables and tennis racquets and did lots of brawling outside the ring. At one point Bobby Eaton threw Tommy Rogers into a table held by Jim Cornette. Eaton then slammed and bulldogged Rogers on the table, and Rogers got an abrasion above the eye from it and had to be legitimately hospitalized. Fulton got a swollen lip as well. Finish saw Fulton throw the ref over the top rope and a second ref ran in just as Rogers came down for the pin using the rocket launcher and made the count but of course the decision was reversed. The only bad thing is that it’s an ending they do way too much. Lots of post match action as well with Cornette hitting two refs with the tennis racquet and eventually lashing Fulton’s back with a belt as the Midnights held him. ****1⁄4 (Four-and-a-half for the action in the match, minus one-half for the overused finish, plus one-quarter for the post-match)

Bob Caudle is at ring side “We have a huge crowd here in Charlotte. The new Leave it to Beaver stars Eddie Haskel. And we’d like right now for all you folks to meet Eddie Haskel.” We then cut to a sixty year old Eddie Haskel (in character) running into Jim Cornette at ringside. “Hey listen, that’s a fine lookin’ tennis racket you have there Mr. Cornette.” 

We cut back to Bob Caudle He is joined by Gary Hart and Al Perez. They call out Dusty Rhodes.

We go to Frances Crocket to announce the top ten seeds for the Jim Crocket Sr. Memorial Cup to announce the top 10 seeds:

• 10. Ivan Koloff and Dick Murdock
• 9. Sting and Ron Garvin 
• 8. The Varsity Club
• 7. Fantastics
• 6. Barry Windham and Lex Luger
• 5. Powers of Pain
• 4. Midnight Express
• 3. Road Warriors
• 2. Nikita Koloff and Dusty Rhodes (shocker)
• 1. Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard

Dusty Rhodes & The Road Warriors won a barbed wire match from The Warlord & Barbarian & Ivan Koloff in 3:39. Dusty, with face paint wearing a black T-shirt looks like a dead ringer for Dump Matsumoto, except Dump is better looking. Ivan juiced in 20 seconds and Dusty in 90 seconds. I hate barbed wire matches because the wire is a tremendous detriment to the match because everyone becomes cautious and mainly stays in the middle of the ring. Finish saw Animal pin Warlord after a slam and then a cover and Barbarian came off the top rope with a head-butt on Animal, who moved, and hit his partner. Ivan took his chain and knocked off Animal’s mask after and they had a nice brawl. *

Speaking of Dusty, the night before this on NWA wrestling on Saturday night at 6:05, a huge angle took place.

It started when they showed the film of March 18th in Cincinnati where Magnum hit Tully Blanchard with a baseball bat and caused a DQ in a tag title match. Magnum was doing an interview when Blanchard and J.J. came out and then Barry Windham came out. Tully popped Windham. At this point J.J. was standing behind Magnum and Tully popped Magnum. J.J. held Magnum and set him down softly on the ground due to Magnum’s condition. 

Dusty comes charging out with a baseball bat and beats on Tully battering his back and stomach with the bat. First David Crockett and then Rob Garner (two VP’s of JCP) went after Dusty and he shrugged them off until Jim Crockett climbs on Dusty’s back, Dusty doesn’t realize who it is and rears backwards with the bat and KO’s Jim Crockett before finally all the faces pull Dusty away from Tully. Magnum bladed himself as well although that didn’t air on television.

Out comes Nikita Koloff in a white business suite for an interview, He holds up a sign that says “Get High on Sports, Not Drugs” so at least it’s a positive message. Bob Caudle is nice enough to give a quick paraphrase at the end: Nikita doesn’t need a belt to be a champion and he wants a piece of Kevin Sullivan. 

Lex Luger & Barry Windham won the NWA tag title beating Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard in 9:35. Actually, for a guy who had just decked Magnum the day before, Blanchard didn’t get that much of a reaction. Seems all the real heat is on J.J. Luger was wearing new tights which “bled” on the screen so it made him look radioactive. Match was good all the way, ending when J.J. held up a chair and Lex reversed Arn’s attempted whip and Arn went into the chair and was pinned. ***1⁄2

Surprising outcome at the time, but later, Barry would turn on Lex and join the Horsemen and they'd lose the belts back to Arn & Tully. Was that the plan at this time?

Ric Flair and Sting went to a 45:00 draw in an NWA title match. This was certainly a match of the year candidate. The match started out slow-paced but the heat never died and it was never dull. Flair did a great job of selling the restholds like bearhugs and headlocks early on. Actually there is no wrestler in the business who could have put on the performance Flair did in this match. 

He was so good I almost thought Sting was going to stand there in awe of him. Sting held up his end although Flair was certainly doing the carrying. 

I also want to make mention of Jim Ross who did a tremendous job with Tony Schiavone on the commentary the whole show, but especially in the first 25 minutes when things were slow-paced, he “sold” the match and “sold” the intensity and importance of the match. We had the impression we were watching a “classic” even before it actually did turn into a legit “classic.” 

The match built and built and was worked to near perfection. Sting had the scorpion deathlock on at the bell. It was said over-and-over again that in the case of a time limit draw, that three judges would decide the winner. Well, we had five guys at the judging table (four guys and one girl to be exact) but two of them didn’t vote (Ken Osmond of Leave it to Beaver Fame and Jason Hervey of ABC’s “Wonder Years”). 

So the judges were Patty Mullen, the Penthouse Pet of the year, who was on TV the day before in Flair’s arms and of course voted for Flair. Gary Juster, the NWA promoter in most of its most successful cities in the non-original territory then got to be a babyface and vote for Sting. Sandy Scott then ruled it a draw. It made the whole judging thing needless and stupid as nothing resulted from it. By the way, Lyle Alzado was a no-show as judge. ****3/4

Definitely one of the most memorable matches in the history of NWA/WCW and it turned Sting into a star that night, which Sting has said many times over the years, that Ric Flair made him that night. Would you agree with that?

Was Sting looked at as the future at this point before the match and if not, was he after the match?

Sting joined the NWA not very long before this actually, he came over from the UWF when JCP bought them 

Did Ric hand pick Sting to be in this match?

Ric wrote in his book about this match - 

Jimmy’s expectations were high. “We need you to go forty-five minutes,” he said. “We’re going head-to-head against WrestleMania, so let’s tear the joint down.” “That’s a very nice position to be in,” I told him. “I can’t wait.”

Up until Clash of the Champions, I had never wrestled Sting. Because of his youth, it was my responsibility to go out there and lead him through a great match. But I didn’t do all the work; Steve definitely held up his end. Sting got a nice reception coming out, but hardly a superstar’s ovation. When the bell rang, we locked fingers and pushed up against each other. I lost the test of strength and howled in torment. Sting gave me a press slam and a flying head scissors. 

I threw him through the ropes, but he landed on his feet, rolled back into the ring, stood up, and glared at me. I placed Sting in the figure-four, but he pounded on his chest, then reversed the maneuver. He flipped me over the corner turnbuckle, but I staggered across the apron, mounted the opposite turnbuckle, and hit Sting with a flying body press. He clutched onto me and kept rolling, gaining a near-fall. 

At the forty-four-minute mark, he had me in his finisher, the Scorpion Death Lock, while the public-address announcer counted down the match’s final seconds. I screamed and writhed with pain, but the bell rang just before I could submit, and the bout was declared a time-limit draw. 

Throughout the match, I could feel the mood of the people, and knew that they were buying Sting as my peer. So was I. Sting had the ability and loved wrestling so much that I knew that he was going to make it. When we got backstage, I was as happy as he was. The show had drawn a record-setting 5.6 rating and lured away millions of viewers who might have watched WrestleMania IV. Even more important, both of us realized this was the start of something we would be doing for a very long time.

Observer poll of which show was better, Clash or WrestleMania -

This was the largest response we’ve ever gotten for any reader poll in history, which isn’t surprising. Unfortunately, it was pretty obvious after the shows were over was just how one-sided would the readers think the results were. We

had 532 responses between letters and phone calls and the results were stunning. Of those, 504 (94.7 percent) enjoyed Clash of the Champions the most. Only 20 (3.8 percent) enjoyed WrestleMania more than Clash of the Champions, while eight (1.5 percent) enjoyed both shows about the same. In the category of which show you thought was the better card, 489 (91:9 percent) said Clash of

the Champions, 39 (7.3 percent) thought WrestleMania was the better overall card while four (0.8 percent) thought both cards were about the same in quality. 

But probably the most stunning statistic, but then again really not surprising is that of 532 responses, only two voted a match from WrestleMania as the best overall match, as the Ted DiBiase vs. Randy Savage championship match and the

Ted DiBiase vs. Don Muraco second round match each received one vote. Seven others couldn’t pick one match as being the best. 

It was almost a tie as to the match the readers thought was the best of the day with Ric Flair vs. Sting 45 minute draw getting a slight nod, with 245 votes (46.1 percent) while the Midnight Express vs. Fantastics match got 242 votes (45.5 percent) and the NWA tag team title change with Barry Windham & Lex Luger beating Tully Blanchard & Arn Anderson got 36 votes (6.8 percent). 

Clearly, as far as which group put together the better show, it was no contest as far as the readers are concerned.

Approximately 585,000 homes paid an average of $19.95 to watch WrestleMania IV on pay-per-view, or a six percent national buy rate so that’s $11.7 million. Add in $3 million from closed-circuit (about 220,000 viewers in the U.S. and Canada), and another $1.6 million from the live venue (a combination of Donald Trump’s site fee and the actual live gate), and you’ve got an overall estimated gross of $16.3 million. With the current number of PPV clearances, if they had the same amount of interest as last year’s show (and no competing show), the show would have grossed $26.6 million. 

Of that $16.3 million, Titan will probably actually see just over $7 million and between souvenirs and the videotape and possible foreign rights, they may get another $1 million.

Clash of the Champions drew an overall 5.8 rating/12.6 share, which means it was viewed in an average quarter hour in 2,561,000 homes. The rating isn’t as high as Titan’s Royal Rumble on USA in January, although the share (percentage of homes watching television that was watching the show) was slightly higher because far less people are watching TV on Sunday afternoons as compared with prime time Sunday night. However, an interesting phenomenon of Clash is that the audience increased in every successive quarter hour, which is unusual for any 21/2 hour show and especially for wrestling, which often loses ground in these types of events. 

The Ric Flair vs. Sting match had a 7.1 rating/15 share with 3,138,000 homes watching (almost exactly the same audience of the Royal Rumble), while the last 15 minutes of that match had 3,447,000 homes watching, which made it the most watched wrestling slot on WTBS and ever for the NWA, and probably the most watched wrestling slot ever on cable television as well.