Clash of the Champions
August 24, 1994
Originally reviewed here.
If Austin gets disqualified, he will lose the title.
Ricky was in control early until Austin hit a jawbreaker. Austin worked him over for a while. Ricky kept fighting back, but he didn’t get the momentum until Austin started to waste time taunting him. Ricky then made a HUGE comeback. He threw everything he had at Austin and eventually picked up the win with a small package.
I enjoyed this the most of the WCW matches on the set. I mostly credit that to Ricky Steamboat though. A lot of people talk about watching Austin’s WCW period as a time where it’s clear that he had all the tools to become the future mega-star that he became, but I just don’t see it (and never really have).
Instead, I see a talented wrestler who is miscast a chickenshit, heel technician. He just doesn’t look smooth at all which kills the technician aspect of the character for me. He’s not terrible at the chickenshit aspect, but Austin just comes across as low-rent Flair between doing that and (inferior) blonde locks. Now, I do recognize some pieces of Austin’s game at the time that would eventually lead to him becoming the biggest star in wrestling history: Austin clearly has the makings of a great brawler. He wasn’t doing the brawls that would help to make him huge as Stone Cold, but it’s obvious in these matches that he should have been doing that all along.
Match Rating: ***1/4
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