Indeed.

Some hour-long tapes might be around £9.99. 2-hour tapes were around £14.99. 

Thankfully, Blockbuster Video had some. I remember my mum renting the following for me: High Flyers, SummerSlam 1988, Battle Royal at the Albert Hall, and various Hogan tapes. Also, Blockbuster would inevitably put WWF tapes in the bargain bin, reducing the price further.

WCW, when they could be bothered to release an event on video, were around the same price. However, in 1997, WCW videos became available via mail order only - and cost £16 once you factored in postage & packing. Yeah, £16.99 for crap like Fall Brawl 1998.

Sportskeeda is all click bait and no facts. They'd be hyping it by now if it was going to happen

It was a sad day for me when the local Blockbusters closed down.

I recently watched WCW Clash of Champions 29 from November 1994.


First match is for the Tag Team Championship: Pretty Wonderful (champs, Pauls Orndorff & Roma) vs. Stars & Stripes (Marcus Bagwell & the Patriot).

Before this match the announced that the winner would have to face Col. Parker’s team of Bunkhouse Buck & Arn Anderson. So right off that bat you already know who’s going to win this match. Good job, WCW. Couldn’t you have made that announcement after the match?? Also, in addition to Pretty Wonderful’s tag team belts being up for grabs, if Stars & Stripes lose, the Patriot has to unmask, and I figure that’s not going to happen so yet another reason to be sure that Stars & Stripes will win.

Anyway, in spite of the WCW stupidity, this was a good match. Yet another messy WCW ending, however. Orndorff suplexes Bagwell and Roma gets on the rope to elbow/knee drop (I assume) onto the prostrate Bagwell but Patriot knocks him off the rope and both Bagwell and Orndorff are lying there as the ref counts to three but Bagwell gets his should up in time while Orndorff looks like an idiot just lying there and not lifting his shoulder until after three, and S&S win the belts at a little over the 10 minute mark. Again, weird, kinda dumb ending but otherwise, these two teams seem to have good chemistry which is probably why they have been trading the tag team belts back and forth for the past several months.

As an aside, prior to this match they showed a clip of the WCW Saturday Night match that led to this rematch, and it was a typically dumb WCW booking.


Next match is for the World TV title: Johnny B. Badd (champ) v. Honky Tonk Man

It would be nice if this is better than their last match, but I’m not hopeful.

Badd wins by DQ in a little over 6 minutes when, after yet another WCW ref bump (!), Honkey gets his guitar and smashes it over Badd’s head, but the ref recovers just in time to see this and give a DQ win to Badd. These two were supposed to have et another rematch in Starrcade but Honkey got fired for being just too ridiculous even for Bischoff. So somehow, one of Hogan’s buddies didn’t win a championship after all.


We get a very generic heel promo from the new stable, the Three Faces of Fear (Brutus, Kevin Sullivan, and Earthquake/Avalanche) threatening Hogan. Good luck, boys.


Next match is the Nasty Boys vs. Harlem Heat.

There was supposed to be some big secret as to who Harlem Heat’s manager was, which was supposed to be revealed at the end of the match (as we’ll see) but WCW ruined the surprise by having the graphic during introductions say “Harlem Heat w/ Sensual Sherri”. Just mindblowing stupidity here, even for WCW. I have no idea how this company stayed in business so long. Good thing Ted Turner had such deep pockets.

I pick on a lot of the WCW entrance music, but I really like both teams’ music here.

We haven’t seen Harlem Heat in a PPV/Clash of Champions in quite a few months. Their names have changed from Kole and Kane to Booker T and Stevie Ray, and they claim to be brothers, and apparently they’ve got some kind of a phone gimmick which involves calling their (not so) mysterious manager towards the end of their matches.

The match was just okay. Booker T looked good but not much else to see here. Mostly a brawl, of course. The ending, besides being unoriginal and way overused by WCW (face pinning heel but other heel comes off tope rope with elbow to allow first heel to get the pin) was totally botched by WCW. As the finish happened, the camera was focused elsewhere and we really couldn’t even see the finish, except for when they showed it on replay. Typical WCW. Anyway, Harlem Heat get the win. I think this might be their first win in a big show, as it seems like the used to lose a lot, but they’re push starts now!

Oh, and the guy who made the pin wasn’t the legal man, but this is WCW so that doesn’t matter.


Next match is Vader vs. Dustin Rhodes.

Vader spit in Distin’s face in this match, and we got a great camera angle of it, from right behind Dustin’s head. Nasty! Yet another ref bump. Seriously, does every big WCW match need a ref bump? Rhodes goes after Race on the apron and gets splashed from behind, then Vader follows it up with a wheelbarrow face buster (don’t know if I’ve ever seen that before) and rolls Dustin over for the win in a little under 12 minutes.

This was an excellent match. I’ve been watching WCW content from 1992 up to now and all of Vader’s matches have been good, and Dustin looked really good here too.

After the match, Vader is going to splash Dustin again when Jim Duggan runs out with his 2x4 and makes the save. This sets up a Duggan-Vader match for the future, which I think will happen at Starrcade.


Next match is for the US Title: Hacksaw Jim Duggan (champ) vs. Stunning Steve Austin. Basically, about 30 seconds into the match, Vader runs in an attacks Duggan and the match ends in a DQ.

I thought maybe they were short on time, but I’ve read that Austin was hurt and that’s why they did this. Makes sense. I’d also heard (this is perhaps more dubious) that he’d been promised getting his title back here but the injury prevented that.


For the main event, we get Hulk Hogan, Sting & Dave Sullivan v. Kevin Sullivan, The Butcher & Avalanche (the Three Faces of Fear).

Mr. T is the guest referee. He’s wearing a black & white striped zebra shirt with a matching nightcap, which looks ridiculous. Luckily the nightcap comes off a few minutes into the match.

The face team all has yellow & red face paint. Looks kinda cool, actually.

Dave Sullivan gets an arm injury shortly into this match and it becomes a de facto handicap match was Evad goes back to the locker room with the inury. Just as well.

This is a Hogan match, and against a big guy no less (Avalanche) so of course we MUST have a long bearhug spot. Oh brother.

Kevin Sullivan takes the megaphone from Jimmy Hart and tries to hit Hogan with it, but Mr T takes the megaphone from him. Then I guess Mr T hit Sullivan with the megaphone which is what allowed Hogan to pin him for the win (after about 11 minutes) but to be honest, I couldn’t even see it. More terrible camerawork and overall production values from WCW as I really couldn’t see the finish clearly at all and had to look it up to see what the heck happened! Pathetic job, WCW.

After the match, Sullivan takes the megaphone, and hit Mr T over the head with it, and T goes down. The then hits Hogan with the megaphone, but it takes 3 shots before Hogan goes down because he’s Hogan and he’s superhuman, brother. The Butcher gets Hogan in a sleeper and holds him in it for quite a while. A bunch of officials and also wrestlers (Stars & Stripes and some jobbers) come in to break it up, but the 3 heels manage to hold them off until Butcher decides to release it and they go.

Not a good match. Pretty bad, actually, and also very chaotic. Typical WCW tag match in that regard, though.


Overall, the only matches here worth watching were the opener (Stars & Stripes vs. Pretty Wonderful) and Vader vs. Dustin Rhodes. The rest of it I would highly recommend skipping.

Was Jamie Kellner interviewed? Or do they have a policy about not interviewing morons?

There probably is too much blame to lay at one person’s door. I mean, I detest Vince Russo, but even I wouldn’t put all the blame on him. WCW was dying long before he come in. Shit such as the Fingerpoke of Doom was a symptom rather than a cause.

Really, and forgive the blunt analogy, it makes you think about which wolf to blame if a pack of wolves all bite a man, killing him. Whose fangs led to the fatality? Or was it just one? Does the wolf who ripped the jugular vein take the blame even though another wolf bit into an artery elsewhere?

I feel a lot can be blamed on the corporate structure at Turner. 

This is just the first episode.  There are supposed to be 4, in total, I believe.  Commercials in between segments show Russo in an interview and there are other figures who like Turner suits.

one thing that Siegel states, in relation to Bischoff, was that he was more obsessed with beating the WWF in the ratings than he was in advertising revenue.  that is the whole point of ratings, to set ad rates and bring in sponsors.  the better thee ratings, the more you can charge for a 30 second commercial.  Despite WCW's ratings, one of the problems, from the broadcasting side, is that they couldn't draw more prestigious advertising, at higher rates, because of the nature of pro wrestling.  The WWF also struggled with this, as advertisiers didn't want to be associated with things like the :Kiss My Ass Club," and Val Venis' near-castration, or Katie Vick, or Tripple H doping and date-raping Stephanie McMahon.

Kellner had a point, at the time.  I didn't agree with it and you may not; but, he was tasked with answering to shareholders and it it hard to argue in favor of programming perceived as vulgar and low brow, regardless of ratings, if you can't draw a certain level of advertising revenue, from sponsors that have big budgets to invest.  The US Army is fine; but it is harder to get a Lexus spot.

Turner's underlings had wanted to get rid of it going back to 1989, when he bought it.  Although the Saturday ratings were good, the advertising revenue wasn't as good as some rerun programming.  Turner stayed loyal to it because it helped him build TBS and as his son said, his personality was such that he would back something more, just to tick off his critics.  He liked playing the rebel.  Once he merged with AOL-Time Warner, though, he was no longer the man controlling everything.  That's what really brought the end, as no one was protecting wrestling anymore.

If you look at it, comics are no different.  Publishing brings in little or no money for Dc and Marvel.  The money is in licensing and other media.  the only reason Warner and Disney keep them going is to maintain the trademarks and IT for potential content to be exploited on bigger platforms.