Throwback Thursday: Looking back at WCW Clash of the Champions 13

Each and every Thursday I will look back at a different pay-per-view event from the past via the WWE Network. Want to see a certain event covered? Send your suggestions to @VaughnMJohnson on Twitter.

Last time, I covered ECW December to Dismember. Next week, we'll look back at ECW Heat Wave 1998.

WCW Clash of the Champions 13: Thanksgiving Thunder

Date: Nov. 20, 1990

Venue: Jacksonville Memorial Coliseum, Jacksonville, Fla.

Some random notes

Personally, this was like a wrestling nerd's dream. That's because there are so many lesser-known wrestlers that the most die-hard wrestling fans could appreciate.

Names like Tom Zenk, Tracy Smothers and Butch Reed make wrestling fans like me all giddy inside. How awesome was Butch Reed? I couldn't wait to watch this event just for him alone.

However, there were a lot of people I have never heard of on this card. I have never used Google so much during a show in an effort to figure who in the world I was watching.

You thought Tom Zenk was obscure? It gets even more obscure than him.

As far as the event, Clash of the Champions was not a pay-per-view. It was a television special that was similar to what WWE presented with Saturday Night's Main Event on NBC.

WCW did not have a network television partner like WWE, but did have a cable television partner in Turner Broadcasting System (TBS).

That all sounds nice, but these were some bad times for WCW, as it was at this point it was under the control of the infamous Jim Herd. Yes, the same Herd that convinced Ric Flair to cut his hair and wear an earring.

Yes, the same Herd that came up with the Ding Dongs. The same Herd that thought of the Hunchbacks. You know, the guys that could never be pinned because you could never put both of their shoulders on the mat.

I wish I was making that up, but that was all real. Thankfully, none of that was on this show. That still didn't make the show any better. The fans in Jacksonville were not all the excited to WCW on this night, as there were a lot of visible empty seats in the arena.

The look of WCW at this point was a dramatic step down from the polished presentation WWE had and still has until this day.

Another one of the many failed gimmicks under the Herd administration was the Black Scorpion. Who was the Black Scorpion, you ask?

Well, a couple of people actually.

The voice of the character was Ole Anderson, but the person actually portraying the character began as Al Perez, but once he quit WCW, it bounced around other wrestlers before landing on Flair. That's right, eventually revealed himself as the Black Scorpion, but that wasn't before the character got to perform an assortment of magic tricks.

And one of the main attractions of this event was a confrontation between the Black Scorpion and the world champion at the time, Sting. The Black Scorpion had been tormenting Sting by showing off his magic tricks during his matches. I'm laughing as I type this.

This was all supposed to come to a head during this event, but it turned into one of the most hilarious things I've ever seen in wrestling.

Sting was being interviewed when the Black Scorpion popped up and essentially hypnotized a man to be a part of his act. He then did a magic trick where he spun this man's head around on his shoulders. He then picked him up and tossed him into a cage.

Once in the cage, Scorpion placed a cover on the cage. He then uncovered the cage, to reveal a tiger. He turned a man into a tiger!

And this what was supposed to make people watch WCW in 1990. Sting deserves to be in the WWE Hall of Fame just for putting up with so many bad storylines in WCW and in TNA.

The few good things on the program were the commentary team of Jim Ross and Paul Heyman (then known as Paul E. Dangerously). Long before they were bickering back and forth on WWE television in 2001, they were doing the same exact thing in WCW in 1990. I must say that Heyman brought class to the mullet.

Another nice touch was Gordon Solie revealing the top 10 title contenders for the world tag team and United States Heavyweight titles. I really liked this and wish WWE would bring this back onto its current product. It would give some of those television matches some meaning.

We also got cameos from legendary wrestler Dick The Bruiser and legendary promoter Sam Muchnick. Also, for a show that was supposed to be about champions, there was only one championship match on the entire show. Good job.

Let's get to the matches.

The Fabulous Freebirds (Jimmy Garvin & Michael Hayes) def. The Southern Boys

This was originally scheduled to be a six-man tag with the Southern Boys teaming with El Gigante and the Freebirds teaming with Bobby Eaton. However, Gigante was "injured" by the Freebirds and the match was made into a traditional tag team match. Eaton was forced to back to the locker room.

Before that was announced, the Freebirds rocked down to the ring with Eaton and Little Richard Marley. Wait, who in the hell is Little Richard Marley?

Did WCW simply combine the names of Little Richard and Bob Marley and gave it to a black guy on the roster? Yes. Herd.

For the record, Little Richard Marley was probably better known as Rocky King. Still don't know him? Don't worry.

The Southern Boys were comprised of Tracy Smothers and Steve Armstrong. I remember Smothers fondly as one of the out-of-place members of the Full Blooded Italians in Extreme Championship Wrestling.

Armstrong sounds familiar because his entire family has been involved in the wrestling business. His father "Bullett" Bob is in the WWE Hall of Fame. His brother Scott is currently a WWE referee and his other brother Brian is widely known as Road Dogg. He works for WWE's creative team.

Armstrong had a third brother by the name of Brad, who was also a wrestler. Unfortunately, Brad passed away in 2012. We'll see him later in the show.

As far as this event, the Souther Boys came out looking like Confederate soldiers during the Civil War. They had Confederate flags all over them and the fans in Jacksonville loved every second of it.

The match was pretty standard with Hayes winning with a DDT, which would have made Steve Austin very proud.

Flyin' Brian def. Buddy Landel

This was probably the only match on the card besides the main event that I didn't have to run to Google for. That's because Flyin' Brian was better known as Brian Pillman and Landel was known as the other Nature Boy.

The match itself was a typical babyface-heel dynamic with Pillman doing athletic moves that not a lot of American wrestlers were doing at the time.

Big Cat def. Brad Armstrong

Big Cat is probably better known for his short stint with WWE as Mr. Hughes back in 1993.

This match wasn't really about Brad Armstrong as much as it was about Big Cat wanting a match against Lex Luger. Even used the torture rack to pick up the easy win. Not much else to see here besides Ross and Heyman getting into a heated debate during the match.

Z-Man def. Brian Lee

Z-Man was such a cooler name than Tom Zenk and I have to believe that was the reason why he was so over with the fans.

What did the "Z" stand for? Zenk of course, which would make his name Zenk Man. OK, that sounds really stupid. Who thought of that? Herd.

Brian Lee eventually became the imposter Undertaker and Chainz. He is the cousin of fellow wrestlers Ron and Don Harris.

During the match, Zenk went for a cross body off the top rope, but Lee wasn't there. Lee was probably supposed to be there, but he wasn't and Zenk went crashing down to the mat in a foolish manner. I'm sure this made its way onto Botchamania at some point over the years.

Zenk seemed out of sorts at points, but kept it together long enough to pick up the win. They didn't call him the Z-Man for nothing.

Michael Wallstreet def. The Starblazer

Wallstreet is better known as Irwin R. Schyster, but the early stages of the gimmick began in WCW.

Wallstreet didn't wear suspenders. Instead, he wore a suit that took forever to take off. It wasn't a tear-away suit, but an actual suit.

Starblazer or Tim Horner was a journeymen wrestler that worked for Jim Crockett Promotions WCW and Smokey Mountain Wrestling. He even had a brief stint with WWE as a wrestler and eventually as a producer.

The match was merely a showcase for Wallstreet. Again, not much to see here.

Pat O'Connor Memorial Tournament qualifying match - Sgt. Krueger & Col. DeKlerk def. The Beast & Kaluha

Pat O'Connor was legendary wrestler from New Zealand that had won the AWA and NWA World Heavyweight titles during the 1950s and 1960s. He died at the age of 65 in August of 1990 and WCW decided to hold a tag team tournament in his honor.

The tournament was going to be comprised of eight teams that were going to represent eight different countries, but in order to get in, teams had to qualify and then be seeded.

This match was for who was going to represent Africa in the tournament. The white guys (Sgt. Krueger and Col. DeKlerk) had to be from South Africa, but the black guys (The Beast and Kaluha) were simply from Africa. No mention of which country in Africa they were from. They were just simply from Africa. I guess they lived in every country in the continent.

DeKlerk eventually became Rocco Rock of the Public Enemy. He was not from South Africa. He was actually from Woodbridge Township, N.J.

This may be hard to believe after watching the Public Enemy, but DeKlerk was a very good wrestler at one point of his career and was actually known as a high-flyer, which was the opposite of what he and Johnny Grunge did as the Public Enemy

This match was not very good. Let's quickly move on.

Lex Luger def. The Motor City Madman

Every wrestling fan should know Lex Luger, but you're probably wondering who in the world is the Motor City Madman.

No, he does not have connection to the Motor City Machine Guns. Instead, he was a guy that didn't stick around the wrestling business very long. He eventually went into acting.

The match was really about Luger and the Big Cat going at it before the match. That was actually more exciting than the actual match.

Luger won easily.

The Renegade Warriors def. The Nasty Boys via disqualification

The Renegade Warriors were Mark and Chris Romero, but they wrestled under the names Mark and Chris Youngblood.

Their the sons of former wrestler Ricky Romero and had a brother that was also a wrestler by the name of Steven Romero, better known to wrestling fans as Jay Youngblood. He was also a former tag team partner of Ricky Steamboat.

This match was cut short thanks to the Steiner Brothers, who ran in to beat up the Nasty Boys. They had a feud going at the time.

Sid Vicious def. The Nightstalker

Brian Clark didn't have a ton of successful gimmicks during his wrestling career, but The Nightstalker is one of the more forgettable.

That's because Clark is probably better known as Adam Bomb from WWE. He eventually returned to WCW and became Wrath. Despite his physique, this guy could never catch a break as far as characters.

Nightstalker had Ox Baker was manager/trainer at the time, but the legend did not accompany his charge to the ring. Nightstalker did have an ax with him and tried to use it during the match, but it backfired and Sid, who was a member of the Four Horsemen, was able to use it on him to pick up the win.

Big Cat got involved again and attacked Sid with Nightstalker.

NWA United States Tag Team championship – The Steiner Brothers def. Magnum Force

Magnum Force was a thrown-together tag team that was supposed to be destroyed by the Steiners. Apparently their names were Tim Hunt and Jeff Warner. They were indeed destroyed by the Steiners.

Ric Flair def. Butch Reed

The stipulations of this match were that if Flair lost he had to give up his limousine and yacht to Teddy Long. If Reed lost, Long had to be Flair's chauffer for a day. Also, Flair and Arn Anderson earned a world tag team title shot at Starrcade.

Reed was one half of the awesome tag team Doom with WWE Hall of Famer Ron Simmons. Not only were Reed and Simmons awesome, but they had an awesome name as well.

This was easily the best match on the card partly because of the talent involved in the match, but also because the fans were actually into both teams.

This match didn't make up for everything else I saw on this show, but it was nice to see the event end on a high note.