Classic Review: NWA Clash of the Champions - Thanksgiving Thunder '90

Another one! The fifth of the promised 10 Classic Reviews for November! I frankly would have been further in by now, but you know, life. But these will all get done by November 30, so if you’re someone who sampled a month just for these, they’re gonna be there. That’s a TAPE guarantee.

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Here’s a show that I don’t know for certain I’ve ever watched front-to-back apart from when it aired on TBS when I was eight years of age. The Clash of the Champions format had changed since its debut in ‘87, which is a nice way of saying it had been watered down and weakened pretty heavily.

NWA Clash of the Champions: Thanksgiving Thunder
November 26, 1990
Jacksonville, FL

• The Veterans Memorial Coliseum is rocking with ca. 5,000 people in the building! We’ve got Jim Ross and Paul E. Dangerously on commentary! 11 great¹ matches! A live “Danger Zone”! Sting and the Black Scorpion! If Butch Reed beats Ric Flair in the main event, Teddy Long gets Ric Flair’s limousine and his 65-foot yacht! If Flair wins, they get a tag title shot against Doom at Starrcade and Ric Flair gets to be racist at Teddy Long for a day (long has to be his chauffeur). 1-900-909-9900! Paul E. thinks “the Motor City Madman” will be murdering Lex Luger tonight.

Southern Boys vs Fabulous Freebirds

This is Hayes and Garvin in their most desperately baiting look, really trying to play on some gay panic, and they’ve also got “Little Richard Marley” in their corner, played by Rocky King.

Hayes notes (on a second try because this company was awful with production) that the Southern Boys do not have their third man, who was supposed to be El Gigante, and this was billed and ring announced as a six-man tag, with the Freebirds paired up with Bobby Eaton. Hayes fumbles through a quick go at taking credit for Gigante not being here, which makes the ref change it to a straight tag, one of the 1,314 Southern Boys/Young Pistols vs Freebirds matches of 1990-91, and Eaton is sent to the back.²

These teams had good chemistry, owing to those many, many, many matches. Many matches. It was a lot due to the work of Smothers and Armstrong, who were in their prime, which Hayes and Garvin were not, but Hayes and Garvin were smart, too, and knew how to work with their limitations and let the babyfaces shine.