[1990-06-13-NWA-Clash of the Champions IX] Lex Luger vs Sid Vicious

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Don't blink. The story here was that Luger was still injured and couldn't work a full match, but they wanted him to work the show. Sid surprisingly agreed to do the job. Luger is still way too over to fall down the card like this, although he doesn't feel the same that he did before the Flair series.

[PeteF3]

Luger doesn't get a promo nor does he even bother to bring his U.S. belt to ringside. He does jump around pretty well for a guy with a bum knee. Horsemen sneak attack, clothesline, thank you, drive through.

[soup23]

Real bad booking. A lot of luster seems to be off of Lex and there is no reason for Sid to go down like this even in surprise fashion.

[shoe]

If Sid was going down so quick he should have stayed in the tux.

[Kevin Ridge]

I’m right away disappointed that Sid is not wearing his tux to wrestle. Um, whaaat? Luger puts Sid away quickly with a clothesline. Ole, who was with Sid, never even left the ring. Just strange with Sid going down that easy.

[Cox]

Isn't there somebody else they could have sacrificed to Luger here? I have to think that Sid was probably on the books to main event Havoc around this time. Wouldn't you want to keep him strong up until then?

[garretta]

You'd think that it was Sid who was too hurt to work here, the way this was booked. If they knew Luger was still hurt and couldn't work a regular match, have Ole sign to wrestle him. Then the squash makes sense, and you could have Luger take a powder to avoid Sid and keep him strong for a proper title match at the Bash. Instead, he's done as a challenger for good and looks like an idiot to boot.

 

Maybe there's something to the idea of Ole burying the Horsemen; he was well-known not to like being part of the group, and he couldn't stand Flair personally. From the way he talks sometimes, I wonder if he thought the Anderson family connection that was the foundation of the group was Crockett's (and later Turner's) way of marginalizing his team with Gene, which was the favorite part of his in-ring career. In other words, Arn and Flair were poor excuses for an Anderson and never should have been made "family".

 

By the way, this was never announced as a title match, which would explain Luger leaving the belt in the locker room and makes the loss even worse for Sid; if he loses this convincingly when the belt's not on the line, how do you possibly build him up as a contender later? (I don't believe they even tried.)

[drew wardlaw]

Sid talks! I actually really liked this and and jumped up after the pin. if we couldn't get a full Luger match because of an injury I'll take this.

[GSR]

Before the match we get a taped Vicious promo in front of some black and white footage of horses running across the plains. Sid says that Lex Luger maybe the ‘Total Package’, but he’s a fuel injected, suicidal machine and Lex Luger is going to feel the wrath of Sid Vicious.

 

Sid is finally out of that tuxedo and is accompanied to the ring by Ole Anderson. The Horsemen try to jump Lex at the bell but he gets the better of them. He starts beating on Ole and Sid comes to his rescue getting Luger off him. He goes over to speak to Ole, but when he turns around Lex nails him with a clothesline and scores the pin after just 23 seconds.

 

This was mind blowing! I thought it was a waster the way that Sid’s debut with the Horsemen was spent cutting a promo on Robocop, but then having him job to Luger here in double quick time? My original guess (and the posts here confirm it) was that Lex was still recovering from his leg injury, but why did they have to beat Sid clean? If Luger couldn’t go long, just do a cheap DQ finish with Ole interfering. Yeah not great, but surely a whole lot better than what they actually did?

[dawho5]

I agree Luger is still over, but this helps absolutely...nobody. Just like the whole fiasco that set off the whole thing. Just like WrestleWar. So basically, WCW wants to make sure no wrestler benefits from a PPV scale event then?