[1997-08-21-WCW-Clash of the Champions XXXV] Lex Luger & DDP vs Scott Hall & Randy Savage

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Last few minutes of the last Clash match ever. Hot crowd for this main event. DDP gives Luger an accidental Diamond Cutter and Hall pins Luger to win the match. Wow, Luger fell fast after dropping the title. The post-match is of course the big reason this is here. Fliers drop from the ceiling to celebrate the NWO's birthday and the entire crew (sans Hogan) comes out. Bischoff still wants the NWO to have their own show, and Hogan needs bigger limos and newer lear jets. Suddenly, the sound drowns out (to a point that I thought I was having audio problems when I watched this back then) and the lights in the arena go dark. Sting's new entrance music plays for the first time and he releases a vulture from the rafters to the ring. This was a pretty awesome moment, even if it was on the corny side.

[PeteF3]

The closing segment was a complete technical disaster. The ring mics apparently weren't supposed to be cut and they were--Bischoff was supposed to ask Sting directly what it was he wanted. Then after the lights went out a spotlight was supposed to follow the vulture from its perch in the rafters to the ring, where it was supposed to have a written note that read "Hogan's soul." And as Steve Austin said in that ECW promo, WELL ALL THAT SHIT NEVER HAPPENED. So the NWO gawks at the thing for a few minutes (I vividly remember Nash rearing his title belt back like he was going to hit it) and the show goes off the air early.

 

Naturally on the next Nitro, JJ Dillon has to talk about Sting "speaking loud and clear" that he wants Hulk Hogan even though nothing of the sort was said. After weeks of Dillon having to act like a clueless imbecile he apparently correctly interprets a vulture sitting on the ring ropes as Sting's ultimate goal.

[Loss]

Interesting, I'd never heard that story before. In defense of that, I will say that the week before that on Nitro, there was a loud Hogan chant as Sting pointed to the crowd and the announcers said it was clear what Sting wanted. So they had a logical cover.

[Kevin Ridge]

I get a kick out of the NWO music when Macho’s “Oh Yeah” is heard and he starts looking to the ceiling. WCW needed to have that vulture in their corner during all their matches to keep NWO away. Good stuff Pete. I would have liked WWF’s chances of execution that production instead.

[soup23]

Fun finish to the tag match and I think it was smart for the NWO to win its one year anniversary match. The finish was corny but I remember the visual of Sting and the Vulture well to this day. Sting has been thrusted into the forefront more in August of 1997.

[El-P]

After weeks of Dillon having to act like a clueless imbecile he apparently correctly interprets a vulture sitting on the ring ropes as Sting's ultimate goal.

 

Hilarious !

Match was decent, better than the previous Nitro one. And although Savage was teaming with Hall, apparently the tag titles are on the line, for no reason really. They really tease a DDP vs Luger program, going for the babyface accidentaly KOing the other babyface.

The following segment is all fucked up. First, there's no reason why there should ba a birthday party for the nWo, which was born at *Bash at the Beach*. Then, the Sting gimmick with the vulture was 1993 Taker like corny stuff. Add to the fact the production disaster and the nWo having to back off from a vulture for seemingly five minutes, and you get a ridiculous segment. Nash threatening to hit the bird with the belt and Bischoff almost going for the bite spot (hey, he said "bite me !" enough to deserve it) was funny though. Still four months to go, and it's obvious they are losing momentum with the booking on top here. Soon they'll have to buy time with… gasp…. Piper again.

[PeteF3]

Cute finish as DDP gets poked in the eyes and backs into Diamond Cutting Luger to set up an NWO victory. This "birthday" stuff is still being pushed and I still don't get it. I think I covered the rest of the post-match stuff pretty effectively already. For some reason they felt the need to cut the audio of EVERYTHING--Bischoff, the crowd mics, and the announcers, so we get a closing segment that's somewhere between The Sopranos finale, No Country for Old Men, and Monty Python & the Holy Grail in terms of satisfying closure. This segment could have worked, vulture and corny voiceover and all, but was probably a little too ambitious.