Clash and Burn: The Birth of the Super Show Called Super Clash

Posted on April 4, 2023 by bdamage1

Brian Damage

In 1985, the national expansion of Vince McMahon’s World Wrestling Federation was well underway. The WWF was quickly swallowing up all of the smaller, weaker territories across the country. Worried that the WWF would try and takeover their own promotions, promoters Verne Gagne of the AWA and Jim Crockett Jr of the NWA…among other promoters formed a wrestling conglomerate named Pro Wrestling USA. It was under that banner that Verne made the decision to put together a super show of top talent not signed to the WWF. According to Gagne, it would be the marquee show annually for the AWA to combat the WWF’s Wrestlemania.

The show would be called Super Clash: The Night of Champions and would be held at Comiskey Park in Chicago, Illinois. This super show would take place on September 28, 1985 and would see talent not only from the AWA, but Crockett’s NWA, Fritz Von Erich’s World Class and Giant Baba’s All Japan Pro Wrestling. It also had Mil Mascaras defend the IWA heavyweight title, despite the fact that the IWA folded back in 1978.

The entire card consisted of the following matches:

• AWA Americas Champ Sgt. Slaughter beat Boris Zuhkov (9:34) via DQ.
• IWA Champ Mil Mascaras pinned Buddy Roberts (6:57).
• Jumbo Tsuruta, Giant Baba, & Genichiro Tenryu beat Harley Race, Bill & Scott Irwin (10:57) when Baba pinned Bill.
• Sherri Martel pinned Candi Divine (11:24) to win the AWA Women’s Title.
• World Class Texas Champ Kerry Von Erich pinned Jimmy Garvin (6:47).
• AWA Tag Champs Road Warriors beat Freebirds (Gordy & Hayes) (14:12) via DQ.
• NWA Midget Champ Little Tokyo pinned Little Mr. T (6:54).
• Jerry Blackwell beat Kamala (9:50) in a “bodyslam” match.
• AWA Junior Heavyweight Champ Steve Regal pinned Brad Rheingans (8:19).
• Greg Gagne, Scott Hall, & Curt Hennig beat Ray Stevens, Nick Bockwinkel, & Larry Zbyszko (12:20) when Hall pinned Stevens.
• NWA World Six Man Tag Champs Krusher Khruschev, Ivan & Nikita Koloff wrestled Crusher, Dick the Bruiser, Baron Von Raschke (9:40) when Ivan pinned Raschke.
• NWA World Champ Ric Flair pinned Magnum TA (19:10).
• AWA World Champ Rick Martel DCO Stan Hansen (2:30).

With the help of the AWA being featured on ESPN and the NWA airing on the Superstation TBS, both Gagne and Crockett were anticipating a huge crowd. The actual attendance was a pretty impressive 20,347…although there were some free tickets given away to bolster the figure at roughly 25,000. The gate for the event was a subject of contention for both Gagne and Crockett. Jim Crockett Jr stated that the gate was over $288,000, while the much more frugal Verne Gagne claimed the gate was a bit lower at $200,000.

While Gagne and Crockett were arguing over money, it wasn’t the only issue between the two organizations. Reportedly, Jim Crockett’s brother David was allegedly approaching the top talent from the AWA and offering them contracts to jump ship to the NWA. He was supposedly doing this in plain sight backstage, with no fears of repercussion.

This all led to a bad falling out between the AWA and NWA and caused Jim Crockett Jr to pull all of his talent out of future shows booked by Verne Gagne. As the Gagnes and Crocketts feuded with one another over money and poaching talent, Vince McMahon did not sit idly by and watch Super Clash.

Vince and the WWF held a show of their own at the nearby Rosemont Horizon the very next night. It featured a main event that saw Andre the Giant and Hulk Hogan (with Mr. T in their corner) defeat the team of Big John Studd and King Kong Bundy. The official attendance for that show was at 14,000. On paper, it appeared as if Super Clash outdid the WWF’s house show as far as gate goes. However, once you figure in paying talent, production crew and rent to host Super Clash at the much larger Comiskey Park…it looks as if the WWF came out on top.

In any event, Super Clash: The Night of Champions was successful enough to do three more of these annual cards. With the one being the disastrous Super Clash III.